A 43-year-old Kamloops, B.C., woman who admitted to setting two arson fires has been sentenced.
Angela Cornish was charged with four counts of arson, related to numerous fires set between April and May 2022, at the start of the wildfire season.
Cornish pleaded guilty to two arsons near the southern Interior community of Lac Le Jeune and records show she received a six month conditional sentence during an appearance in provincial court in Kamloops on Tuesday.
The court stayed three other charges related to alleged arsons near Monte Lake, Pinantan Lake and Lac Le Jeune.
An investigation by RCMP and the BC Wildfire Service began last spring after residents alerted officials to slash piles that had been set ablaze along remote logging roads south and east of Kamloops.
None of the fires spread into the nearby grass or bush.
Canadian Heritage Minister Pascale St-Onge is urging the United States to stand strong with Canada over regulating tech giants in order to protect the news industry.
St-Onge made the comments today during a keynote address at the Center for Journalism and Liberty at the Open Markets Institute
Article content
She says Canada and the U.S., along with other G7 nations, need to stand strong to protect democracies from companies like Meta that are making major decisions that shape citizens’ online environments.
She says Meta, which recently removed news from its platforms in Canada, is using Canada as an example to send a message to the world.
In June, Parliament passed the Online News Act, which will require tech companies to compensate news publishers for work that is shared or otherwise repurposed on their platforms.
The U.S. has a similar bill that proposes that Meta and Google should negotiate deals with news organizations for access to their content, with Meta responding by threatening to pull news in the U.S.
If people don't want your news, they don't want it, and they certainly won't pay for it.
Conservative MP Chris d’Entremont, currently the deputy speaker, has declared his interest in running for the position, although he acknowledged it was rare for an opposition MP to be named Speaker.
“We are working as much as we can with all parties,” he said.
D’Entremont said he believes there needs to “be more decorum in the House, more respect for one another.”
Liberal MP Greg Fergus said he would be putting his name forward as well. He said the House of Commons needs to have frank, honest debate, but it also needs to be a place where people can speak.
“Each one of the 338 members of Parliament have a right to be in the House to express themselves and not to be intimidated, making sure that they can freely express themselves,” Fergus said.
Liberal MP Alexandra Mendès, who is currently one of two assistant deputy Speakers, has also indicated that she plans to run for the top job.
In a statement, she said she believes she has the experience for the job, having served as assistant deputy Speaker for the last four years. ...
NDP MP Carol Hughes, who is the other assistant deputy Speaker, has said she also intends to stand for the position.
Under a plan agreed to by all parties Tuesday night, Bloc MP Louis Plamondon, who is the longest-serving member of the House of Commons will be interim Speaker until the vote is held on Tuesday.
Votes for Speaker happen among all MPs and the winner must receive a majority of the ballots cast, setting up a process of a run-off elections.
The position comes with a pay bump of $92,800 over and above the current $194,600 salary for an MP. The Speaker also receives a car allowance and an official residence at the Farm in Kingsmere in the Gatineau Hills near Ottawa.
Canada could revisit calls to declassify documents about the presence of Nazi war criminals in the country, Immigration Minister Marc Miller said Wednesday, as the fallout continued over Parliament’s recognition last week of a man who fought for the Nazis.
But the problem at the moment isn't old records but the government Miller serves, the one that demonises anyone who opposes it, the one that censors, the one that wastes, and certainly the one that rose to its feet and applauded an actual Nazi who has no business being in Canada and certainly doesn't deserve to be lauded in the House of Commons, the halls of which have seen the passage of some very autocratic bills.
No, Marc, you and your totalitarian buddies can wear this.
House leaders were meeting with Rota on Tuesday. Before it began, Government House Leader Karina Gould said she’s spoken with Liberal MPs about the issue.
“I can’t see, based on the conversations that I’ve had, that he will continue to have the support of Liberal members of Parliament and I think it’s time for him to do the honourable thing,” she said.
Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland also said Rota should do the “honourable thing” given how “truly serious and damaging this error was.”
