Roundup: More apologies for past honours

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In the wake of the black eye that Canada collectively received after former Speaker Anthony Rota’s embarrassing blunder in recognising the Nazi-aligned veteran in the House of Commons, there has been some more soul-searching institutions around similar figures that that particular veteran. The University of Alberta returned a donation from said veteran to be used for their Ukrainian Studies programme, but more problematic for the institution was their former chancellor, Peter Savaryn, who was in the same Waffen-SS Galacia Division unit, and now Rideau Hall has apologised because Savaryn had also been granted the Order of Canada back in 1987, citing limited information sources at the time.

This has led Jewish groups in particular to call for the government to open up the archives related to the Deschene Commission, which looked at potential war criminals who resettled in Canada after the war, but a great many of their findings were redacted and kept secret. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says that senior bureaucrats are reviewing the Commission report, and considering making more of it public. But this is also being used as a political wedge. Conservative deputy leader Melissa Lantsman is demanding the government take action on this, but meanwhile, one of her own MPs, Gérard Deltell, was saying in the media that he doesn’t think they need to revisit this history, that the past should remain the past.

But this isn’t necessarily a black-and-white issue, particularly for some Ukrainian communities in this country because they saw those people as nationalists who were using any means necessary to fight the Russians, who had already invaded and subjected them to a genocide—the Holodomor—and one suspects that Cold War considerations meant that it was in our interests to focus on the anti-Soviet aspect of their records during that period. But there are also a number of monuments to those Waffen-SS Galacia Division units across this country, particularly in private Ukrainian cemeteries, because of that complicated history, and it’s something we should have a national conversation and perhaps reckoning about sooner rather than later. But we need to be aware that this is fraught territory, and will be difficult for some.

Ukraine Dispatch:

Ukraine has carried out a drone strike on a Russian defence complex over the border in the Belgorod region, which is a rare admission of such an attack. This as Russians are claiming that they shot down a major Ukrainian drone offensive on their border regions. Meanwhile, the IMF says that Ukraine’s economy is expected to keep growing next year.

Good reads:

  • Justin Trudeau announced that he will be hosting a meeting of Caribbean leaders in Ottawa later this month.
  • Bill Blair’s promise to trim the military budget on bureaucracy alone is taking a page out of the Stephen Harper playbook and ignores the real capacity challenges.
  • With the Manitoba election now over, the federal government is putting up more money to for the next phase of a study on how to do a search of the landfill.
  • Documents show that PolySeSouvient’s declaring Trudeau persona non grata at their events sent PMO scrambling, and eventually changed the gun buyback.
  • The Post has a fascinating longread about Ari Ben-Menashe, whose is complaining about being un-banked in Canada, while he pals around with the likes of Putin.
  • The Cameron Ortis trial alleges that Ortis was willing to feed a steady stream of RCMP information to criminal elements for a mere $20,000.
  • Both Liberals and Conservatives are worried about the shifting online discourse about Ukraine as American sources influence the electorate here.
  • Poilievre and the Conservatives are taking a page from Kenney’s playbook and trying to appeal to conservative Muslims on the back of the LGBTQ+ communities.
  • Here is a profile of incoming Manitoba premier Wab Kinew, as well as some reaction from Indigenous leaders to his election win.
  • A defeated minister from Manitoba is mystified as to why the party took such a far-right turn during the election and worries they need to find themselves again.
  • My column looks at the recent interview with the deputy minister of immigration about the changes at her department, and how we need more of that candour.

Odds and ends:

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