In a scene that could generously be described as a public relations disaster and less generously as a history lesson gone spectacularly awry, the Speaker of Canada’s House of Commons, Anthony Rota, has tendered his resignation. This followed the enthusiastic standing ovation given to Yaroslav Hunka, a 98-year-old Ukrainian-Canadian man who fought in a Nazi-aligned unit during World War II and who was inexplicably honored during Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s visit to Parliament. It’s a sentence nobody expected to type in the year 2023, yet here we are.
The debacle began when Rota introduced Hunka to the House as a “hero” who had fought for Ukrainian independence against Russia. What Rota failed to mention, however, was that Hunka had served in the 14th Waffen Grenadier Division of the SS, a unit of the Nazi military apparatus. The division, while primarily composed of Ukrainian volunteers, was nonetheless part of Heinrich Himmler’s favorite weekend club. This particular historical nuance was promptly unearthed by journalists and historians who apparently remembered that Google exists.
Rota, in a swift effort to backpedal so fast that he nearly rewrote the laws of physics, issued a formal apology and, less than 48 hours later, announced his resignation. During his resignation speech to Parliament, Rota called it a mistake made on his own initiative and stated pointedly that no one else—not even the Prime Minister—was involved. This declaration, while perhaps noble, did little to distract from the collective international facepalm that followed the original incident.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, for his part, called the whole thing “deeply embarrassing” as if that somehow suffices to describe a situation in which Canada accidentally honored a literal SS veteran in front of a Jewish head of state. Trudeau stopped just short of apologizing personally, possibly hoping that historical amnesia is more contagious than it appears.
Meanwhile, Jewish groups across Canada and internationally expressed outrage. Friends of Simon Wiesenthal Center called the invitation an insult to Holocaust survivors, while Members of Parliament could be seen carefully reviewing every elder in attendance at future events with the scrutiny of a forensic investigator.
“This initiative was entirely my own,” Rota told Parliament. He did not clarify what possessed him to go full Wikipedia-blind while honoring a WWII veteran during one of the most globally sensitive days Parliament has hosted in recent memory.
The whole affair has sparked an uncomfortable conversation in Canada and beyond about wartime history, collective memory and the desperate need for better vetting processes. And while Speaker Rota may now spend more time with his family, his resignation serves as a stark reminder that those who do not remember the past are doomed to accidentally give it a standing ovation on C-SPAN.
Next time, perhaps someone can just Google the guest list before it makes international headlines.