Living in Canada, one should learn not to be surprised by a new scandal associated with the Prime Minister’s Office. Unfortunately, the current PM, who campaigned in 2015 with a promise to have the most transparent federal government Canada had ever seen, has the most opaque that I recall. By hiding information, the ground is made fertile for rumors to explain the unknown. Yesterday, I saw that a news source I sometimes watch suggested that the grounding of the PM’s jet in India was connected with a cocaine raid. I greet that with a question mark, but who knows?
And speaking of India, the accusation by the PM that India had been behind the assassination of a Sikh leader in Surrey, BC, is still being greeted coolly by foreign governments. The problem is that Trudeau has offered no proof, not even a clue. When I first saw a video of him making his startling accusation to the House of Commons, my first thought was that there he was trying to divert attention from his most recent gaff. He has a habit of trying to change the channel. But, as I considered the situation, I thought he couldn’t be that stupid --- he wouldn’t make such a charge without solid evidence that could be interpreted no other way. If he that’s what he did, then he will most likely go into history as a little, little coward. No, he didn’t do that….did he?
A representative of India has said that the Indian government wants to get to the bottom of it and deal with the guilty parties, but that Trudeau has provided zero information. Trudeau, as per usual, attributes the paucity of proof to national security interests. “You’ll just have to take my word for it.” Why do I keep thinking he’s like a little kid?
The most recent scandal is the recognition offered by the then Speaker of the House to a 98 year old Ukrainian-Canadian WWII veteran who has since been reported to have been an SS member. Critics say that worse than that is that it happened on a day when a foreign head of state was addressing the Commons --- how could security and diplomatic planning be so lax as to not regulate who entered the Commons gallery that day? The claim is that the PMO is responsible for vetting attendees at such events. Trudeau, who went into hiding for two or three days, came out to offer an apology on behalf of Canada’s parliament. How do you apologize for someone else? The other members of parliament basically didn’t do anything that would warrant an apology.
Trudeau’s “apology” is congruent with the erroneous belief that groups have responsibilities. It’s individuals that have responsibility. Whether you determine such things via the Bible, which is internally consistent among its 66 books written over a span of over 2,000 years, that responsibility is the function of individuals, or by common sense, it is clear that some other MP is not responsible for the PM’s failure. His philosophy allows people to hide from their duties and to evade the blame that might lead to improved behavior.
Further, Trudeau seems to be blaming “Russian propaganda” for his loss of face. Trudeau has lost the respect of the international community and his own country. He needs to start admitting his errors. He would be no less of a man if he did so, and he would probably start earning some respect.
I tender an hypothesis. It seems to me that nobody gets a standing ovation in parliament unless somebody knows who they are. I wonder if the PMO knew who Yaroslav Hunka was, and only back-pedaled when the Jewish community caught on and complained, with Speaker Rota consequently being asked to take the fall.
It is not surprising that there should be a former SS member in the West. After World War II, many German scientists ended up in the West. So did many German intelligence officers. I see no reason why other branches of German service would not similarly be represented. Also, keep in mind the historical setting. The Germans invaded Ukrainia, or The Ukraine, as it was variously called, after the Russian led Soviet Union, of which Ukraine was a part, systematically starved several million Ukrainians to death. Many in the Ukraine greeted the Germans as liberators. It is no surprise that they would join German forces, although one might look askance at choosing to join the SS. Within the Ukrainian nazi resistance against Russia was Stepan Bandera, who is known to have killed 110,000 Polish women, children and old men in western Ukraine, and whose political movement morphed over the years into the nationalist political forces that, so far as I can tell, run Ukraine today.
I suspect there is more to Hunka’s relationship to Ukraine than meets the eye, and maybe he was a Ukrainian war hero fighting Russian tyranny. I don’t know. I do know that things are not always what our propagandists, including the PM, tell us.
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