Senate The Canadian Politics Thread

That's one way to change the story after a bad G20 trip.

And now India has returned the favour and expelled a senior Canadian diplomat

 

I definitely wouldn't put it past Modi. We're not talking about a democracy anymore. It's a hard right-wing semi-autocracy Modi has created.

 

After similar scandals (inviting the likes of Jaspar Atwal, convicted of the attempted murder of Indian cabinet minister Malkiat Singh Sidhu and Joshua Boyle), the government has now invited a literal nazi to receive a standing ovation in the Commons. Vetting is clearly a joke for this administration. The incompetence is mind-blowing.

 

It's a direct result of decades of anti-communism, downplaying the USSR's importance in defeating Nazism, and Canada's disgusting legacy in harboring thousands of SS veterans to act as counterweights to the radical labor activism among the then-existing immigrant community in the 1940s. I have a hard time believing that everyone involved in this was completely ignorant, though. If they genuinely had no suspicions, the Liberals are even dumber than they seem. At the very least, it should have raised red flags for Zelensky, who condemned a march in support of the same SS division just two years ago.

 

The Canadian media is bending over backwards to say "he fought in a Nazi unit" and not just call a Nazi a Nazi.

Rota needs to go, like, yesterday, for inviting this "Canadian hero" to the gallery.

We got a different thread for him.

 

I think that Modi does the same crap that MBS does. MBS (Mohammed bull****) did this to that poor journalist in 2018. And now Modi has done it to an honest opposition figure who was trying to stand up for the Sikhs.

My former professor (who took me to India in 2010) said that there is an attempt to rally behind a unity candidate to oppose Modi in India. But we're not sure if that will work. We hope so.

Canada has every right to be pissed. Many people flee to that country to get away from persecution and other political madness. They are preparing for Americans to come in. That was on the Humanist Report recently.

 

Okay, let's get a little perspective here. While it's true that Modi sending assassins to kill the guy in Canada was a bad thing, let's not pretend that he was some "honest opposition figure." He led a secessionist movement within India while in Canada. This is not like the man that MBS had assassinated, who was merely a human rights journalist holding an unchecked absolute monarchy to account.

Communal violence in South Asia is a complicated matter. And while it's wrong that the heavy handedness that past and present Indian administrations have treated religious minorities is wrong (including this assassination), let's not pretend that this was some innocent human rights lawyer being targeted. He was the leader of a secessionist movement.

 

Trudeau hasn't exactly gotten support from allies on the India accusations either. India is too important economically and Biden spent his time saying so.

 

Will they produce evidence? And with whom will they share this? There must be evidence. Which ally is the most trustworthy for them?

 

Anthony Rota has stepped down as speaker. That took too long.

Do Trudeau next.

 

What in the **** happened with the Canadian parliament applaudING for this Nazi>>>? It shows a total lack of history and context at best, but the guy is an idiot if he doesn't understand! This is purely on the speaker of the house! He did not research this, or he is ****ed up in the head!

There is no defense of this! Putin's propagandists are using this to Putin's advantage. This is absurd.

 

If there's one upside to this Nazi thing, and that's a big if, it's that I get to live in a Rob Schneider-free country



(He has no words but he's been tweeting a hell of a lot about this)

 

Given his filmography I would’ve thought Rob Schneider was a big fan of crimes against humanity.

 

Kingston, Ont. historian says Galacia Division members weren’t war criminals

“They joined this military unit to defend their homeland, to fight against the Soviets, whom they’d already experienced once. They weren’t pro-Nazi, they weren’t anti-Semitic and they didn’t indulge in war crimes,” Lubomyr Luciuk said.

Luciuk is a professor at Kingston’s Royal Military College, he was also part of a commission in the 1980s which looked into claims at the time that the Galacia division were Nazi war criminals.

He says what the inquiry found was that the claims were part of a soviet disinformation campaign called ‘Operation Payback’, and that the commission found the allegations to be unfounded.

“People don’t read anymore,” Luciuk said. “When this thing blew up I said, ‘Well, look at the Deschenes Commission’, it’s available in French and in English online…. no one looked.”

Lawyer David Matas was also part of that 1980s commission, but he disagrees with Luciuk’s perspective on the Galicia Division. Matas says the evidence strongly suggests they indeed were part of the S.S.

