Embarrassed to be Canadian

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This article was published 28/09/2023 (767 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

‘FSWC is appalled that Canada’s Parliament gave a standing ovation to a Ukrainian veteran who served in a Nazi military unit during the Second World War implicated in the mass murder of Jews and others.” — Friends of Simon Wiesenthal Centre, Sept. 24.

Let me begin this visit by saying I am not a religious Jew. But I am not ignorant of religious holidays. It’s impossible for any person with my heritage to not be conscious of the holiest of days on the Jewish Calendar.

Yom Kippur is the Day of Atonement, a day in which Jews are instructed to reflect deeply on their behaviour in the past year and atone for their sins — a day of fasting. Observant Jews do not consume food or water on this day. Ultimately, the various rituals around Yom Kippur are about redemption.

The holiest of days is ushered in the night before, with a service known as “Kol Nidrei.” A Cantor chants beautifully, passionately, and mournfully about vows that have been made and broken. The service includes these words: “May all the people of Israel be forgiven, including all the strangers who live in their midst, for all the people are in fault.” For those who are strangers to all of this, the term “people of Israel” refers to the Jewish people worldwide.

I offer this context in our biweekly visit, because it is at the core of what made this week in the House of Commons particularly painful.

In the holiest of holy periods for Jews in Canada and around the world, a visitor to Canada’s Parliament — the president of Ukraine who is also a person of Jewish heritage — was being honoured. There were some invited guests in the gallery. Some damn fool who failed to do their homework, issued an invitation to someone who was instrumental in murdering the ancestors of the honoured guest.

I have been a Canadian citizen for more than 60 years.

I like to believe that I have never been embarrassed to be Canadian.

But this week on the holiest of holy days of my heritage, even though I wasn’t involved in prayer and I was not fasting, I was starved for the need to be forgiving of my fellow Canadian, Anthony Rota, the Speaker of the House of Commons.

His office was responsible for the dreadful invitation. Mr. Rota took responsibility for the massive mistake of inviting an elderly man, who is a veteran of the Nazi SS, a man who was in a unit in Ukraine charged with the mission of executing Adolf Hitler’s “final solution.”

There is no easy way of saying this.

I felt embarrassed as a Canadian, insulted as a Jew and angry as a supporter of Canadian democracy, that a person who participated in mass murder could be invited to the house of democracy in Ottawa, soiling an historic event in which democracy’s champion, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, was being honoured by all Canadians.

I am deliberately omitting the name of the individual who had no place in the house of democracy. He does not deserve to have his name recognized anywhere outside of an obituary.

Anyone reading this column will have no trouble finding his name and discovering why he had no place in Canada’s Parliament and why the Speaker of the House who was responsible for the reprehensible invitation has resigned in shame.

What made that act even more unseemly was that he had to be pushed to tender the resignation. This isn’t Russia. Those in charge of government don’t have people who embarrass them, pushed out of high rise windows. They get pushed out of office by other office holders who express their views. That was done by a handful of Liberals, including Canada’s foreign affairs minister.

So eventually Mr. Rota, a key foot soldier of Parliament, assumed his new status as a footnote.

It would be an error of omission for me to fail to chronicle the fact that this troubling incident was a propaganda victory for a despicable human being who wants very much to destroy Ukraine.

Every authoritarian creates a big lie and then frequently tells it.

The president of Russia’s biggest of big lies is that he wants his armed forces to liberate Ukraine from Nazi rule.

Having a genuine Ukrainian Nazi in the gallery of Canada’s Parliament was not only a black eye for our country.

It was a trophy for an unindicted Russian war criminal, Vladimir Putin.

Charles Adler is a longtime political commenter and podcaster.

charles@charlesadler.com