Juno News - Danielle Smith says booster plans are none of the media's business

00:00:00.000 Transcribed by ESO, translated by —

00:00:30.000 Thank you.

00:01:00.000 welcome to canada's most irreverent talk show this is the andrew lawton show brought to you by true

00:01:20.420 north hello and welcome to you all this is canada's most irreverent talk show the andrew

00:01:30.820 lawton show here on true north on this thursday september 28th wrapping up another week of this

00:01:37.420 program and boy has it been a busy week we're going to talk a little bit more about the fallout

00:01:43.560 of the house of commons recognition of a nazi veteran a little bit later on in the program

00:01:49.060 And I actually wanted to delve into a topic that I kind of just broached a little bit

00:01:54.740 yesterday on the show, which is why Canada has historically been so soft on Nazi war

00:02:01.180 criminals.

00:02:01.500 This is not just an isolated incident.

00:02:03.440 This isn't just an aberration.

00:02:04.800 Canada actually had for several decades a reputation as being very soft on this very

00:02:11.320 issue.

00:02:11.700 And it was a reputation around the world.

00:02:13.500 So we'll delve into that a little bit more with a gentleman from B'nai B'rith.

00:02:17.520 But also the story that I talked about that I did yesterday on how Christian Freeland really, really, really should have known better.

00:02:26.160 We'll talk about that a little bit later on.

00:02:28.180 But I thought that people might be able to use a bit of a break from Nazi gate in the opening moments of the show.

00:02:33.760 I'm sorry. I didn't mean to gate it.

00:02:35.560 That's like the most insufferable thing that journalists do.

00:02:38.160 They call everything a gate.

00:02:39.500 there's you know the water gate of course was the original gate and then there's you know deflate

00:02:44.220 gate and inflate gate and pork gate and milk gate i don't know everything's a gate gate gate that's

00:02:50.380 that's the real scandal that everything's a gate we'll call it gate gate but nevertheless i do want

00:02:54.620 to shift a little bit over to alberta we haven't talked about alberta politics in a little while

00:02:59.740 the alberta government today is it's kind of interesting declaring war on the federal

00:03:04.540 government's electricity regulations. Premier Danielle Smith and Energy Minister Rebecca

00:03:10.160 Schultz, both of whom we've had on the show on a number of occasions, have started an ad campaign.

00:03:15.640 I think they're announcing it right now, actually, where they're telling people about the dangers of

00:03:20.340 what the federal government is doing. So Alberta is looking to Justin Trudeau and saying, we are

00:03:26.160 not going to stand for this and Albertans are not going to stand for this. So that's been

00:03:31.400 quite interesting to watch. But there was also a clip yesterday from a press conference that

00:03:36.820 Danielle Smith and Health Minister Adriana LaGrange did that has been going viral, as they

00:03:43.060 say. Now, this was actually an announcement about the charges laid against a food service provider

00:03:48.820 in Calgary related to the E. coli outbreak. But it became something else when one reporter decided

00:03:56.340 to ask the really burning question on everyone's mind in Alberta by which I mean no one's mind but

00:04:03.360 his. Federal immunization panel has recommended that folks get their COVID booster this fall

00:04:09.080 just curious if we have a sense of when that's going to be available here in Alberta and if the

00:04:14.000 province is going to be launching any kind of campaign to encourage people to do that and

00:04:17.160 I guess personally if you yourself are planning to get the shot. I'll let Minister Lagrange tell

00:04:21.740 you. I think we're just I think we're just preparing the final details on the press release

00:04:27.080 on that. Before you before that would you get in the shot? Look I'm a healthy person. I tend to

00:04:32.940 take care of my immune system and I believe this is something I should talk about with my doctor

00:04:37.000 not media. Thank you for the question and yes we just received information from the federal

00:04:46.380 government in terms of when we will be seeing those vaccination those vaccines available to

00:04:52.640 the province so we're working through the process all as always Albertans do have access for flu

00:05:00.780 influenza RSV etc all of the various vaccines that are available so once we have that information

00:05:08.320 we'll get it out as soon as possible as part of the normal course of business typically vaccines

00:05:14.120 are available the end of September, beginning of October, so we anticipate that information coming very shortly.