“Just because the Soviets say something doesn’t mean it’s not true,” Matas said from his home in Winnipeg. “For some Ukrainians, I mean they were prepared to go along with the Nazis simply because the Nazis were opposing the Soviets who were causing so much trouble.”

Matas goes on to say that the while the commission didn’t find evidence of specific war crimes by Hunka’s unit, it was clear that they were following orders under the nazis, and deserve the disrepute that comes with that.

“I mean if you’re a member of a criminal gang, what’s identified as a criminal gang, you can be culpable for your membership,” Matas said.

Luciuk says that’s jumping to a conclusion that hasn’t been proven.

“If there’s evidence, credible, compelling evidence, that an individual, not a community, an individual committed a war crime, put it before the appropriate authorities, let them assess that evidence and if it merits it proceed with prosecution,” Luciuk said.

CTV piece from 30+ years ago

 

Yeah, sure, members of the SS "weren't war criminals."

 

Nobody looks at the Deschênes Commission because it’s a farce.

 

The University of Alberta has closed down their Yaroslav and Margaret Hunka Ukrainian Research Endowment Fund. Former U of A chancellor, and Member of the Order of Canad,a, Peter Savaryn was also a member of Galician Division. Maybe more digging needs to be done at the U of A (and other institutions across the country).

And then there's this fun bit of trivia

"Following the Deschênes commission's report, the Criminal Code of Canada was amended to make it easier to go after suspected Nazi war criminals.

Much of that work came to a screeching halt with the failed prosecution of Imre Finta, a former Hungarian police commander who was accused of organizing the deportation of over 8,000 Jews to Nazi death camps. He was acquitted on the defence that he was following the orders of a superior.

Zuroff said the Canadian courts that accepted that verdict are the only ones in the world that recognize that legal defence — and consequently, no one else has been prosecuted. Since that case was tried in 1990, Canada opted to go after war criminals through the immigration system."

What a ****ing farce.

 

Liberal MP Greg Fergus, from the riding of Hull-Aylmer in Quebec, has been elected the new Speaker of the House of Commons. Canada's first Black speaker.

Let's hope he's smart enough to not invite Nazis to the gallery, or at least smart enough to not invite everyone to clap for them if he does.

 

Rebel News is awful, a stain on "journalism" and David Menzies is a POS, but this is ridiculous. He didn't assault a cop, he bumped into someone standing in the middle of the sidewalk. Way to hand a PR victory to Ezra ****ing Levant.

 

Well Brian Mulroney is dead and we're going to get free contraceptives and diabetes medicine from the gummy mint. Not that either affects me in any way

 

Mulroney was an interesting one. Buddy-buddy with Reagan, Thatcher and GHW Bush, but also fiercely anti-apartheid, and somewhat environmentally minded. The Conservatives are going to try and lionize him but there is so little of his party left there. And that's his legacy, not the GST or NAFTA. He tried to unite the country with Meech Lake and Charlottetown which led to the rise of the Bloc Québécois and the Reform Party, the Progressive Conservatives basically dead, and a country more divided than ever.

 

Overall I see Brian Mulroney's time in power as a tragically missed opportunity for Canada to have constitutional reconciliation. He could have been a truly transformational PM, but ended up flunking on his major aspiration to deliver national unity.

I think he accomplished much on the international scene (anti-apartheid advocacy, acid rain treaty, NAFTA) and though I don't care much for his legacy of deregulation and privatization, he did his fair of good things domestically like introducing the GST.

On the whole, he will be as much defined by his (major) failures as much as his successes. If Meech Lake or Charlottetown had passed, that post-constitutional separatist surge wouldn't have happened we wouldn't see the national fractures we see today. These constitutional failures don't a 100% land on him - Pierre Trudeau came out of retirement just to spit on Mulroney's efforts - but it's frustrating seeing how close it came to pass a few times, just to be undone. Now Canada is just stuck in this constitutional PTSD freeze-out.

 

The Liberals just lost one of their stronghold to the Conservatives, Toronto St. Paul's, in last night's byelection.

They're finished. It was always going to be unlikely for them to win a fourth mandate, but at this point, I think we'll have to wonder if they'll even finish ahead of the Bloc in 2025. If Toronto St. Paul's isn't safe, which riding is?

I hope that causes Liberal MPs to push for a leadership race. Trudeau should have gone a year ago.