The world was watching..Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky was a guest in the House of Commons. The Liberals were celebrating another injection of $650 million Canadian tax dollars into the Ukrainian war effort..Then the entire house rose and gave an ovation and applause to a Nazi..Not a figurative Nazi or a comical Nazi like the soup chef in a Seinfeld episode..Not some goose-stepping neo-Nazi idiot with a shaved head and a swastika tattoo..This wasn’t a conscript in the German army or simply a member of the Nazi Party from long ago either..No, the fellow they were applauding actually served in one of Hitler’s SS Waffen units in World War 2. This was a true, dyed in the wool, literal Nazi..Due to the passage of time, it's quite difficult to find real Nazis these days but giving credit where due, the government managed to dig one up and bring him into the House of Commons..House Speaker Anthony Rota has fallen on his sword and claims the invitation of the Nazi was solely his own action. While Rota certainly appears culpable, it beggars belief that this Nazi slipped through vetting into the House of Commons with no examination. Do they have no procedures at all in vetting attendees to the House of Commons when sensitive diplomatic events are held?.It is no coincidence a Ukrainian veteran happened to be introduced to the House by the speaker at the moment the President of Ukraine happened to be present..It was a staged, jingoistic event that was supposed to show a common front of support for the Ukrainians against Russian aggression. The problem of course is with which war Yaroslav Hunka fought against the Russians in 1943-45..I am going to speculate on what likely happened..I imagine an order went out to Liberal members asking them to try and seek out a Ukrainian veteran to celebrate in the House. Some staffer went scurrying about and managed to find Yaroslav Hunka..It was likely a young staffer, and it didn’t occur to him that if a person is 98 years old, Ukrainian, and fought against the Russians, it is almost a sure thing he served in one of Hitler’s Waffen SS units. He volunteered to join that unit and was not conscripted..I have observed some Liberal supporters doggedly trying to point out how Hunka wasn’t among the worst of Nazis. It is absurd and isn’t doing their cause any favours..I don’t care if Hunka was the sweetest father and grandfather on the planet later in life..I don’t care if he was the friendliest Nazi in his unit, never forgot a birthday and won the Mr. Nazi Congeniality award every time there was an SS convention..He was a Nazi and never should have been invited to the House of Commons. Much less applauded..Some actions and life choices lead to a permanent stigma being applied. Joining one of Hitler’s SS units during World War II is one of those choices..The leader of a nation in the middle of a war was a guest in the House of Commons and he unwittingly found himself joining the rest of the room and applauding a Nazi..The damage done went beyond just humiliating Canada and a guest on the world stage. Vladimir Putin surely was laughing for hours as Canada managed to create a public relations coup for him. .While Justin Trudeau wasn’t directly involved in this latest national embarrassment, it still happened on his watch..The Prime Minister’s Office surely was behind the planning for this grand event and if the office didn’t vet attendees, it must be asked why they didn’t. Could any MP just bring in whoever they please and have them recognized by the House without question or vetting? I doubt it..This is just one more debacle piling onto a year of embarrassments from the Trudeau government. Every policy they touch becomes a mess and every event becomes a controversy..We are seeing a government in its dying stages. It's tired out and in disarray. It is directionless and leadership is lacking..Rather than trying to address issues, Trudeau either goes into hiding or tries to distract from them..Days after the Nazi fiasco, Trudeau still hasn't reached out to Zelensky to try to at least smooth the feathers of the humiliated guest. It doesn't matter if Trudeau wasn't directly responsible for the incident. He represents Canada and the responsibility for repairing the diplomatic damage is his. Instead, Trudeau vanished from the public eye. .The Liberals tried and failed to get unanimous consent to have the whole incident stricken from the public record. They don’t want to find and fix the error in procedures, they just want to cover it up..The Canadian government under Justin Trudeau is dysfunctional and unsustainable..Trudeau’s days as the prime minister are clearly numbered. Even if Trudeau never gets it, his caucus had better figure it out and fast. The scandals are piling up faster and the embarrassments are hitting new heights with every month they allow him to keep sitting as the Liberal leader..If Trudeau isn’t removed by the next election, the Liberal party will be utterly decimated. While that idea is appealing, just imagine the damage he would be able to cause with two more years in power. He needs to go sooner rather than later for the sake of Canada.
