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> “In view of the scandalous events in the Canadian parliament, which involved honouring, in the presence of President Zelensky, a member of the criminal Nazi S

• 1over137 3y ago
  >Actual Nazis getting standing ovations! Unbelievable. Indeed; but in their defence, members of parliament did not know, at the time, that this guy was a Nazi.
  • phone8675309 3y ago
    Oh well that makes it okay/s. It's really comforting that Members of Parliament are that intellectually bankrupt.
    • 1over137 3y ago
      Do you expect each MP to individually vet the guests that other MPs have invited to the house? The fault here lies in the pathetic vetting done by the MP that invited him (the Speaker no less). And he'll likely resign or be fired shortly.
      • starburst 3y ago
        They did introduce him as fighting against the Russian in WWII... It's easy to put all the blame on a single scapegoat, this is the results of a lot of incompetent people. Shameful moment.
        • mantas 3y ago
          And that division did fight against Russians. It's a shame westerners love to paint everything with a broad brush and don't look into details during WW2 in territories between Nazis and Soviets.
          • mardifoufs 3y ago
            Who else fought against Russians in WW2? Did they think the guy is Finnish? Do you actually believe the parliament of a first world country with all the staff and process that it has did not know about it? Why did Trudeau call it Russian propaganda when confronted about it, even if we assume that he magically didn't know anything about the guest?
            • mantas 3y ago
              Poland? Resistance in Baltic states and Ukraine?
              • mardifoufs 3y ago
                I guess, but resistance in Ukraine and the Baltic states was mostly post war.
                • mantas 3y ago
                  The post-war resistance had close ties to local nazi-aligned units though. Both to get guns/ammo and pool together the interested people.
      • boeingUH60 3y ago
        I don't even think he should resign or be fired...a public apology of "I didn't know, and I'm sorry for that" should suffice. The problem is perpetually outraged people on the internet who can never forgive a mistake...they're a barbaric mob going around looking for who to let their anger on...if only they had better things to do. Do people think public officials are all-knowing and incapable of making mistakes?
        • 1over137 3y ago
          If it were any random MP, perhaps. But he's the Speaker, and that role requires he has moral authority and the confidence of the House. Will be interesting to see if the House decides to vote him out.
          • 1over137 3y ago
            ...and, he's out.
        • cmrdporcupine 3y ago
          Indeed the tribal mob politics has gotten completely out of hand here. The only upside here is all the parties in parliament applauded the guy, so there's limited possibility for it becoming a "F*ck Trudeau" crowd issue. Their own tribe were right there, applauding the same guy.
        • jbay808 3y ago
          No, but if a Canadian engineer put their stamp on work that was this sloppy, an apology wouldn't suffice. They'd be suspended at least, or likely even lose their license permanently. Even if the work was prepared by their subordinates and just handed to them to sign off on it. Why should the Speaker of the House be held to a lower standard of diligence, especially when their actions have international geopolitical consequences?
      • phone8675309 3y ago
        > Do you expect each MP to individually vet the guests that other MPs have invited to the house? They have cell phones, don't they? Maybe do a quick search before you give a standing ovation to a Nazi war criminal, _especially_ if you hear "fought against the Russians in WWII". If that doesn't set off more red flags than Red Square during an October Revolution Parade then maybe the MP is just too stupid to be in Parliament.
  • version_five 3y ago
    Of note, Canada's deputy prime minister has a masters degree from Harvard in slavic studies and wrote a book about Russia. They knew what army the guy fought for, it's unlikely that she or anyone else who knew about history could really not have known if they'd thought about it at all.
    • 1over137 3y ago
      Who is the 'they' you refer to? You are incorrectly assuming that there is some big consultation about every guest invited into the House. There is not. Indeed Freeland would have noticed this if she was involved with the vetting, but she's the deputy PM, she's not doing minutia like checking guest backgrounds.
      • cmrdporcupine 3y ago
        Probably true, but as deputy PM and as a person also intimately acquainted with this issue she should have been very involved. She is of Canadian-Ukrainian background, lived there for some years post-Soviet, fluent in both Russian and Ukrainian, and has extensive networks there. It's unclear to me in general why she hasn't been more prominent on this file in general (Ukrainian-Canadian relations during the war). Except that there have been controversies about some of her family's Ukrainian nationalist past, and maybe they're keeping her out of the limelight on this for that reason. Or Trudeau sees her as a threat, and is doing to her what Chretien did to Paul Martin (keep them close but under wraps), I dunno. In any case, she should have been involved, and would have known better. You hope. There was a time a couple years ago when she was the clear "natural" successor to Trudeau. Since then her star seems to have faded, and he doesn't seem to know when to get off the stage, either.
        • 1over137 3y ago
          >In any case, she should have been involved... The deputy prime minister should be involved in vetting other people's guests to the House of Commons? Personally? You don't think she has more important things to do? Vetting of guests should be done, and should be done much better than it was, but it's a job for (competent) staffers, not cabinet personally.
