this post was submitted on 28 Sep 2023
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Context for people not from Canada?
Someone in the govt got a old Ukranian dude to speak to the parlement, and they all applauded him for fighting Russia in WW2, forgetting that the people who faught Russia in WW2 were the Nazis.
They had accidentally invited a literal Nazi to speak, and applauded him for it.
Canadian here. Minor correction: he didn't speak, but he was invited as a Ukrainian "hero" by the speaker of the house (a member of the sitting elected party). He was applauded - twice - for his "service". Including by Ukrainian president zelensky.
The only 'defense' I can offer is that our prime minister had no input on the matter, and Hunka's Nazi service came out after the fact. Canada does not support fascism or Nazism...
But it's a bad look, no matter how you cut it...
Having no input on a Nazi guest in your house is the opposite of a good thing. Silence is complicity.
I agree that silence is complicity, but that only applies if you know there's something worth being silent about, no?
In this case, the PM had no input because the speaker doesn't have to ask permission to invite people from his constituency. So it falls to the speaker to validate his invitees. As such, PM has no input, but also no more fault than anyone else told to clap for the "Ukrainian hero" in this scenario... Is my understanding
so is the Canadian House and PM office that incompetent that noone knows how WWII went?
It is a disgrace for the House and the PM ehose office did not care to inform themselves, when clearly doing something with a foreign policy context.
That's not how our parliament works. The amount of people calling for an end to the speaker's independence is concerning.
The speaker's job is to uphold decorum of parliament. This one spectacularly failed to do that, and resigned as he should. That doesn't mean we should make it a partisan position.
I never talked about parisan positions or whatever. I expect both the house and the presidents office to have staff looking into some more details about things and raising the issue with the respective position, if it could be in violation of values of the respective institution or the country in general.
That does not involve any change of authority and i struggle to imagine that there weren't staff people raising these issues beforehand. So i think it to be more plausible that their voice was ignored by the speaker and president, or the information was deliberately not passed on to them.
Either reason, lack of background check, ignorance by the political leaders or holes in the communications chain, speak of general problems in the organization that need to be adressed. These issues are specific to organizations and it doesnt matter whether it is a political party, a governmental institution, private business or NGO.
Canada doesn't have a president. The Speaker of the House is the top official when it comes to running Parliament. He definitely fucked up, but it was his fuck-up and he resigned because of it. I don't think it means we have to re-write the rules for how Canada's Parliament operates. I mean, it's not like we actually elected a Nazi, unlike some countries.
I'm sorry. i meant the premiers office. And again nowhere did i propose that they need to change anything, except for running their staff better.
You certainly did unknowingly imply that changes need to be made when you said that the "president's" staff should be vetting the Speaker's decisions. However, I understand that you aren't familiar with how Canada's Parliament is structured. To be clear, it is not currently the Prime Minister's prerogative or job to vet those whom the Speaker invites to speak in Parliament.
No, that's not it, in Canadian Parliament it is the speaker of the house who has ths sole responsibility for both inviting guests to the gallery and for recognizing them in the official remarks. Other members of the house and government weren't even given notice the guy would be there. The speakers office arranges guest vetting, but it is only a security vetting not a political one. That is the PPS and RCMP decide if the 98 year old, legal Canadian immigrant is likely to put the house and guesses physical danger, they don't consider at all if the guest will cause a political headache.
So the fallout is that the speaker (who in fact was solely responsible for what happened) has resigned, and the PM has offerd an official apology on behalf of all Canadians. There could be more political fallout domestically, as the opposition parties are misleading Canadians and stoking ignorance of our procedures to paint the government as responsible , which I emphasize again, they were not.
I can't explain why governments around the world, including Canada, made a decision 60-80 years ago to allow former Nazi soldiers to relocate. I'm not an expert in that area, if you are asking a serious question may I reccomend you try books instead of random internet strangers.
What was he supposed to do, order a quick background check on that old dude before applauding?
I can't tell if this is tongue in cheek, but the opposition is staying that this is exactly what should have happened before allowing the Nazi entry.
My read on this situation is that it all seems obvious after the fact, but that's cuz now we know. I believe the vetting process is being reviewed because of this event. Definitely a gaffe on the part of the speaker, if this info is truly so readily accessible
How can one person be allowed to invite someone to attend an event with a visiting foreign leader and nobody cross checks? This nonsense about revising the process is a cop out. No way in hell the speaker can unilaterally do this without any background checks.
Someone made a point that made sense to me - they definitely do security cross checks, but not necessarily political checks.
My understanding is that they can invite who they want. I would guess based on the assumption that the speaker (an elected official himself) has the good sense to thoroughly vet who he's bringing through the front door
Actually, I made that exact mistake. Security checks, not background checks. I guess it's fair to assume that a nonagenarian won't be drop-kicking anyone.
Yes probably they should’ve thought of that beforehand. It’s literally politicians’ jobs.. lazy twats
He fought Russians in WW2. Wonder which army he belonged to...
Could have been Poland, Romania etc I guess. But well it wasn't.
No, the Russians were the good guys in WWII, everyone who fought them were bad and Nazis or Nazi-adjacent. This is basic Hexbear 101.
The Russians were just spreading worker solidarity.
They were so nice they even helped with repopulating all the countries they helped liberate!
The Russians were definitely not the good guys in WW2. They happened to end up fighting the same guys the Allies were, but that's it.
that comment is 100% heavy sarcasm
The Russians weren't exactly the food guys. They helped with the invasion of Poland and split it with the Nazis. After Hitler marched into Russia they turned into "the good guys" but weren't from the beginning.
They didn't turn into any kind of "good guy". They took all of eastern Europe from the Nazis and kept it for themselves, ruling it just as brutally until the dissolution of the USSR. They were entirely out for themselves and didn't do anything for justice or the good of the conquered nations.
PMO is fully responsible for this. Trudeau even apologized. I just hope inviting this literal Nazi to a diplomatic event doesn't water down JT's ability to call people who disagree with him Nazis. That's his favorite thing to do, poor guy
It sounds like you hate JT, which is fine, whatever. But from a protocol point of view, it really isn't on PMO.
The speaker's position, by design, doesn't report to the PMO - it's a separate office responsible for decorum and protocol in the house (in theory it's supposed to represent a higher ideal, and really not do much other then maintain order). As I understand it, speakers have a dedicated number of gallery seats they can fill, they just report it to some protocol/generic planning office. But they're responsible for their invitees.
That's why the speaker apologized for his actions, and emphasized it was his initiative. And PM apologized to the world on behalf of Canada, but not for any part he took in it. Opposition leader is making a very aggresive campaign to make Trudeau look bad, but that's politics for you. Seems like it's working, if I may say :P
Actually I don't hate JT, I just hate how he has executed the duties of his office.
Also it appears that I was wrong, PMO is apparently responsible for security checks not background checks, but I can't even find the source that led me astray in the first place.
Hunka granddaughter posted that he met Zelensky and Trudeau before.