DISINFO: Canada refuses to apologise for honouring a Ukrainian Nazi
SUMMARY
Not just the parliament and prime minister, but also Canadian society is absolutely tolerant to neo-Nazism.
If [Yaroslav Gunko] fought against the Russians, he is a good person. The fact that he is a Nazi, the fact that he killed (and he most certainly participated in mass murders and repression of civilians) is not important! He is against the Russians.
Not just Canada, but all of Western society accepts and tolerates neo-Nazism. Today, the Canadian Parliament resembles the Reichstag of the Hitler regime.
Canada nurtured neo-Nazism. In fact, they nurtured Ukrainian neo-Nazism, which later seized power in the former Soviet Ukraine.
RESPONSE
Disinformation accusing the West of nurturing Nazism following a blunder during Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s visit to Canada in September 2023.
The Canadian parliament gave a standing ovation honouring a veteran later accused of belonging to a Waffen SS division in WWII.
Canada's prime minister Justin Trudeau apologised for the invitation of Gunko to the Parliament: 'I also want to reiterate how deeply sorry Canada is for the situation this put President Zelenskyy and the Ukrainian delegation in. It is extremely troubling to think that this egregious error is being politicised by Russia and its supporters to provide false propaganda about what Ukraine is fighting for,' he said.
Background:
Although the Waffen-SS as a whole was declared to be a criminal organisation at the Nuremberg Trials, the Galician Division has not specifically been found guilty of any war crimes. Numerous accusations of impropriety were levelled at the division, and particular members.
Some surviving members of the division, who were Polish citizens until the onset of WWII, were admitted as refugees to Canada. Immigration was prohibited for members of the Nazi party, the SS, Waffen SS (an equally heinous military branch of the SS), the German Wehrmacht or regular armed forces, and collaborators. However, non-Germans conscripted into the Waffen SS after 1942 were exempted from this prohibition in 1951.
The special Canadian Deschênes Commission on war criminals, convened in October 1986, concluded the following in relation to membership in the Galicia Division: 'The Galicia Division should not be indicted as a group,' 'The members of the Galicia Division were individually screened for security purposes before admission to Canada,' and 'in the absence of evidence of participation in or knowledge of specific war crimes, mere membership in the Galicia Division is insufficient to justify prosecution'.
See other false claims of pro-Kremlin media related to WWII.
Russia uses accusations of 'Nazism' to destroy Ukraine, including targeting civilians, women and children amid full scale invasion of Ukraine started in 2022. Ukrainians are dehumanised up to being called "animals" by pro-Kremlin media. President Putin made an outlandish claim that the Jewish origin of Volodymyr Zelensky is a cover for his Nazism.