The 14th Waffen SS was sort of the off brand SS but whitewashing it is a Canadian tradition. We have monuments to it. There’s one a few minutes from my house. It’s on private land so there’s nothing anyone can do about it, legally.
The Ukrainian situation in World War II is, one must admit, a difficult one. WWII wasn’t always as easily divided between good and bad as we like to think in retrospect and get out of our movies - I think most people are aware of Finland being an Axis country essentially because the Soviets attacked them, a situation the Allies quietly ignored when the war ended. Ukraine was caught between the two most evil empires one can imagine and it is plausible this man’s motivations were understandable. But honoring him in Parliament was vile.
I am confident many men served in the Imperial Japanese Navy with honor and didn’t commit any war crimes, but we wouldn’t honor a guy in Parliament for being a skilled aviator for Japan in December 7, 1941, would we?
Should Trudeau apologize? There is perhaps the question of how that plays into Russian PR or Conservative campaigning. But since Russian blather is not necessarily truthful at the best of times, the answer is probably yes. However, for the above reasons, in practice time will tell.
I’m no fan of the conservative party, however, after 32 years in the CAF, I am used to the liberal party not taking military things seriously (either present day or historically). This isn’t the first time something of this nature was bungled under the liberal’s watch: Veterans Affairs bungles VE-Day video by showing Nazis | CBC News. This CBC article discusses a Veterans’ Affairs campaign in which German soldiers were portrayed as Canadian soldiers in WWII.
My wife and I were discussing this very issue last night - it’s not difficult to figure out. Despite what I alluded to above, wrt the liberal party, I honestly don’t know whether the same thing would have happened under the conservatives or any other party. And I can’t say if it’s possibly a generational thing or not. My dad and a couple of uncles were in WWII so I’ve heard stories, seen the stuff that they brought home (including some medals and a memo signed by Hitler (or perhaps a stamp, I don’t know)), and I was in the military. I could, however, honestly say that my nephews and nieces, who could easily be middle aged ministers, would have no clue.
Operation Barbarossa was 82 years ago. It’s not surprising that people in their 40s to 60s don’t have a detailed grasp of events on the Eastern Front.
People in their 40s to 60s with high-ranking positions in government do, however, have staffers whose job is to check into these things, especially before a highly significant political event with potential international ramifications.
When Rota made that speech, it looked to me like he saw the problem and had an ‘oh shit’ moment. He read out the part where he said, “He fought in WWII against the Soviet Union…” Then a BIG pause before he continued. He probably read that and then said to himself, “oh crap, the guy was a Nazi.”
I don’t know how anyone could write that speech about the guy fighting the Soviets in WWII and not realize that meant he was fighting for the Germans. Doesn’t everyone still know that the Soviets were our allies in WWII? Or has education gotten so bad that facts like that have been lost to someone in a position to write speechs for top officials?
As for Trudeau apologizing, he always does that when he wasn’t personally responsible. He’ll apologize to First Nations for a previous government’s mess, he’ll apologize to the world for something another Canadian did that he had nothing to do with, but if he was involved the best you’re going to get is a vague “mistakes were made” without identifying anyone who actually made the mistake. More likely, he’ll juust throw someone under the bus.
I’m not sure the Conservative Party is a whole lot better on this front, although no examples this comically horrible jump to mind.
This is a reflection, if we’re being honest, of what Canadians want. Canadians don’t want to be asked to pay for a military that meets our obligations or our needs, and so no party has a vested interest in doing so, and so our military is preposterously underfunded. Ironically, this often COSTS us money; the political nonsense over the F-35 deal will end up costing us billions, and the politicization of the next generation of warships is going to cost us an absolutely mind-shattering amount of additional cash.
But that’s why you get this sort of offsetting amateurish cheapness. I mean, pretty much any adult can look at that video and see that those guys are very clearly dressed like the guys Indiana Jones had to fight in “Raiders of the Lost Ark.” This isn’t some nitpick, like some basement nerd saying “You said that was a Spitfire Mark V but it was a Mark VII ahhhhh” it’s a bunch of guys wearing German uniforms. They’ve been the bad guys in like ten thousand movies and TV shows, everyone knows what their attire looked like. It is clearly the case that that was hurriedly spliced in to the video the day before it was broadcast; nobody really cared about the video, so they just slopped it together literally at the 11th hour and there was no QA check at all.
