Lawrence Hall, HSG
Nazi Canada?
Nazi Canada? Of course not.
Canadian P.M. Justin Trudeau is not a Nazi. He presents himself
as a vulgar, privileged jerk but he is not a Nazi.
His groveling apology last week for the purported Nazi
insensitivity of other Canadians thus seems inexplicable.
Recently the Speaker (now former Speaker) of Parliament, Anthony
Rota, had occasion to welcome Volodymyr Zelensky, the president of Ukraine. The Speaker
got it into his head that he would add to the occasion by inviting for one of
those now tiresome shout-outs a Canadian citizen, 98-year-old Yaroslav Hunka,
who was born in Ukraine and fought against the Russian Communists in the Second
World War.
A problem is that when Stalin, Hitler’s ally against the
Western democracies, was betrayed by his old comrade he turned to the Western
nations for help. Thus, the perverse Stalin was a Nazi ally when that was useful
for him and a Western ally when that was useful for him. In 1945 he turned back
again against the Western nations who had saved the Soviet Union. But the
unhappy fact remains that Communist Russia was our (admittedly treacherous)
ally for a time. Further, Mr. Hunka fought against Communists but with a Nazi
unit.
The Speaker of the Canadian Parliament presumably has a
well-paid staff to assist him in learning about such matters, but in the event Mr.
Rota naively invited a poor old man with a dodgy background to be presented in
Parliament without doing a routine background check.
This is embarrassing and should never have happened. However,
it reflects a moment of carelessness, not Nazi sympathies in Canada. One might find a few village-idiot “stormtroopers”
waddling around and shouting in the streets, but they reflect only stupid
choices by stupid individuals. They are not Canada. Canadians sing that they
are “the true north strong and free.” They mean it.
This reality means nothing to those unhappy people always
finding in others guilt that does not obtain except perhaps in the accusers
themselves. Note Susanna in the Book of Daniel and later in the Gospel of St.
John the woman purportedly caught in adultery.
An apology is appropriate, but only for carelessness in
background checks.
The accusation given is that Canada is sodden with a poor
history of accommodating Nazism.
Apparently few if any have chosen to defend Canada with
the facts:
When Nazi Germany invaded Poland, Canada was one of the
first nations to declare war. At that time Canada had a standing army of 4,500
men and some 50,000 reservists, no modern equipment, only 20 combat aircraft,
and a navy of 6 destroyers. [http://www.warmuseum.ca/cwm/exhibitions/chrono/1931goes_to_e.html].
From 1939 – 1945 approximately 1.1 million Canadian men
and women, out of a total of 10 million citizens, joined the services and fought
Nazism and Japanese imperialism. This does not include the Canadians who served
with the United Kingdom, other Commonwealth nations, and the United States.
According to Library and Archives Canada [Service Files of the Second World War - War Dead, 1939-1947
- Library and Archives Canada (bac-lac.gc.ca)], 24,525 Canadian
soldiers, 17,397 RCAF airman, and
2,168 RCN sailors were killed in action. These numbers do not include civilians
and Canada’s Merchant Marine, nor do they include those wounded in body and
soul.
Newfoundland, not then part of Canada, lost approximately
1,000 men and women in the several services, including those of Canada, the
United Kingdom, and the United State [Newfoundland
in World War II | World War II Database (ww2db.com)].
Over 50,000 Canadians and Newfoundlanders died fighting
Nazism - and yet Mr. Trudeau ignores them while apologizing for Canada’s
purported Nazi sympathies.
One 98-year-old former Nazi was erroneously given a
shout-out in Parliament, and now the Canadian government is collectively calling
for smelling salts. In all of this
self-abasement and drama no one seems to remember all the Canadian and
Newfoundland soldiers, sailors, airmen, coast guardsmen, Marines, and merchant
seamen who were killed in action against young, tough Nazis Newark-bent on
global domination.
In 1914 Lawrence Binyon, a British poet, wrote a poem, “For
the Fallen,” some of whose lines are to be found on British, Canadian,
Newfoundland, and even American memorials, and quoted every Armistice Day / Remembrance
Day / Veterans’ Day as a tribute to those who died fighting tyranny:
They shall grow not old, as we
that are left grow old:
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them.
But in the last few weeks Mr. Trudeau and the Canadian Parliament
seem to have forgotten them after all.
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