There has been a great deal of reporting about parliament celebrating a World War II Nazi soldier. But even though he was praised specifically for fighting Russia the media has ignored the horrors inflicted by the Nazis on Russians.<\/p>\n
During Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy\u2019s recent speech to Parliament, 98-year-old Yaroslav Hunka was labeled a \u201chero\u201d by the Speaker of Parliament for fighting Russia. In subsequently justifying his embarrassing presentation of the 14th Waffen SS volunteer, Anthony Rota noted, \u201cmy intention<\/a> was to show that the conflict between Russia and Ukraine is not a new one.\u201d For Rota the Nazi bit was an aside, or as Caitlin Johnstone opined, \u201cNobody<\/a> Who Fought Against Russia Could Possibly Be Bad!\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n This idea isn\u2019t new. The mid 1980s federal government-appointed Desch\u00eanes Commission of Inquiry on War Criminals in Canada came to a similar conclusion. In justifying a do-nothing approach to Canadian former Waffen SS members \u2014 who swore allegiance to Adolf Hitler and were part of an organization deemed criminal by the Nuremberg Tribunal \u2014 the commission noted that the division\u2019s soldiers volunteered \u201cnot because<\/a> of a love of the Germans but because of their hatred for the Russians and the Communist tyranny.\u201d<\/p>\n What the Nazis did to Russians during World War II was horrific. According to official statistics, 11 million Russian\/USSR military personnel and 16 million civilians were killed. The siege of Leningrad (present-day Saint Petersburg) was ghastly. As a result of one of the longest and most destructive sieges in history, around 1.5 million died.<\/p>\n In a statement pointing out there are over 200 000 Canadians of Russian descent and that almost all Russians \u201clost at least one relative in combating Nazism\u201d, that country\u2019s ambassador noted, \u201cI strongly<\/a> believe that despite deep disagreements between Moscow and Ottawa on the current geopolitical situation, the Government and the Parliament of Canada must find courage to apologize directly to all Russians and the Russian Canadian community for the disgraceful incident the whole world was watching on September 22.\u201d<\/p>\n Another important omission from the discussion is Canada\u2019s long-standing belligerence towards Russia. As part of its ties to the British empire, Ottawa has been in a near state of war with Russia for over a century and a half.<\/p>\n Much of the British garrison in Canada left for Crimea during the 1853-56 war and many Canadians also volunteered for British units fighting Russia. In \u201cHow the<\/a> Crimean War of 1853 Helped Shape the Canada of Today,\u201d historian C.P. Champion describes how the naval base on Vancouver Island was greatly expanded in response to the war. He also quotes historian John Castell Hopkins explaining that the Militia Act of 1855, which formed the basis for today\u2019s army, was \u201ca result of the feeling aroused by the Crimean War.\u201d<\/p>\n Recently a well-known Canadian leftist suggested<\/a> she was unaware that Canada invaded Russia a century ago. The vast majority of Canadians don\u2019t know that between 1917 and 1920 six thousand Canadians fought there. In the summer of 1919 the British air force\u00a0dropped diphenylchloroarsine against the Bolsheviks in Murmansk and Archangel. They fled in panic<\/a> from a gas that caused uncontrollable coughing and individuals to vomit blood. About 600 Canadians fought in Murmansk and Archangel.<\/p>\n Throughout the 1920s and 1930s Ottawa worked to isolate Moscow. Canada opposed a treaty to guarantee Russia\u2019s pre-World War I frontiers and for most of that period had no diplomatic relations with Moscow.<\/p>\n The Canadian\/European elite\u2019s pre-war dalliance with Hitler was largely because of his dislike of communism\/Russia\/Slavs. Hitler\u2019s Mein Kampf is deeply anti-Slavic<\/a> and he calls for the destruction of Soviet Russia. In fact, one of Hitler’s aims at the start of the war was to expel or wipe out Slavs to make living space for German settlers.<\/p>\n At the end of World War II, the US dropped nuclear weapons on Japan partly as a threat<\/a> to Moscow. After the war an Iron Curtain descended over Europe. When the USSR dissolved, Canada immediately pushed to expand<\/a> NATO to Russia\u2019s doorstep and backed anti-Russian civil society groups in eastern Europe. US officials like former vice-president Dick Cheney have talked about breaking up<\/a> the Russian Federation while foreign minister Melanie Joly has suggested that Canada\u2019s aim<\/a> in the current war is to precipitate regime change in Moscow. Through its 2015 Operation Unifier Ukrainian military training mission Canada effectively entered into a low-level proxy war with Russia. Moscow massively expanded that conflict 19 months ago. Since then Canada has ploughed in huge amounts of arms in a bid to weaken Russia.<\/p>\n The scandal over Parliament\u2019s standing ovations for a Nazi soldier is principally about Russophobia in Canadian politics. Yet, in both his \u2018apologies\u2019 on the Hudak incident Prime Minister Justin Trudeau actually doubled down on the fearmongering, decrying \u201cRussian propaganda\u201d and \u201cRussian disinformation\u201d.<\/p>\n While Moscow\u2019s action in Ukraine are condemnable, Russophobia in Canada is largely an outgrowth of the country\u2019s relationship to the British and US Empires, which has viewed Russia as an imperial competitor.<\/p>\n NaziGate highlights that few in Canadian politics see any problem in killing Russians.<\/p>\n