00:05:21.860 And just the same question to you, Minister LaGrange. Do you plan to get the shot?

00:05:26.480 It depends which shot you're talking about.

00:05:28.640 Like, I'm looking. I'm very healthy as well.

00:05:32.600 I have a very healthy immune system, and you know what?

00:05:36.080 I also believe that this is a personal decision for individuals to make.

00:05:41.460 I will look at that as time progresses and what my journey is.

00:05:48.180 But again, this is a personal decision.

00:05:50.860 People have to make it for themselves, for their children,

00:05:53.420 and we respect the decisions that people make.

00:05:57.300 Sean is making fun of me in our show chat channel right now.

00:06:01.900 He thought I was making a terrible pun when I said going viral because of COVID.

00:06:05.920 No, I meant like going viral on the internet, Sean.

00:06:08.220 Come on, get with the hip lingo.

00:06:09.320 I don't know if going viral is hip. Actually, I've never been hip in my life. So no reason to

00:06:13.720 start now. But it was an unintentional pun, I assure you. This is, I think, a very important

00:06:18.940 point. So what we heard from Premier Danielle Smith and Health Minister Adriana LaGrange,

00:06:23.600 some people are taking from it that they don't intend to get boosted at all, which I would say

00:06:29.280 is probably a fair assumption. But I think Danielle Smith's point here is an incredibly valid one.

00:06:34.160 this is none of the media's business and I think it was actually quite something when politicians

00:06:40.680 started making it everyone's business and when we introduced this litmus test into politics that we

00:06:46.660 and into society that we decide and define someone's worth based on whether they've had

00:06:52.660 this particular vaccine and how many boosters they've gotten and now I mean you may be able to

00:06:57.440 tell that it probably tells you something about someone if you find out that they've had you know

00:07:02.560 their 19th booster or whatever. And then you could perhaps suggest that maybe they're an

00:07:06.380 Ottawa school trustee. But the point of this is that we are looking at a situation in which

00:07:12.220 there is the closest I've seen from a politician on a return to normal post-COVID. Because it used

00:07:19.360 to be back in the good old days, by which I mean 2019 and earlier, that I didn't know my doctor's

00:07:25.120 political views. I didn't need to know my doctor's political views. And I didn't need to know if

00:07:30.200 anyone around me had received a vaccine for whatever, whether it was measles, mumps, rubella,

00:07:35.680 COVID or HPV or anything else. And I loved that. I loved when it was just a personal choice that

00:07:42.360 you made and it was none of anyone else's business. But then politicians started to

00:07:47.120 take personal pride in how many of their citizens they could convince or later coerce to get the

00:07:53.380 vaccine. So they started just, you know, sitting down, rolling up their sleeves, getting this shot,

00:07:57.520 that shot, this booster, that booster, and then the new booster comes out. So they've got to sit

00:08:01.840 down and get that. And now, I mean, they're making them available for people who want them.

00:08:06.320 I think the fact that the health minister and premier are not telling people to do it,

00:08:10.280 they weren't even the ones talking about it. It was some reporter that said, hey,

00:08:14.180 what are you doing for people that want it? It's there for those who want it. And for those who

00:08:19.600 don't, they have no obligation to get it. And I think this is absolutely the way it should be.

00:08:25.440 And I, you know, I don't even think a lot of the really alarmist types that we see in political leadership positions or running public health departments are really trying as hard anymore, because I think they know that most people are just rolling their eyes.

00:08:38.860 And the COVID vaccine has basically become like the flu shot, where if you really want it, maybe you'll do it. If you're somewhere where it's being offered to you, maybe you'll get it. But it's not this thing that you need to do that your existence depends on.

00:08:52.960 And, you know, we've seen time and time again over the last three years when the goalposts have moved and, you know, it was two weeks to flatten the curve.

00:09:01.380 It was get your two doses and then your third.

00:09:03.280 And then, you know, Emmanuel Macron, I think it was, was saying that we should all just get boosted every three months.

00:09:07.920 I don't know if he's been keeping up with that himself, but I think generally speaking, a lot of these people are prepared to let it die on the order paper.

