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The speaker of Canada's House of Commons, Anthony Rota, is apologizing for praising 98-year-old Yaroslav Hunka as a war hero — who served in a Nazi unit during World War Two. Hunka then received a standing ovation. Here's our thoughts on the situation: https://t.co/WOB7TiEoNm
Video Transcript AI Summary
An incident in the Canadian House of Commons involving the honoring of a Ukrainian veteran who fought for the Nazis in World War 2 sparked outrage. The Speaker apologized for the oversight, leading to calls for accountability. The Prime Minister's office and Speaker's office both issued statements denouncing the incident. Criticism was directed at the lack of background checks and oversight. The international embarrassment caused by the incident was widely reported. Calls for action and sincere apologies were made to address the situation. The need for repercussions and accountability was emphasized.
Full Transcript
Speaker 0: This past Friday in our House of Commons, an incident took place that a lot of the country here is talking about, so so are we. The speaker of the house apologized after the fact for honoring a Ukrainian veteran who, it was later revealed, fought for the Nazis in World War 2. Now this was Volodymyr Zelensky, the, president of Ukraine, coming to our house of commons in a fairly high profile event. Speaker Anthony Rota invited this person, 98 year old Yaroslav Honka. Honka was portrayed as a war hero.
This is the standing ovation that happened across party lines. Everyone got up. Cameras really didn't go to this person in the balcony, but you can see the reaction there, standing ovation. It was later revealed he fought for a voluntary unit under Nazi command in World War 2, responsible for the killing of a lot of Jewish people. The speaker has since apologized, says he takes full responsibility.
As you can anticipate here, the outcry has been incredible on this with good reason. Today's House of Commons will be interesting. I wanna go around the horn on this because I'm still trying to process what exactly this was here. Tammy, where are you at on this?
Speaker 1: Well, a lot of groups as well are looking for answers. How could this possibly happen? How are you acknowledging someone who you obviously haven't completely done a background check on? I think that, it is to have them invited period is one thing, but to be hailed as a a hero, Ukrainian hero and a Canadian hero on top of it, I think is just a mistake I hope will never happen again. There have been statements that have been put out since then, from both the Prime Minister's office as well as the Speaker's office.
And the Prime Minister's office saying they had no idea. It was up to the speaker to have invite whoever they want, and, they had no idea. And they denounced it, of course. And the speaker also taking full responsibility for this in the meantime. But, maybe this is something, a gap that will now be bridged, that you know exactly who is coming in, when it comes to an event of this magnitude.
Yeah.
Speaker 0: People wrote. I'm with
Speaker 2: you on that, Tammy. Somebody had to know. You know what I mean? How does this slip through? You gotta do the background checks.
You have a lot of people that are involved in this. You may have interns that are working there that are trying to learn about this government, the house itself. Get somebody to do a check. And you know everybody that's doing the applause is under the impression that this is a hero. So I don't fault anybody for for applauding because if that's how it was presented to me, I'd be standing on my 2 feet as well, if I'm able to, and cheering for somebody, you know, if that's how it's presented.
But you got it. Left hand, right hand talk to each other.
Speaker 0: Yeah.
Speaker 2: There needs to be some sort of checks put into place Yeah. And somebody yeah. Somebody did not do that very well.
Speaker 3: And, you know, there are silos that exist, but this can't be one of them. I mean, I think if there's gonna be someone honored to that magnitude in the House of Commons, it seems like this is something that our ultimate leader should have an awareness of and have sort of approval of to some degree. And I was seeing some tweets when this was sort of happening or as this came out from people who were there within the House of Commons and saying, you know, this was at the end. We were had a long day, and we were applauding, thinking exactly as you said, this is this is fine. And now they're saying, oh, my gosh.
I can't believe this is something, you know, they're they're just Oh,
Speaker 1: they're probably Embarrassed is not the right word. It's not the right word. Exactly.
Speaker 3: So that put a lot of a lot of people, including the country, in a very difficult position.
Speaker 0: Yeah. I I'm trying to put myself in the place of an MP who really didn't know who this person was, from Anthony Road is riding, by the way, for those who are wondering. I'm trying to put myself in there. I would be seeing a lot of shades of color today. I have to be honest with you.
Here's what here's what I think should happen today. Anthony wrote as speaker needs a step down. That's on that's a mistake I'm not gonna let go. He needs a step down. Secondly, the prime minister's office that have passed the buck on this in every statement I've seen, I need I need, like, a 5 to 10 minute explanation from the prime minister today on this.
I nothing happens in the ceremony like that without the PMO knowing. Nothing. The the the the party Quebecois, the conservatives, Jagmeet Singh, no one has control over that. No one else has control over that. That's our prime minister.
That's the prime minister's office. They're running that too. So I want an explanation from them because that's ridiculous. Point 3, Google stuff. People around North America, within 3 minutes of that happening, went on Google and figured it out.
I don't know what's going on in our nation's capital right now, but I've had it. And to everyone in the Liberal Party, I wanna take a different route here. October of 2025 is scheduled to be our next election in this country. Okay? I know there are people running the Federal Liberals, and it's and it's not just a cliche, you know, in in the mahogany rooms with the cigars and the brandy who actually run things in that party.
To all the people in that party, you are gonna become 3rd party status in this election if this stuff keeps going on. This is an insult to a lot of people in this country. On the eve of Yom Kippur. This happened on the eve of one of the holiest days on the calendar for a lot of Jewish people in this country. This is unacceptable, and stuff has to happen.
And I don't wanna see people hiding behind statements today. This is ridiculous. Okay? I come out here and I rip on conservatives a lot. I can't let this go.
This was lazy. This was ridiculous, and it put a lot of people in the bad spot, including Volodymyr Zelensky. I can't believe that took place, and there needs to be repercussions for that. That. With that said, hopefully, Tim, hopefully, Meredith, hopefully, Debo, we see some real sincere apologies and action today.
I don't I don't need just the apologies. There needs to be action today. This is an international embarrassment for this country in a big moment, and there needs to be repercussions for that. Needs to be repercussions. Then we'll follow-up.
Speaker 1: I just wanna say, when you mentioned the international, embarrassment, it is something that has been picked up by news agencies right across the world. Absolutely. My timeline is full.
Speaker 2: You say use Google. If you type in House of Commons Canada, you are getting amounts of articles from international places.
Speaker 3: And you're so right, Sid, right on the eve of one of the holiest times in my calendar. Can you believe that?
Speaker 0: Can you believe that? Yeah. Yeah. Google it.