The liberal Speaker of the Canadian House, Anthony Rota, has resigned after leading a standing ovation for a former Nazi soldier during Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s address to the Canadian Parliament.
Rota had previously issued an apology and taken accountability for the grave mistake. However, apparently that wasn’t enough, so he announced his resignation as Speaker while maintaining his position as a Member of Parliament.
In the midst of President Zelenskyy’s speech reaffirming Canada’s backing against Russian aggression, the assembly applauded 98-year-old Yaroslav Hunka, a former member of the 14th division of the Waffen-SS during World War II. This ill-advised acknowledgment occurred against the backdrop of Canada’s ongoing financial and military aid to Ukraine, which surpasses $9 billion.
“It is with a heavy heart that I rise to inform members of my resignation as Speaker of the House of Commons,” Rota stated earlier.
“It has been my greatest honor as a Parliamentarian to have been elected by you, my peers, to serve as the Speaker of the House of Commons for the 43rd and 44th Parliament, carrying out the important responsibilities of this position to the very best of my abilities.”
Watch:
BREAKING: Canadian House Speaker Anthony Rota resigns after praising Ukrainian man who served in Nazi unit in World War 2 pic.twitter.com/TRS5QrYMHb
— BNO News (@BNONews) September 26, 2023
Associated Press reported:
“The speaker of Canada’s House of Commons resigned Tuesday for inviting a man who fought for a Nazi military unit during World War II to Parliament to attend a speech by the Ukrainian president.
Just after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky delivered an address in the House of Commons on Friday, Canadian lawmakers gave 98-year-old Yaroslav Hunka a standing ovation when Speaker Anthony Rota drew attention to him. Rota introduced Hunka as a war hero who fought for the First Ukrainian Division.
Observers over the weekend began to publicize the fact that the First Ukrainian Division also was known as the Waffen-SS Galicia Division, or the SS 14th Waffen Division, a voluntary unit that was under the command of the Nazis.
‘No one in this House is above any of us. Therefore I must step down as your speaker’, Rota said in Parliament. ‘I reiterate my profound regret for my error in recognizing an individual in the House during the joint address to Parliament of President Zelensky’.”
Following the blunder, the Russian Foreign Ministry accused Prime Minister Trudeau of using Rota as a “scapegoat”, and indirectly insinuated that Deputy Prime Minister Christina Freeland has ancestral ties to Ukrainian Nazis.
From Sputnik:
“Russian FM spokesperson Maria Zakharova commented on the resignation of the speaker of the Canadian House of Commons: “Rota was made a scapegoat, taking Trudeau and his associates, among whom, I should remind you, are descendants of collaborators from the The Ukrainian Insurgent Army, out of harm’s way. For the Nazi slogans “Glory to Ukraine”, which greeted Zelensky, no one apologized.”
Jewish advocacy organizations quickly slammed the Parliamentary leadership for honoring Hunka as a “hero”.
From Fox News:
Canadian Jewish organizations and social media critics are slamming the Canadian Parliament for giving a man who fought for the Nazis a standing ovation during an event featuring Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s visit to the country.
“FSWC is appalled that Canada’s Parliament gave a standing ovation to a Ukrainian veteran who served in a Nazi military unit during the Second World War implicated in the mass murder of Jews and others. An apology and explanation is owed,” the Friends of Simon Wiesenthal Center, a Canadian nonprofit dedicated to educating people on the Holocaust, wrote on X, previously known as Twitter.
