In a major embarrassment for Ottawa, the Canadian lawmakers gave a standing ovation to a man who was introduced as a war hero after Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy\u2019s address in the House of Commons only to later realise that he had served in a Nazi unit during World War II. The speaker of Canada\u2019s House of Commons apologized Sunday for recognizing 98-year-old Yaroslav Hunka as a \u201cUkrainian hero\u201d before the Canadian Parliament. Hunka served in World War II as a member of the 14th Waffen Grenadier Division of the SS, according to a Jewish human rights group that demanded an apology.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn my remarks following the address of the President of Ukraine, I recognized an individual in the gallery. I have subsequently become aware of more information which causes me to regret my decision to do so,\u201d Rota said in a statement. Rota took responsibility for what was characterized as an oversight, calling the initiative \u201centirely my own.\u201d \u201cI wish to make clear that no one, including fellow parliamentarians and the Ukraine delegation, was aware of my intention or of my remarks before I delivered them.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThe initiative was entirely my own, the individual in question being from my riding and having been brought to my attention,\u201d he added, adding his \u201cdeepest apologies\u201d to Jewish communities. Following Zelenskiy\u2019s address in the House of Commons, Rota acknowledged Hunka, who was seated in the gallery, praising him for fighting for Ukrainian independence against the Russians. Hunka received two standing ovations from those gathered.<\/p>\n
\u201cAt a time of rising antisemitism and Holocaust distortion, it is incredibly disturbing to see Canada\u2019s Parliament rise to applaud an individual who was a member of a unit in the Waffen-SS, a Nazi military branch responsible for the murder of Jews and others,\u201d the Friends of Simon Wiesenthal Center said in a statement while demanding an apology earlier Sunday. \u201cAn explanation must be provided as to how this individual entered the hallowed halls of Canadian Parliament and received recognition from the Speaker of the House and a standing ovation,\u201d the group added.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
In a major embarrassment for Ottawa, the Canadian lawmakers gave a standing ovation to a man who was introduced as\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":28,"featured_media":3879,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[186],"tags":[505,895,1039,1037,1036,265,483,1038],"class_list":["post-3878","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world","tag-anti-semitism","tag-canada","tag-holocaust","tag-nazi","tag-parliament","tag-russia-ukraine-war","tag-ukraine","tag-ww2"],"reading_time":"2 min read","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3878","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/28"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3878"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3878\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3879"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3878"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3878"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3878"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}