The Polish government has called for the extradition of 98-year-old Ukrainian-Canadian Yaroslav Hunka after the Waffen SS veteran was applauded in the Canadian parliament last week during a visit by Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky.
Przemysław Czarnek, Poland’s Minister of Education, stated that he was already seeking the extradition of Hunka from Canada.
“In view of the scandalous events in the Canadian Parliament, which involved honouring, in the presence of President Zelenskiy, a member of the criminal Nazi SS Galicia formation, I have taken steps towards the possible extradition of this man to Poland,” Czarnek said on X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter.
Czarnek also posted a letter written to the Institute of National Remembrance, a Polish organisation which looks into crimes against the Polish people and called for the group to investigate whether or not Hunkas may have been linked to crimes against Poles and Jews during his time as a member of the notorious Waffen SS.
The invitation and subsequent two standing ovations have made international headlines and even Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has admitted that the incident has caused embarrassment for Canada.
Hunka was invited to the Canadian House of Commons on Friday, September 22nd by House Speaker Anthony Rota, who at the time called the SS veteran a Ukrainian and Canadian hero. Rota later took full responsibility for the invite in the face of calls for him to resign as speaker.
Just days after apologising, Rota announced he would be resigning as House Speaker on September 26th following a meeting with House leaders of Canada’s various parties.
“The work of this House is above any of us. Therefore, I must step down as your Speaker,” Rota said and added, “I have acted as your humble servant of this House, carrying out the important responsibilities of this position to the very best of my abilities.”
“I reiterate my profound regret for my error. … That public recognition has caused pain to individuals and communities, including the Jewish community in Canada and around the world,” he said.
Rota’s resignation is entirely unique in Canadian parliamentary history as only two House Speakers have ever left the position since Confederation in 1867, one in 1899, who died while in office, and another in 1984 who was appointed Governor-General.
Prime Minister Trudeau labelled the entire incident “deeply embarrassing” for Canada but opposition MPs have been critical of a Liberal Party attempt to strip the Hansard, the parliamentary record, of the entire incident as if it had never occurred.
“It would be absolutely wrong to strike what was said from the record. It goes without saying that those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it. What happened on Friday was shameful, and brought embarrassment to this Chamber,” Conservative Party of Canada (CPC) MP Marty Morantz stated.
“Deleting the text of the Speaker’s words from Hansard would have only one purpose: to try and forget what happened, to wash the record clean,” he said.
Liberal House Leader Katrina Gould made her case for striking the incident from the Hansard saying, “If any parliamentarian had known ahead of time, who they were being asked to stand and applaud for, not a single person would have stood.”
“Never in my life, would I have imagined that the Speaker of the House would have asked us to stand and applaud someone who fought with the Nazis,” she said.
Instead of expunging the incident from the record, Canadian parliamentarians voted to adopt a motion presented by separatist Bloc Quebecois leader Yves Blanchet to broadly condemn Nazism and show support and solidarity for the victims of Nazi ideology.
Ukrainian links to Nazism have been at the centre of Russian propaganda regarding the ongoing Russian invasion of the country, and Russian diplomats and media showed little hesitation in highlighting the incident with Mr Hunka.
In a statement on X, Russian ambassador to Canada Oleg Stepanov said:
Hardly worth saying that I have been monitoring closely political and public discussions in the wake of the outrageous commemoration of the Ukrainian Nazi henchman Yaroslav Hunka in the Canadian parliament. Following recent developments in the House of Commons, I would like to draw attention to a fact that was omitted from the story.
The 14th Waffen Grenadier Division of the SS “Galicia” has committed multiple war crimes, including mass murder, against the Russian people, ethnic Russians. This is a proven fact.
In this regard, I believe that in a multicultural society of Canada, the Parliament and the Government of this country owe a formal and unequivocal apology to all Russians and the Russian Canadian community. An intention to ignore and to exclude from the memory the genocide against Russians committed by the Waffen SS, including the “Galicia” division, is unacceptable. Therefore, I am waiting for the reaction of the Canadian authorities.