00:09:15.700 And when Daniel Smith responds, I'm healthy. My immune system's good. I'm going to talk about this with my doctor and not with the media. That is the point. And, you know, for Minister LaGrange to follow up with a similar answer and instill in people that this is a personal choice.

00:09:32.180 The government of Alberta has no care whatsoever about whether or not you get the COVID vaccine, or if I'm reading between the lines, any other vaccines.

00:09:42.540 That is the question of choice that should have been the guiding principle throughout the entirety of the pandemic.

00:09:49.900 Now, I should say, speaking of Danielle Smith, a bit of an announcement to make.

00:09:54.100 I teased this earlier in the week, whether it was yesterday or Tuesday, I can't recall.

00:09:58.840 but you may recall true north is hosting its first ever live and in-person event this is

00:10:04.660 taking place on october 21st in calgary and it is going to be a lot of fun we'll have lots of

00:10:10.600 the true north personalities you know and hopefully love i'll be there harrison faulkner will be there

00:10:15.720 rupa subramania rachel emmanuel who is now on maternity leave but is returning just for us and

00:10:22.300 i should say just for you so you'll want to go to that and we were originally the a-listers but

00:10:27.260 we've been demoted a little bit on the website because we have a new a-lister our keynote speaker

00:10:32.120 which has just been announced right this second by me is alberta premier danielle smith yes danielle

00:10:40.440 smith i i left an applause break even though i can't hear you but danielle smith is going to be

00:10:45.160 the keynote speaker at that event and we also have some more folks we're going to be announcing as

00:10:49.580 well but if you want to come out and hear premier danielle smith speak she's always been a big 0.98

00:10:54.720 supporter of Independent Media and of True North and has always made time for us when we've asked.

00:10:59.860 And as you know, I have worked with her over the years before her return to politics. We were

00:11:04.480 colleagues on the same radio station in Calgary, and I was actually her guest host, which my joke

00:11:10.660 that I'll have to retire because I've used it like four times now is that I'm actually, based on that

00:11:15.060 arrangement, the acting premier of Alberta when she's indisposed, although I'm not sure the

00:11:18.900 Constitution of Canada necessarily agrees with me. But nevertheless, you can get all the details at

00:11:24.580 truenorthevents.ca truenorthevents.ca and i hope to see many of you there i suspect there might be

00:11:31.040 a bit of a flurry of ticket sales now so because we have only a limited number available i would

00:11:36.880 encourage you to get in now if you want to come out and have a good time and we're going to try

00:11:42.800 to make politics a little bit fun and interesting i realize that sometimes it can get very dark and

00:11:47.740 dismal and dirgy we're going to keep it fun we've got a few tricks up our sleeve for you and i think

00:11:53.760 you'll have a great deal of fun, as I certainly hope to as well, putting it on. So I'm not really

00:11:58.760 putting it on. I'm just showing up. My colleagues are the ones doing all the heavy lifting on that.

00:12:02.720 But I think it was interesting and timed out very well with Danielle Smith saying what she did. I've

00:12:07.580 seen in the comments some people that are really quite wowed by this because, you know, Danielle

00:12:13.060 Smith came in and she followed a government under Jason Kenney that was a very popular government

00:12:20.080 among Conservatives when he was first elected. He did this uniting the right thing. And then

00:12:25.500 COVID came. And COVID was the great derailer of politicians and their agendas. I mean,

00:12:31.640 you look at Ontario. I ran to be a member of the Ontario legislature in 2018. And had I been

00:12:38.480 elected, I would have been, I mean, my hope would be that I would have found the courage and

00:12:42.100 backbone to be kicked out of caucus like Roman Babber and other folks as well. And Belinda 0.98

00:12:47.520 Karahalios, another example. But Doug Ford, I think without COVID, probably goes through that 0.65

00:12:53.260 first term without much controversy, viewed somewhat favorably by conservatives. Jason

00:12:58.300 Kenney, I know there were already some frustrations, especially on the Western Independence file,

00:13:03.440 but I think he gets through his term, certainly without the leadership review coming at the time

00:13:08.180 that it did. I think he would have survived a vote like that had it not been for COVID. So

00:13:12.840 because of that, there's been this correction. And that correction is what's brought Danielle

00:13:18.400 Smith in Alberta. That correction, I think, is what's brought Pierre Polyev in the federal

00:13:23.840 environment. And I think that's a very important thing that we need to keep an eye on here.

