In May 1950, the government of Prime Minister Louis St-Laurent made the controversial decision to allow former Ukrainian soldiers who were members of the SS Galicia Division to immigrate to Canada. The latter had been taken prisoners of war in the United Kingdom after the Second World War. The Deputy Minister of Immigration at the time, Laval Fortier, concluded that “these Ukrainians [devaient] be subject to appropriate security screening, but that they [devaient] not be excluded because of their service in the German army.
The government’s approach was announced in the House of Commons by Mr. Fortier’s boss, Minister Walter Harris. “We investigated not each of them, but the group,” he said. We are prepared to admit them, provided they conform to the ordinary rules regarding immigrants, namely, that they be agricultural laborers, settlers, and so on. »
In 1950, the Cold War had already begun and the Soviet Union — the allies’ temporary ally against Adolf Hitler — had become enemy number one of the West. Consequently, the members of the SS Galicia Division who had fought against the Red Army, and for the independence of Ukraine, had been perceived by the Canadian government as fierce anti-communists. This is how he welcomed them with open arms.
The Canadian Jewish Congress strongly denounced this decision — in vain. Hundreds of members of this unit, also called the 1D Ukrainian Division, entered Canada between 1950 and 1955. One of them was Yaroslav Hunka, then still a young man in his twenties. It is his past that has come back to haunt the now ex-President of the House of Commons, Anthony Rota.
The latter had invited Mr. Hunka, now 98 years old and a resident of his Ontario riding, to attend the speech by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky before the Canadian Parliament on September 22. Mr. Rota even described him as “a Ukrainian hero, a Canadian hero” in front of Mr. Zelensky and the whole world.
This colossal blunder on Mr. Rota’s part cost him his job and embarrassed Canada. Russia used it to justify its invasion of Ukraine, the aim of which would be the “denazification” of this country. The Kremlin spokesperson went as far as he could, declaring that the incident confirmed “once again Ukraine’s Nazi ideology.”
After procrastinating, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau finally offered an apology on behalf of the Canadian Parliament, five days after the ovation given to Hunka in the Commons. This is far from the end of the story. This case revives demands from representatives of the Jewish community for Ottawa to launch a thorough investigation into the St. Laurent government’s decision to allow members of the SS Galicia Division to enter the country in the first place.
As the Trudeau government tries to maintain public support for Canada’s military and humanitarian aid to Ukraine, such an investigation could undermine that goal. It would nevertheless be an opportunity to carry out the work that Judge Jules Deschênes had not wanted to undertake when he chaired the Commission of Inquiry into War Criminals set up by Brian Mulroney in 1985.
“The Commission was not formed with a view to restarting the Second World War,” Judge Deschênes declared at the time. Its past, present or future hearings are not intended to arouse feelings of animosity between various groups in the country. The work of the Commission is not aimed at any particular group or ethnicity and, therefore, it should not be used to reopen old wounds. » Concerning the decision of the St-Laurent government to admit the members of the SS Galicia Division to the country, the Commission’s legal advisor, Yves Fortier, said that the latter had “no mandate to seek to determine whether this directive should have been issued or not.
In its final report, submitted in 1986, the Deschênes commission concluded that no evidence had come “to support the accusations of war crimes brought against the members of the Galicia Division” and that “membership in the Galicia Division does not [pouvait] justify legal proceedings in itself. However, these conclusions were far from satisfying Jewish groups at the time. These same groups are today asking Ottawa to lift the veil on this episode in Canadian history.
“It is now time for Ottawa not only to release the uncensored files relating to the Deschênes Commission, but also to address the harsh reality that former Nazis with blood on their hands still live in Canada,” he said. the president of the Friends of the Simon-Wiesenthal Center, Michael Levitt, himself a former federal Liberal MP.
Immigration Minister Marc Miller appeared to support the claims, saying: “There was a point in our history when it was easier to enter Canada as a Nazi than as a Jew. I think it’s a story we need to reconcile. »
If the Hunka affair leads us to finish the unfinished work of the Deschênes commission, Mr. Rota may have done us a great service after all.
Based in Montreal, Konrad Yakabuski is a columnist at Globe and Mail.