The speaker of Canada’s Parliament has resigned after inviting a Ukrainian Nazi veteran to attend a special session of Parliament and then calling him a “hero” amid two standing ovations.
Anthony Rota resigned as speaker Tuesday after meeting with party leaders in Ottawa amid growing calls from all parties for his resignation.
“This house is above all of us,” he told lawmakers.
Earlier in the day, Canadian Foreign Minister Mélanie Joly called the situation “deeply unacceptable” and “embarrassing.” The government House leader said Rota should do the “honourable thing” and step down. Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre also criticized Justin Trudeau for the fiasco, saying the prime minister had “shamed Canada” after the government’s failure to ensure “its enormous diplomatic and intelligence apparatus checks and prevents honor a Nazi.”
The scandal began on Friday, when lawmakers in the Canadian Parliament hosted Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy. Following a speech by Zelenskiy, Rota singled out 98-year-old Yaroslav Hunka, whom he had invited to sit at the podium, describing him as a “Canadian hero.”
Zelenskiy raised his fist in recognition as Hunka saluted from the gallery.
But over the weekend, it emerged that Hunka was a member of the Waffen-SS “Galicia” division, or the 14th SS division, a volunteer unit under Nazi command.
The Friends of the Simon Wiesenthal Center for Holocaust Studies stated that the division “was responsible for the massacre of innocent civilians with an unimaginable level of brutality and viciousness.”
Other prominent Jewish groups joined in condemning Hunka’s invitation and the incident quickly became a major political embarrassment for the Canadian government.
Rota later said he “subsequently became aware of new information that made me regret my decision” to invite the veterans who lived in Rota’s electoral district. “I would particularly like to extend my sincere apologies to the Jewish communities in Canada and around the world. I accept full responsibility for my actions.”
The prime minister’s office said there was no advance notice that Hunka would attend Friday’s parliamentary session because he was the guest of the president and the list of participants had not been shared.
In Canada, as in other countries with Westminster-style parliaments, the Speaker of the House of Commons plays a non-partisan role. The president is elected by all legislators and oversees the functioning of Parliament.
On Monday, Trudeau called the moment “deeply embarrassing for the Parliament of Canada and, by extension, for all Canadians.” But his party also faced increased scrutiny after Government House Leader Karina Gould called for Rota to “be expunged” from official Parliament documents, including all records of the daytime.
In the middle of growing condemnation de Rota, social media users speculated that his resignation was imminent. The political commentator David Moscrop posted a photo de Rota and a head of lettuce, a nod to the difficult final days of former British Prime Minister Liz Truss.
The attention to Hunka has also sparked interest in Poland, where the country’s education minister said he had “taken steps” to have Hunka extradited. “In view of the scandalous events that occurred in the Canadian Parliament, which consisted of honoring, in the presence of President Zelenskiy, a member of the Nazi criminal group SS Galizien, I have taken measures with a view to the possible extradition of this man to Poland,” Przemysław Czarnek said in a social media post on Tuesday.
Friends of the Simon Wiesenthal Center said in a statement that the event also “gave Russia a propaganda victory, distracting from what was a momentarily significant display of unity between Canada and Ukraine.” .
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