Until a new speaker is found, parliamentary business - including any talk on Chinese interference in Canadian elections - is paused:
Rota said his resignation would be effective at the end of parliamentary business on Wednesday. While there are deputy speakers who can oversee debates, they can only do so until Rota’s resignation takes effect. After that, all parliamentary business is paused until a new speaker is selected.
Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland was asked about the possibility of reopening an investigation into Nazi war criminals living in Canada amid the resignation of House Speaker Anthony Rota on Tuesday. “We’re going to be very thoughtful about any further steps,” Freeland said of the question related to calls on the reopening of the Deschenes Commission.
Remember this when any one group or person is disfavoured by the Liberals:
That matters far more than what happens now in Ottawa. But holy crow, does this ever feel like a brand new low for this unfathomably unserious country. It’s a wholesale repudiation of everything Liberal propaganda officers will tell you Canada is supposed to stand for.
On Monday, Government House Leader Karina Gould sought (and did not receive) unanimous consent to expunge the entire Hunka episode from the official history. The unfortunate events would be erased from Hansard and from all official audio and visual recordings of the day’s proceedings.
Get caught lionizing someone who fought for Hitler … and channel Stalin in response? One almost has to admire the chutzpah … except one suspects Gould didn’t understand how ridiculous she looked. “It goes without saying that those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it,” Conservative MP Marty Morantz said in response — maybe the easiest empty-net goal in Commons history.
Many seemed baffled by Gould’s proposal to wipe the record clean, but it seems pretty obvious to me what the Liberals had in mind: They’re so hopelessly shipwrecked up their own backsides that they actually thought they might productively accuse the Conservatives of being pro-Nazi for not agreeing to expunge the record. Or at least, they thought that was worth a try, at the cost of Gould’s reputation. And Gould had no problem playing along.
You can hardly blame them, really: Demonizing their opponents as probable Nazis or other deplorables has worked remarkably well for the Liberals over the years. The strategy always had a best-before date, though … and it sure doesn’t work so well when you invite a Nazi to Parliament. As astonishing as recent days’ events have been, they make perfect sense as waypoints on the Trudeau Liberals’ descent into well-deserved oblivion.
How quickly will the Nazi epithet be uttered?
Look - sociopaths do not apologise. It is beneath them. You should have known this when you voted for him:
The Muslim Association of Canada issued a statement
on the platform X on Sept. 25, saying it “strongly condemns remarks on
recent protests made by certain politicians, including our Prime
Minister, as well as statements from school boards, unions, and reports
from some media outlets.”
The
group, which claims to be the largest grass-roots Muslim organization
in Canada with chapters in 13 cities, says that characterizing the
protests as hateful sets a “dangerous precedent.”
Hardeep Singh Nijjar, the murdered Sikh leader at the centre of a diplomatic row between Canada and India, denied the Indian government’s allegations that he was a terrorist in a letter to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in 2016. ...
Nijjar denied all the accusations and urged Trudeau to intervene on his behalf following the Interpol warrant.
“I urge your administration to dispel the Indian government’s fabricated, baseless, fictitious and politically-motivated allegations against me,” Nijjar said, adding that India had “blatantly abused its governmental authority.”
Because Justin can unilaterally act over agencies whose job it is to deport Nijjar.
Naturally.
Sending accused terrorists back to India only lets them win, eh, Justin?
A lawyer is urging the Federal Court to direct the Canadian government to repatriate a Quebec woman being held in a Syrian detention camp with her six children.
Lawrence Greenspon, a lawyer for the woman, says in a newly filed court application that Ottawa's refusal to help her return to Canada means indefinite detention overseas, which is "tantamount to exile."
The Canadian citizen, identified only as F.J. in the application, and her young children are among the many foreign nationals in Syrian camps run by Kurdish forces that took back the war-torn area from the extremist Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant.
Global Affairs Canada told Greenspon on June 21 that the woman has "extremist ideological beliefs'' that may lead her to act violently, and the government has no ability to prevent such conduct.
Greenspon dismisses the argument, saying the government could deal with the woman as needed through Canada's justice system.
Once more and with feeling:
Parliamentary Budget Officer Yves Giroux says 60% of households in the four provinces where the federal carbon tax applies — Ontario, Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba — pay more in carbon taxes than they get in tax rebates.
