By Honoring a Nazi, Canada’s Parliament Has Unearthed a Troubling History
When Canada’s parliament unwittingly paid homage to a Nazi veteran, it opened the door to questions about its postwar past. The incident highlights broader issues of historical distortion and the country’s history of harboring Nazi war criminals.
Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau speaking to the House of Commons in Ottawa on September 22, 2023. (Sean Kilpatrick / AFP via Getty Images)
On Friday, September 22, a packed Canadian parliament honored a Nazi.
It was inevitable that such would happen in a nation with a well-documented, historic, and essentially unaddressed problem of suspected Nazi war criminals who were allowed to settle in the country in the immediate postwar period. This is to say nothing of official commemorations that equate Nazism with Communism.
“We have here in the chamber today a Ukrainian-Canadian war veteran from the Second World War who fought for Ukrainian independence against the Russians and continues to support the troops today even at his age of ninety-eight,” said Speaker of the House of Commons Anthony Rota.
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