This more recent fiasco is way, way, way worse, but the source is, to some extent, the same thing; it’s military stuff, so who gives a shit. He’s a veteran, he’s from Ukraine, they’re the good guys right? Good enough, who needs to bother asking any further questions?
I noticed that too, though IIRC he said “Russia,” not “Soviet Union.” People do use them interchangeably sometimes. But yeah, that may have been the heart-sinking “ohhhhhh nooooo” moment.
No. Many, many, many people do not know any of that, literally nothing whatsoever. Not a majority of people, but a surprising number; I have met adults who did not know who Adolf Hitler was or thought he was a fictional character. Or they simply don’t pay attention. Again: “you say he’s Ukranian and he fought Russians? Oh that’s good right?”
Do not overestimate the intelligence of politicians. Many of them are bright and driven - I have met Karina Gould a number of times, she’s my MP and has always lived around here, went to the same high school as my kid (many years before) and she seems reasonably smart, at least - but I’ve met a few, at all three levels of government, who were honestly really fucking stupid. Shockingly so. Not every MP is picked to be a rising star in the party; some are just placeholders in safe ridings or they’re just good at backstabbing.
This is brutally accurate and generally IMHO, Canadians have been allowed to be, at best, indifferent to, and at worst, hostile to, our military. And as a naval officer I’ve seen it over and over. On a Great Lakes cruise in the '80s, when we were alongside in Toronto, a civilian onlooker asked me, the Officer of the Day, if our destroyer was “real”. And after enough budget cuts and scandals I remember shocking a very historically and politically aware civilian acquaintance by saying something along the lines of "why don’t they (the federal government) just get it over with and disband us.
I personally believe, sadly, that 9/11 saved us; it certainly gave us some credibility within our own country. Unfortunately, we always resort to the fallback position that we don’t actually need a military because of our proximity to the US.
After the last several years years one would think or hope that that is changing. But I am sure it isn’t.
I admire your military as I believe they’ve whipped butt on several occasions in our history books. I think there was some big naval engagement in the War of 1812 where Canada did the thrashing. I think your army’s got presence; when I drove from Calgary to Niagara one time I saw some big bases with firepower. And your air force made the US news for something to with keeping foreign balloons on radar. I live right next to the marines at Camp Pendleton-California and I rarely see their benefit in the news but I know they have one.
Watching our military degrade has been very sad. Canada ended WWII with the fourth largest navy in the world after the US, Russia, and Great Britain. We had over 400 ships. The RCAF had 78 squadrons and Canada was a leader in aircraft design and production. In the post war period, Canada was a leader in military aviation development. Then the government killed the programs, and our engineers left the country and joined NASA, Grumman, and other American firms. Our loss, your gain.
The final ‘Top Gun’ trophy was won by Canadians. In the 60’s and 70’s Canada won the NATO tank games so often they became known for a while as ‘The Canada Cup.’ Ask any American Afghanistan vet how Canada did in Afghanistan after 9/11. Canada always punched above its weight and our military was a great value for what we spent on it. It still is, but it’s a shadow of its former self.
It’s not true to say that ‘Canadians’ want our military downsized. I’d say it’s mostly eastern elites and the media that have been hostile to the military.
That poll shows that over 75% of Canadians want military funding increased. So of course the Trudeau government cut military spending even further in the 2023 budget.
It is sad the military gets so little support on an individual or pragmatic level and so much politicization in terms of inefficient procurement, highly tangential peacekeeping duties, bilingual remembrance ceremonies or dealing with somewhat cyclic weather or forest fire concerns not particularly related to diplomatic or military strategy. Whither the North? Wither the Arctic. One hopes the United States stays united.
If one believes the Toronto Star, the honouree called the years between 1941 and 1943 the best years of his life. There have been rumblings the Polish government now wants him extradited. One perhaps has a little more sympathy for distant family than active protagonists.
Oh, I agree with that. But you could say the same of climate change. Large majorities of people say they are in favor of climate action, but if you ask them to pay anything for it support plummets.
The same is true of most issues. We live in an era where every politician’s promise of goodies also comes with a promise that someone else will pay for it.
What do you think support for stimulus would have been if people had been told they’d be paying for it in a few years with 8% mortgages and high inflation? Instead, we were told that it would be self-financing through a ‘multiplier’ and other fairy tales to convince people they were grtting something for nothing.
I’m a little late to this one but – good Lord! This is so egregious that I have to genuinely wonder if he pissed off someone on his staff who deliberately set this up.