  • mydriasis 3y ago
    I don't care about parliament, it's iterated below that it's a simple slip up. I agree with the poster who said a simple apology would suffice on their end. It's the man himself. That's what really matters. Too many of these monsters got away in the ratlines and recruitment programs after the war. He should be drug and tried like the rest who were responsible for the atrocities of the time.
  • t0suj4 3y ago
    There is an implication that they clap for whomever they think they are supposed to clap for in your statement. I have doubts that is a good thing.
• miroljub 3y ago
  > Actual Nazis getting standing ovations! Unbelievable. But he fought against the Russians. His past is here irrelevant. North American democracies have never had issues with Nazis, as long as they can help them beat the Russia. They even got the highest possible positions, like for example, the chief of NASA that landed on the moon before the Soviets. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wernher_von_Braun https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wernher_von_Braun
  • mantas 3y ago
    Eh. In those parts of europe Soviets/Russians was the evil. First, Soviets/Russians came in 1939. Atrocities started (Katyn, Rainiai, mass deportations to Gulag, pick your favourite). Then Nazis came as a new management and stopped those atrocities just to start their own. Few years later, Soviets rolled back in to resume what they started few years ago. And then there's another can of worms of how Poland acted to it's neighbours in 1920.
    • mydriasis 3y ago
      Not alone. 25% of Belarus was exterminated by the Nazis.
      • mantas 3y ago
        Big portion of that blood is on soviets hands. Both for stabbing Poland and Baltic states in the back. And then running pro-soviet underground resistance that did little to stop nazis but was very successful in triggering well-known nazi response. As well as running their own atrocities on locals that took guns from nazis to defend from pro-soviet resistance.
  • justrealist 3y ago
    I'm not sure how you explain WWII in this framing. There was a very easy way to help Nazis beat Russia in WWII, and uh, we did the opposite thing.
    • 3y ago
• mantas 3y ago
  I'm not very familiar with this particular person. But in those parts of europe it was common to join Nazi-adjoint (SS or otherwise) formations to defend against inevitable comeback of Soviets. After experiencing Soviets first-hand in 1939-41, many people weren't exactly looking forward for them coming back.
  • clan 3y ago
    I do not subscribe to the idea the regular german army was entirely clean. And all war is dirty! Furthermore you are absolutely correct that Soviet rule was not something you'd wish for. Waffen SS was however a truly heinous organisation. If you consider it common to join the SS I would state that it also paints a rather extreme picture of those persons. I think it is very dangerous to apologise for SS "just because they killed Soviets".
    • mantas 3y ago
      The main Waffen SS and ethnic units in eastern europe were two different things. You're thinking about SS units formed in Nazi Gerrmany-proper. Ethnic units, while technically a part of Waffen SS, were quite a different story. At least up here in between Nazis and Soviuets. Recruitment was mostly about defending from Soviets. In most cases leaders were well-known figures from interwar era. And usually those leaders did a lot to make sure their units ain't used for stuff you typically think of when you hear „Waffen SS“. At the end of the war, those units were the starting point for post-WW2 anti-soviet resistance. Both people and guns/ammo.
      • Pulcinella 3y ago
        "While technically he was a literal Nazi in the literal SS..." Buddy, think about what you are writing. You don't need to defend these people. What they did, what they were a part of, is in fact bad and they should feel bad.
        • mantas 3y ago
          [flagged]
• gwbas1c 3y ago
  Take a minute to think of what living in Nazi Germany and Nazi-occupied countries were like. There's a point in Meip's (person who hid Anne Frank and her family) memoir where she relates a story of Otto Frank discussing a staff member who joined the Nazi party. (Remember, the Franks hid in the building where Otto Frank ran a business.) Otto pointed out that this man probably joined for the social connections, and called the man a "good man." He (Otto Frank) was well aware that people had to adapt to the "new normal" of Nazi rule, and that often meant joining and cooperating with them. Later in Meip's memoir, she implies that the business where the Franks were hiding were selling foodstuffs to the Nazi army. Everyone had to do what they could to survive Nazi occupation. Don't forget that Otto Frank ultimately is one of the reasons why we know so much about the Holocaust. He spent a good deal of his post-WWII life raising awareness of it. https://www.amazon.com/Anne-Frank-Remembered-Helped-Family-ebook/dp/B004QWZ5WQ/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=meip+gies&sr=8-1 https://www.amazon.com/Anne-Frank-Remembered-Helped-Family-e...
  • blast 3y ago
    I think you should reconsider this unfortunate comparison. Volunteering for the SS and exterminating civilians is nothing like "selling foodstuffs" or just "doing what you could to survive".
  • t0suj4 3y ago
    If he "had" to fight for Germans he would be in Wehrmacht. Not in Waffen SS that was the tip of the spear of Nazi ideology.