This will rise to 80% in Ontario in 2024 and in Alberta in 2028.
Depending on which province they live in, according to the PBO, this costs the average family paying carbon taxes $225 to $507 annually today, rising to $1,145 to $2,282 annually when the tax reaches $170 per tonne in 2030.
**
Despite collecting billions in carbon tax revenues, the federal government has returned less than 1% of the promised proceeds to small businesses, says the Canadian Federation of Independent Business (CFIB). On top of that, the government is proceeding with a carbon tax hike of 23% to $65 per tonne on April 1.
Food Banks Canada released its inaugural poverty report on Tuesday that painted a bleak national picture, with most provinces receiving a grade in the D-range when it comes to tackling poverty.
The report found that more than 42 per cent of the population feels financially worse off compared with last year, 18 per cent is coping with food insecurity, and almost one-third also said they have an inadequate standard of living.
That's according to software
company Dye & Durham's latest quarterly Canadian Pulse Report, a
survey that gauges consumer sentiment on the economy, real estate market
and technology.
The survey of 1,001 Canadians found that 54 per
cent expect the country to slip into a recession within the next year,
while 32 per cent believe Canada is already in one.
Bank of Canada Governor Tiff Macklem and his advisors have “all powers
to do anything they want” to fight inflation regardless of consequences,
the Senate was told yesterday. Senators took up Second Reading debate
on a private bill seeking greater public scrutiny of Macklem: “The
Governor and his team could get it wrong and the Bank Of Canada Act is
of no assistance.”
An investigation into unmarked graves and the deaths of children who attended the former Chooutla Residential School in Carcross, Yukon, has found 15 “potential” gravesites at or near the school.
Researchers say they’ve also used archival documents to identify 33 students who either died at the school or shortly after being injured there.
If there are records of these people, then one knows who they are, possibly how they died, and one must conclude that these are not "mass" or "unmarked" graves but untended ones.
The ability to regrow your own teeth could be just around the corner.
A team of scientists, led by a Japanese pharmaceutical startup, are getting set to start human trials on a new drug that has successfully grown new teeth in animal test subjects.
Toregem Biopharma is slated to begin clinical trials in July of next year after it succeeded growing new teeth in mice five years ago, the Japan Times reports.
Dr. Katsu Takahashi, a lead researcher on the project and head of the dentistry and oral surgery department at the Medical Research Institute Kitano Hospital, says “the idea of growing new teeth is every dentist’s dream.”
Enacting a GST holiday on new apartment construction is intended to
benefit the middle class, Housing Minister Sean Fraser said yesterday.
MPs took up Second Reading debate on the tax measure in Bill C-56 An Act
To Amend The Excise Tax Act: “It is important that we advance measures
that are going to increase the supply for middle class households.”
**
In the last year, Canada has witnessed about 20 cases of shrinkflation
by major food manufacturers with most of them garnering significant
media attention. Innovation, Science and Industry Minister
Francois-Philippe Champagne, who is meeting with food manufacturers this
week and has pledged to combat food inflation and increase
accountability in the food industry, undoubtedly has shrinkflation on
his radar.
Most Canadians say they pay too much for what they get from governments
and consider tax cheating commonplace. In-house research by the Canada
Revenue Agency also found few think cheaters will ever get caught: “Rich
people have an easier time tax cheating than middle class Canadians.”
CMHC in eight years confirmed construction of 12 new homes under Prime
Minister Justin Trudeau’s plan to convert surplus Crown property into
affordable housing, records show. The Department of Fisheries built one:
“We are focused on building more houses.”
The
CBC owns nearly half a billion dollars in real estate holdings,
according to recently released documents, with more than two-thirds of
the value comprised of its expansive downtown Toronto broadcasting
centre.
A response to a May 2023 order paper question
submitted by Conservative MP Adam Chambers about the government-owned
broadcaster lists 12 corporation-owned properties across the country, a
portfolio worth $444,414,469.
But
the corporation’s most valuable property by far is the CBC’s Toronto
Broadcast Centre at 250 Front St. West, valued at $313.8 million.
