Ukrainian Congress Denies Involvement in Nazi Veteran Parliament Invite

Yaroslav Hunka (R) waits for the arrival of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in the House of Commons in Ottawa on Sept. 22, 2023. The Canadian Press/Patrick Doyle

The Ukrainian Canadian Congress has denied that it played any role in the invitation and acknowledgement of Nazi veteran Yaroslav Hunka to the Canadian Parliament last September during the Ukrainian president’s visit.

CEO of the Congress Ihor Michalchyshyn testified in front of the House Affairs Committee on March 21 and claimed that his organization had no contact with the office of the speaker of the House regarding the invite, Blocklock’s Reporter first reported.

“We had no involvement and never spoke to the speaker’s office or to the Hunka family about his invitation to Parliament,” Mr. Michalchyshyn told MPs. “I have no insight into who was invited to Parliament or not.”

Mr. Michalchyshyn stated that while the Congress did propose Mr. Hunka as a possible guest for a Toronto reception involving Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, he also claimed that no one had looked into the background of all those on the large list of individuals.

“We were contacted to do a broad invitation to thousands of people in Toronto, so we provided a list of every past donor, volunteer, community organization, [and] board of directors that we had to receive an invitation,” said Mr. Michalchyshyn. “I don’t know who was or wasn’t invited at the end, but his name appeared on a list that we had forwarded, yes.”

The Liberal government blamed the Congress for the matter after it was revealed Mr. Trudeau had sent the invitation to Mr. Hunka.

“The name of the individual we are discussing in these proceedings was submitted by the Ukrainian Canadian Congress,” Government House Leader Steven MacKinnon told a House committee on Feb. 13.

With regards to Mr. Hunka’s invitation to the Commons, former House Speaker Anthony Rota took the fall for inviting the man from his riding of Nipissing—Timiskaming. Mr. Rota had also recognized Mr. Hunka in the gallery as a “hero” who fought the Russians during World War II.

Mr. Rota resigned from his position following domestic and international outrage over the incident.

Mr. Hunka, 99, fought in the 14th Waffen Grenadier Division of the SS (1st Galician) of the Nazi regime against the Soviet Union in WWII.

Mr. Michalchyshyn told MPs in the committee the unit Mr. Hunka was part of had not been involved in war crimes. “It is unfortunate and hurtful that many ill-informed politicians and members of the media chose to engage with this simplistic and inaccurate narratives,” he said.

A Parliamentary report produced and published in 1986, which cited a 1950 British Foreign Office memo, came to a similar conclusion in noting that no member of the SS division had been charged or accused of war crimes by the Soviet Union or any other government.

Lubomyr Luciuk, a professor at the Royal Military College in Kingston, was part of the commission that published the report and stated last September that the accusations of war crimes among members of the division were part of a Soviet campaign dubbed “Operation Payback.”

However, there has been disagreement on whether or not the SS Galician division participated in war crimes, with a 2003 Polish government commission finding that members of the 14th division took part in a massacre of women and children in a village called Huta Pieniacka on Feb. 28, 1944.