I agree the resignation is a bit silly.
But reading it more closely, it looks like this guy volunteered with an SS unit after the Nazis took Ukraine. So he was not even some native German we might imagine was pressured into the SS. He was a Ukrainian who volunteered for the worst elements of an occupying power. There may be personal, mitigating circumstances for him, or I may misunderstand the situation, but on paper it sounds even worse than the headline.
“Build that wall!!”
Yeah, head scratching on why he resigned. He made a mistake, not even a mistake of character. It was just information he wasn’t aware of. That’s a ‘sorry’, not a quit your career.
Someone needed to be blamed, he was the easiest.
I think it’s best he quit. I’m ok with him staying as an MP though to avoid a costly by election.
I may be wrong but I am not pursuaded that ignorance is a plausible excuse in this issue. The event happened Friday and now less than a week later we know quite a bit of the man’s nazi history. It seems as if it wasn’t that hard to ferret out the man’s history. Taken together with it being alleged that parliament didnt include gvt in these invitations it just looks like sloppy work. If the speaker hadn’t brought specific attention to the man this wouldn’t have been an issue anyway.
It’s hard to judge without knowing the opportunity cost of investigating this guy more.
The Conservative Party leader in Canada is not going to let this story go away. I agree it showed an embarrassing amount of incompetence but a Trudeau apology accomplishes little or nothing as he has already admitted it was an embarrassment.
If that’s the biggest, Canada’s has a record to be very proud of.
Our Conservative Party leader has a tendency towards hyperbole. Seems to be a common malady of the Right.
It’s nice to know that insufferable blowhards are common in democracies, and not a unique symptom of America.
It doesn’t seem that surprising that it wouldn’t have gotten noticed to me. That is, it would never have occurred to me that you’d have to check a Ukrainian for a Nazi background. But then, I’m not in government.
I should fix it to say “But then, I"m not in politics”, which I’d think is the more important thing here.
A lot of Ukrainians did support hitler, but their other option was Stalin, so…
Joining the SS is a bigger step than just supporting, but I’m not sure I would have thought to check for that.
There were a large number of Ukrainians with Nazi connections who came to Canada after WW2 so it would be expected that Canadian government officials should do the check.
As historical background, Stalin had just finished killing a few million Ukrainians through starvation shortly before the nazis invaded (Holodomor). So I’m not saying supporting the nazis was ok, but I can see feeling somewhat liberated by them for a bit. Meet the new boss, same as the old boss…
ETA
“Areas depopulated by the famine were resettled by Russians in the Zaporizhzhia, Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts, but not as much so in central Ukraine.”
At least the process to replace the Speaker of the House went smoothly and Canada now has its first Black Speaker.
WW3/live-action Fallout game incoming? Been nice knowing most of you.
Is he dead or not? Interesting article.
https://thehill.com/opinion/international/4283716-reports-of-putins-death-might-not-be-greatly-exaggerated/
Interesting indeed but I am betting that the rumours of his death have been greatly exaggerated.
Ukraine shoots down a Russian plane designed for transport, but not designed for human transport beyond a small crew.
Russia claims it had numerous Ukrainian POWs. Ukraine claims Russia was transporting missiles.
Many news agencies seem to be taking Russian reporting of the death count for their headlines, then buried in the second paragraph will say “we could not confirm this”. Ukraine has confirmed there was going to be a prisoner swap that is currently not happening. If not for Ukraine’s statement I’d immediately assume Russia was lying, but it seems possible POWs were killed now. It also could have been both POWs and missiles. It sounds very on-brand for Russia to protect its military assets with POW human shields.