The
13-floor, 1.7-million sq. ft. facility, opened in 1992, is the CBC’s
primary broadcasting, production and master control facility for its
national English-language operations.
The CBC’s
corporate headquarters are located at its Ottawa production centre,
occupying several floors of a leased building on Queen Street near
O’Connor Street just steps from Parliament Hill.
The
CBC’s broadcast centre in Vancouver ranks as the corporation’s second
most valuable property. Built in 1975 and renovated 14 years ago, it is
valued at $99 million.
The CBC Manitoba Broadcast Centre at 541 Portage Ave. in Winnipeg is valued at $11.7 million.
Other
CBC facilities worth over $1 million include its facilities in St.
John’s ($4.4 million), Yellowknife ($3.1 million), Fredericton ($2.8
million), Charlottetown ($2.6 million), Saguenay ($2.5 million)
Whitehorse ($1.8 million) and a second facility in Winnipeg worth $1.5
million.
Also:
A new United Nations declaration, launched Wednesday by Foreign Affairs
Minister Mélanie Joly, says signatories will take steps to address
online disinformation.
Like when your boyfriend boss calls his applause of a Nazi "Russian disinformation"?
In a letter
Tuesday, 41 members of the House ways and means committee said “Canada’s
unusually aggressive and discriminatory approach would target U.S.
companies and workers who would disproportionally bear the burden of
this new tax.”
The
warning comes two months after the Liberal government confirmed it
would to go ahead with the tax, even though 138 other countries and
jurisdictions agreed to delay similar measures of their own. The
Liberals took that move amidst an ongoing conflict with Google and Meta
over legislation that would force the two companies to share revenues
with news publishers.
The CRTC didn’t answer
when asked how long that process could take. But given the average time
frame of the regulator’s public consultations, and that the CRTC is
already experiencing delays as a result of new legislation, it could be a
couple of years or more until it makes a decision.
The new immigration minister is still considering a controversial
option to allow new Canadians to take their oath of citizenship with the
click of a button, but there are no immediate plans to implement it, he
said Monday.
The government asked for public feedback in February
about the idea to allow new Canadians to skip a virtual or in-person
ceremony and opt instead to take the oath with the click of a mouse.
An illustration of this is an interview Immigration Minister Marc Miller
did last week with The Hill Times in which he called Conservative
Leader Pierre Poilievre a “charlatan”, “snake-oil salesman”, “classless
jackass” and “serial bullsh–.”
Poilievre can give as good as he gets when it comes to insulting Trudeau, so that’s not the issue.
The
issue is that Miller said nothing of substance about immigration in a
lengthy interview over lunch, other than his view there’s a history of
systemic racism in the only two government departments he’s held in
cabinet, Crown-Indigenous relations and immigration.
Nothing
about the concerns of a majority of Canadians (53% according to a
recent Nanos poll, compared to 34% in March 2023) who think Trudeau’s
policy to boost Canada’s immigration levels to 465,000 this year,
485,000 in 2024 and 500,000 in 2025 is too high.
This is going to be good. Public accounts committee votes unanimously to have the Auditor General of Canada investigate the Trudeau Foundation. What do you think we are going to find? https://t.co/jahjATqh0epic.twitter.com/YrdGku4h2Z
— Andy Lee - Special Rebel Rapporteur (@RealAndyLeeShow) September 22, 2023
China's President Xi Jinping on Saturday said he will seriously consider
visiting South Korea, Yonhap news agency reported, as part of efforts
to support peace and security on the Korean Peninsula.
Former foreign affairs minister Marc Garneau says Canada should push
for a role in a new security pact, arguing South Korea and Ottawa could
help each other gain strategic influence in the Indo-Pacific.
"At a
time when the geopolitical dialogue tends to be dominated by the
superpowers, successful middle powers like Korea and Canada have things
to say that are worth listening to," Garneau said in an interview.
"There's the potential for us to work together and to, in a co-ordinated manner, have a greater voice on the world stage."
Garneau
is to be appointed next month as the Canadian co-chair of the
Canada-Korea Forum, a group dedicated to boosting trade and scientific
exchanges between the two countries.
With South Korea doing all the heavy lifting.
