Justin Trudeau, Chrystia Freeland and Their Nazi Specter
In a functional society, Justin Trudeau and Chrystia Freeland would be heavily sanctioned.
At the end of September 2023, Anthony Rota resigned as Speaker of the House of Commons of Canada at the height of a scandal that shook the country after the visit of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. Following Zelensky’s speech in the Commons, Rota praised a man whom he described as “a Canadian hero”, which prompted a standing ovation from MPs. This man was Yaroslav Hunka, a Ukrainian veteran who had fought in a volunteer unit under Nazi command during World War II.
Media reported afterwards that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's office had invited Hunka to another event that evening. It was a mistake, pleaded the same office. Still, on the Ukrainian issue, that kind of gaffes is accumulating on the Prime Minister’s desk, to the point where one has to ask the question: why do Liberals always spare the neo-Nazis when it comes to Ukraine? The answer lies in a name: Chrystia Freeland.
A Nazi Background
Ukraine, which Western nations, including Canada, have vigorously defended against Russia since the start of hostilities between the two countries a decade ago, has a culture deeply rooted in the far right. And this culture has peppered the history of the Ukrainian family of the Trudeau government’s number 2, Chrystia Freeland.
Two names arise: Boris Shkandrij, and Michael Chomiak. The first is the less known of the pair, but he is the father of one of Chrystia Freeland's uncles, Myroslav Shkandrij. Boris Shkandrij was part of the Waffen-SS “Galicia” Division during the Second World War. He was released in 1949 from a prisoner-of-war camp in Italy.
Michael Chomiak is Freeland's maternal grandfather. Just like Boris Shkandrij, his military career was grounded in the darkness. Chomiak worked for two Nazi SS outlets, including the Krakivski Visti, which the Nazis had seized from its Jewish owners to use it as a propaganda machine. During their four years in Nazi-occupied Poland, the Chomiaks were provided with two apartments in Krakow complete with furniture that had been appropriated from the previous Jewish occupants.
Chomiak's immediate boss was Volodymyr Kubijovych, the man who pushed the Nazis to create the Ukrainian division of Galicia. After the war, he and Michael Chomiak established the Encyclopedia of Ukraine in Edmonton, which was then signed over to the University of Alberta, whose chancellor, Peter Savaryn, was a veteran of the Ukrainian SS. Despite this dark record, Savaryn was awarded the Order of Canada for his volunteer work among the Ukrainian diaspora.
Ukrainian Nazis Immigrate in Canada
It was not only Kubijovych and Chomiak who came to Canada after the war. Tens of thousands of Ukrainian ultranationalists also arrived in the country thanks in large part to the Liberal Party government of the time. This migration included thousands of veterans of the Galician division and the Ukrainian Insurgent Army, known by its Ukrainian acronym, UPA.
The UPA was the militarized wing of an extremist faction led by Stepan Bandera, a hero of the Ukrainian diaspora in Canada. Even today, many within this diaspora honor the memory of Bandera. Yet, the man was involved in the massacre of Jews, Poles and Soviets during World War II. His name came up during the trial of Nazi war criminals at Nuremberg, where he was described as a “German agent”.
All these facts cited above were hidden by the Trudeau government, which is ironic as the same government was quick to accuse the truckers of the Freedom Convoy of being part of a “fringe minority” from the far right, which was a lie relayed by its media allies. In March 2022, these media allies deliberately put a lid on the story about Chrystia Freeland who had been photographed holding a scarf bearing colors associated with the UPA.
$1 billion to Train Neo-Nazi Militias
In 2024, organizers of the Freedom Convoy still must defend themselves in court against a government increasingly stretching the elastic band of authoritarianism. On the other side of the spectrum, that government is assisting thousands of neo-Nazis in Ukraine, where Canada has been present since 2015 as part of Operation UNIFIER, in support of the local security forces.
According to a report from George Washington University, among those who benefited from military advice from Canadian soldiers in Ukraine is a group called “Centuria” led by individuals linked to the Azov Regiment, a far-right organization that the Americans and quite possibly NATO also trained. Based on interviews with Azov Regiment members, The Telegraph reported that some of its fighters doubted the reality of the Holocaust and expressed admiration for Adolf Hitler.
The total cost for Canada for training these Ukrainian forces since 2014: over a billion dollars.
Sources
COAT and Press for Conversion, CTV News #1, #2, Dan Fournier's Inconventient Truth, Esprit de corps, Global News, Le Journal de Montréal, Sleeping With Giants, The Globe and Mail, The Ottawa Citizen, TNC