Why don't you ask your former boss to sell South Korea some natural gas?
Vietnam
plans to restart its biggest rare-earths mine next year with a
Western-backed project that could rival the world's largest, according
to two companies involved, as part of a broader push to dent China's
dominance in a sector that helps power advanced technologies.
The
move would be a step toward the Southeast Asian country's aim of
building up a rare-earths supply chain, including developing its
capacity to refine ores into metals used in magnets for electric
vehicles, smartphones and wind turbines.
A 15-pound lithium-ion battery holds
about the same amount of energy as a pound of oil. To make that battery
requires 7,000 pounds of rock and dirt to get the minerals that go into
that battery. The average EV battery weighs around 1,000 pounds.
All
of that mining and factory processing produces a lot more carbon
dioxide emissions than a gas-powered car, so EVs have to be driven around 50,000 to 60,000 miles before there’s a net reduction in carbon dioxide emissions.
So, as more factories are built in the U.S. to supply EV manufacturers, there will be higher demands on the grid for power.
Emily Arthun, CEO of the American Coal
Council, was in Washington, D.C., this week speaking with federal
lawmakers and members of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission.
Arthun,
who lives in Gillette, told Cowboy State Daily that there’s a growing
recognition of the need for coal to supply baseload power.
“I
met with senators and representatives who understand that we’re going
to need coal for far longer than people are talking about,” Arthun
said.
The Inflation Reduction Act
aims to produce more green energy industries here in America, and Arthun
said there’s a growing recognition that these are energy intensive.
“People
are starting to understand that energy needs are increasing, and these
premature [coal-fired power plant] closures are a liability,” Arthun
said.
A coal mine fire in southern China killed 16 people on Sunday, according to local authorities.
The blaze broke out at the Shanjiaoshu coal mine in Panguan, a town in Guizhou province.
An
initial investigation suggested the people who died were trapped after a
conveyor belt caught fire, the Panzhou city government said in a
statement posted on social media.
China, the world’s largest
emitter of greenhouse gases, continues to depend heavily on coal for
electricity despite massive expansion of its wind and solar power
capacity.
One of the nation’s leading computer scientists says he refused a
six-figure payoff from Chinese agents in what was an obvious
“recruitment strategy” targeting Canadian academics. Professor Benjamin
Fung of McGill University detailed the scheme in testimony at the
Commons science committee: “I asked them, ‘What do you want me to do?”
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau declined to offer more evidence to support
his startling allegation that the Indian government was behind the
murder of a Canadian, but said the decision to come forward was not
taken lightly.
I believe that the decision did come lightly.
There was no reason for him to reveal any of this after his embarrassing and disastrous trip to India. He had to no reason to reveal it at all and certainly no reason to reveal such a thing without evidence.
He must also contend with the fact that he needs the votes of the very people Indian intelligence believes are responsible for violence in India.
If he sides with the Sikhs, he confirms what India alleges, that Canada is a hot-spot of Sikh extremism. If he sides with India (the one that helped humiliate him), he runs the risk of violence in Sikh-rich ridings.
A
dossier put together by Indian intelligence agencies claims that he
became the head of the Sikh temple by threatening his own cousin and the
temple’s former president Raghbir Singh Nijjar.
Nijjar, the
dossier adds, was an old associate of Khalistan Commando Force (KCF)
terrorist Gurdeep Singh aka Deepa Heranwala, who was involved in over
200 killings in Punjab in late 1980s and early 1990s. He was initiated
into crime by another gang lord, Gurnek Singh aka Neka.
Nijjar
escaped to Canada on a forged passport in the name of “Ravi Sharma” in
1996 and kept a low profile as a truck driver and a plumber, the dossier
adds. He came in touch with Pakistan based KTF chief Jagtar Singh Tara
and visited Pakistan under the cover of being a Baisakhi jatha member in
April 2012, it says. He was radicalised by Tara and cultivated by
Pakistan spy agency Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), with the former
imparting him arms and explosives training in 2012 and 2013. The dossier
even claims that in 2013, Tara sent the US-based Harjot Singh Birring
to Canada to train Nijjar in using a handheld GPS device. In 2015, after
the deportation of Jagtar Singh Tara to India from Thailand, Nijjar
assumed the role of operations chief of KTF.
By then, there was
already an Interpol Red Corner notice against him, according to the
dossier. This was issued in November 2014, but he was then granted
citizenship despite his request for political asylum being rejected
twice by the Canadian immigration authorities.
They said that pro-Khalistani outfits such
as the World Sikh Organization (WSO), Khalistan Tiger Force (KTF), Sikhs
for Justice (SFJ) and Babbar Khalsa International (BKI) working at the
behest of Pakistan have been allegedly operating freely from the
Canadian soil.
They said allegations levelled against India by the
Canadian authorities and politicians in relation to the murder of
Canadian citizen Hardeep Singh Nijjar, a Khalistani terrorist, are
incorrect and based on unsubstantiated assumptions.
Nijjar, who had denied allegations by the Indian government that he was a terrorist, was killed in June, outside of Surrey’s Guru Nanak Sikh Gurdwara. No arrests have been made. ...
The protests in Vancouver and Toronto were part of a larger network of
planned protests. Earlier this month, ahead of the protests, The World
Sikh Organization of Canada warned demonstrators to “remain vigilant and
alert.”
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau would not say whether his government
intends to retaliate after India announced it would stop issuing visas
for Canadians.
Canada is being
mocked around the world after a man who fought for the Nazis was
celebrated in Parliament, presumably by mistake, but on Monday Prime
Minister Justin Trudeau’s chief concern was to ensure everyone that
it wasn’t his fault
. “The Speaker has acknowledged his
mistake and apologized,” he said, repeating the talking point given to
every Liberal with a pulse.
And now that Speaker of the House Anthony Rota has resigned, Trudeau
can go on pretending like the whole thing had nothing to do with him.
The media focus on Panchuk, who died in 1987, came about because Ukrainian groups in Canada and the United Kingdom were honouring him and the UCSA by unveiling a stained glass window on the 75th anniversary of the Victory in Europe.
By all accounts Panchuk contributed to Canada’s war effort and helping Ukrainian refugees from war-torn Europe.
But missing from the accolades in the Globe article and the CBC broadcast were the details about some of the Ukrainian “refugees” that Panchuk managed to convince the Canadian government to accept – 2,000 members of Adolf Hitler’s Waffen SS.
Panchuk was able to get members of the 14th Waffen SS Division Galicia into Canada by lying about their past.
Members of the unit had surrendered to Allied forces and were being held in a camp in Italy. In an attempt to hide the SS connection, the unit had changed its name in the last few days of the war to the First Division Ukrainian National Army.
Panchuk was trying to get Canada to accept large numbers of soldiers from the unit but he had a major problem. The Canadian government would not accept as immigrants anyone who voluntarily served in the German military. Not only had the Ukrainians voluntarily served in Hitler’s war machine but they had eagerly signed up for the Waffen SS, which had been declared a criminal organization by the Nuremberg war crimes tribunal.
Those who served in the 14th Waffen SS Division Galicia had taken an oath to Hitler and had received education in Nazi doctrine. Ukrainian officers had been trained at SS facilities in the Dachau concentration camp. In fact, some of the division’s members have noted in their memoirs that concentration camp prisoners were required to remove their hats as a sign of respect for the Ukrainian SS. Unit members were given SS tattoos under their left arm indicating their blood group. Leadership of the division included some key figures who had been directly involved in the Holocaust.
As part of his efforts to have Canada accept the Ukrainian SS soldiers, Panchuk pushed a “positive narrative portraying the former Galicians as an anti-Soviet” German Army unit, noted Ukrainian historian Olesya Khromeychuk. She is the author of the book “Undetermined Ukrainians” which looks at the various narratives surrounding the 14th Waffen SS Division Galicia.
No mention was made of the SS. Instead, the Ukrainians were portrayed by Panchuk as being victims, having been forced into the division against their will.
If Canadian immigration officials had actually probed deeply into the background of the 14th Waffen-SS division they would have found few victims in its ranks. “The volunteers (of the Galician Division) committed themselves to German victory, the New European Order, and to Adolf Hitler personally,” explained Per Anders Rudling, a historian of Eastern European history and Associate Professor at the Department of History at Lund University, Sweden. The division not only fought the Polish Home Army but it took part in the crushing of the Slovak National Uprising and hunted down anti-Nazi partisans in Slovenia. There were also allegations of war crimes being committed by division members.
While some in the Canadian government didn’t probe deeply into the background of the Ukrainian “refugees,” British government bureaucrats knew who they were dealing with and were more than happy to dump the SS troops into Canada’s lap. “The Division was an SS division and technically all of its officers and senior NCOs are liable for trial as war criminals,” noted a report from Britain’s Under-Secretary of State.
Officially known as the 14th Waffen Grenadier
Division of the SS, the Galicia Division was one of a number of
“foreign” units of the Waffen-SS formed during the course of the Second
World War.
After conquering a new corner of Europe, Nazi
commanders would put out a call for volunteers to sign up for the
Schutzstaffel (SS), an elite corps loyal to the Nazi Party that stood
distinct from the German army.
There was a French SS
unit, a Norwegian SS unit, a Dutch SS unit, and even SS units formed
from British and American prisoners of war. And in 1943, the Nazi
occupiers of what is now Ukraine recruited a unit of racially acceptable
Ukrainians to bolster their invasion and subjugation of the Soviet
Union.
**
During that time, Mr. Hunka fought with the 4th Waffen Grenadier
Division of the SS, the military wing of the Nazi Party. The unit
consisted of troops from the Galicia region in western Ukraine and was
armed and trained by the Nazis.
In February 1944, the unit perpetrated a massacre of Polish villagers in Huta Pieniacka,
Ukraine, burning between 500 and 1,000 Polish people alive, according
to various estimates. According to witnesses, children were executed in
front of their parents by having their heads smashed against tree trunks
or being burned alive in houses.
After
the war, the Waffen SS was declared to be a criminal organization by
the International Military Tribunal. Some 5 million to 7 million
Ukrainians died during World War II, and the country would remain under
the control of the Soviet Union until its collapse in 1991.
Yes
indeed, after a couple of dry runs in which many politicians and media
activists tried desperately to portray the trucker-led Freedom Convoy of
2022 and the Sept. 20 Million March 4 Children protests as fuelled by
Nazis, white supremacists, and others suffering from a glossary of
prejudicial phobias, the government of Justin Trudeau at last reeled in
the real deal.
Well,
that’s not going to work anymore. The political left can thank Canadian
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and the Liberals for this after they
unwittingly honoured a Nazi in Parliament.
Yes, you read this correctly. An actual Nazi was honoured in Canada’s House of Commons.
The Speaker’s Office has the authority to invite a guest to the House. However, even so, they would do necessary background and other
checks. And they would know to run it by PCO and PMO. Just keep all the
powers-that-be in the loop; especially for a guest like Zelenskyy, who
operates in a highly complex global environment.
Either
Rota went rogue, as his statement of apology suggests, or he worked with
PMO and PCO, which reality and past practice would point to as being
the more likely possibility.
We know that Mr. Hunka had a
private audience with a number of Liberal MPs, but the PMO is denying
that this included either Prime Minister Trudeau or Deputy Prime
Minister Chrystia Freeland.
PM Justin Trudeau acknowledged that the Speaker apologized for something that “deeply embarrassed” Parliament - then urged Cdns to push back against Russian propaganda that uses incident to push forward a FALSE narrative that Russian invasion is about fighting fascism #cdnpolipic.twitter.com/uAQU1EyWob
How -- after a lifetime of appearing in black face -- does Justin Trudeau get caught applauding an SS soldier who fought with the Nazis, and then instantly starts babbling about "Russian disinformation"?
Do you see how Western elites use RUSSIA to blame for all their failings? https://t.co/yAIYr93ody
House Speaker Anthony Rota addresses the chamber to deliver an apology for inviting and addressing a former Nazi SS soldier in parliament during President Zelenskyy’s visit. Liberal House Leader Karina Gould urges members to avoid “politicization” of the grave error. pic.twitter.com/cFZ4e1iKyf
— Andy Lee - Special Rebel Rapporteur (@RealAndyLeeShow) September 25, 2023
**
Liberal House Leader Karina Gould and Canada’s Speaker of the House Anthony Rota holdings hands with Waffen-SS Nazi soldier, Yaroslav Hunka. pic.twitter.com/ZMzeqZu6gN
Government
House leader Karina Gould stood up on Monday afternoon to ask for
unanimous consent to adopt a motion calling to strike “from the appendix
of the House of Commons debates” and from “any House multimedia
recording” the recognition made by Speaker Anthony Rota of Yaroslav
Hunka, 98, whom he described as “a Ukrainian hero, a Canadian hero.”
**
What is extraordinary in this video where @karinagould is asking for history to be rewritten (for the Hansard to strike the Speaker's fulsome praise for the Nazis) is Chrystia Freeland's reaction nodding vigorously. This is right out of Orwell's 1984 where history is constantly… pic.twitter.com/k4c6Aj1RNO
Yaroslav
Hunka, 98, received two standing ovations from Canadian lawmakers
during a visit by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. The speaker
of Canada's Parliament has since apologized to Jewish groups for the
incident.
Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said the episode
showed a careless disregard for historical truth, and that the memory of
Nazi crimes must be preserved.
"Such sloppiness of memory is
outrageous," Peskov told reporters. "Many Western countries, including
Canada, have raised a young generation that does not know who fought
whom or what happened during the Second World War. And they know nothing
about the threat of fascism."
Taking a tough stand would have made sense for Trudeau, not only to
save face, but to show support for Zelenskyy, who was in Canada for the
first time since the war began. Instead, Trudeau deputized Government
House Leader Karina Gould — a descendant of Holocaust survivors, no less
— to toss Rota under the bus.
On Twitter, she wrote,
“The Speaker has now made it clear that he was responsible for inviting
this individual to the House. The government played no role. It did not
know he would be there. The PM did not meet him. I am deeply troubled
this happened. I urge MPs to avoid politicizing this incident.”
What
planet are the Liberals on? This isn’t about politicizing an incident.
This is about doing the right thing and fixing a mistake. Saying the
government had no role and knew nothing is even more embarrassing. And
it also reveals a complete lack of understanding of foreign affairs and
events that are directly impacted by this screw-up.
**
Speaker
of the House Anthony Rota has finally stepped down from his position,
after facing increasingly growing calls to resign for honouring in the
House of Commons a man who was a member of a Nazi SS unit during the
Second World War.
“It’s with a heavy heart that I rise
to inform members of my resignation as Speaker of the House of Commons,”
he said in a brief statement to a partially full House on Tuesday
afternoon.
“The
work of this House is above any of us. Therefore, I must step down as
your Speaker. I reiterate my profound regret for my error in recognizing
an individual in the House during the joint address to Parliament of
(Ukrainian) President Zelenskyy,” he added.
“That public
recognition has caused pain to individuals and communities, including
the Jewish community in Canada and around the world In addition to
survivors of Nazi atrocities in Poland, among other nations.”
Rota
said he accepts “full responsibility” for his actions and said his
resignation will be effective at the end of day Wednesday. Until then,
he added, deputy speakers Chris d’Entremont and Alexandra Mendes will be
chairing the House proceedings.
Jaspal Atwal, a convicted former member of an illegal Sikh
separatist group, was invited to dine with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau
at a formal event hosted by the Canadian High Commissioner Thursday in
Delhi.
The invitation, which was extended by Canada's High
Commissioner to India, was rescinded after CBC News asked the Prime
Minister's Office about it Wednesday.
As the story made headlines in the Indian media, Trudeau was forced to respond.
"Obviously
we take this situation extremely seriously. The individual in question
never should have received an invitation and, as soon as we found out,
we rescinded the invitation immediately," he told reporters. "The member
of Parliament who included this individual has, and will, assume full
responsibility for his actions."
Laziness? Sympathy? Collaboration?
You decide.
This entire debacle (in a long train of complete debacles) has had its share of apologists for Hunka's disreputable actions and the Liberals' malice or stupidity in this.
But this entire thing can only go away if Canadians let it.