00:13:28.600 I did want to talk a little bit more about the recognition last week of Yaroslav Hunka,

00:13:34.420 the Ukrainian veteran with the 14th Waffen Grenadier Division in the SS. This is a story

00:13:42.120 that has brought tremendous shame and embarrassment on Canada. We had Justin Trudeau yesterday issue

00:13:48.220 a half-hearted apology. It wasn't an apology on behalf of his government, but an apology on behalf

00:13:54.140 of Canada and Canadians, even though I can safely say I did not invite a Nazi to stand and receive

00:14:00.740 a standing ovation in the House of Commons. That was not me at all. So I don't actually shoulder a

00:14:05.920 bit of that apology. But it has brought about, I think, a bigger discussion in this country,

00:14:11.220 certainly one that I've been aware of with my studies on Holocaust history,

00:14:15.740 and that is how Canada for many years had a reputation as being a haven for Nazi war criminals.

00:14:22.580 This was something that renowned Nazi hunter Simon Wiesenthal pointed out.

00:14:26.760 It was something that ultimately led to a report being commissioned in the 80s called the Shane Commission.

00:14:33.440 And this report was not nearly as forceful as it needed to have been,

00:14:37.660 And I think received a lot of criticism, but none more than the fact that the second part of the report, which actually had very detailed information about Nazis in Canada, has never in the last 37 years seen the light of day.

00:14:52.440 There have been calls, notably from Jewish advocacy groups, to release it.

00:14:57.660 Chrystia Freeland was asked this week whether the government would reopen it and just gave that very dancing around answer of,

00:15:04.120 well, you know, we're sorry and we have to, you know, look into everything and didn't really address this issue head on.

00:15:10.900 The challenge is that if you are talking about justice, which is really what motivates people that want to unearth the identities

00:15:19.180 and names of Nazi war criminals who fled prosecution,

00:15:22.800 it becomes more and more difficult, if not impossible, with each passing year.

00:15:27.760 The people that were around are very old.

00:15:30.120 Most of them have died, and even the ones who are still alive 0.65

00:15:33.480 will oftentimes find treatment is given to them

00:15:37.360 specifically because of the rage that does not pursue justice.

00:15:40.920 This is a case we've seen time and time again.

00:15:43.720 But do we have a right as Canadians to see this report?

00:15:49.000 That is a very key question that I hope we get some answers on.

00:15:51.940 I want to talk about this a little bit further with Richard Robertson, who is the research

00:15:55.960 manager at B'nai B'rith and joins me now.

00:15:59.240 Richard, good to talk to you.

00:16:00.300 Thanks for coming on today.

00:16:02.000 Thank you so much for having me, Andrew.

00:16:03.880 So just to set the stage here, I mean, the Deschene Commission is not something that

00:16:08.240 a lot of people have heard of before this week.

00:16:10.720 It's not something that I spent a lot of time on.

00:16:13.020 I'm certainly familiar with it.

00:16:14.380 But why was the second part never released in the first place?

00:16:17.880 Was it just about privacy and not wanting to accuse people in print of complicity and very heinous crimes?

00:16:29.720 Oh, we may have lost Richard. Can you still hear me, Richard?

00:16:36.760 All right. Either he is thinking very, very carefully about what he's going to say or we had a technical issue there.

00:16:42.540 We'll get him reconnected in just a moment's time here.

00:16:45.760 My apologies for those glitches.

00:16:48.940 But just to give the number here, 1986, that was when this report came out.

00:16:54.860 And there were really what sparked it was a member of parliament had actually made the

00:17:00.520 accusation in the House of Commons that Joseph Mengele, the Nazi butcher, had found haven

00:17:07.280 in Canada.

00:17:07.840 Now, Mengele had actually attempted to enter Canada, and he was not, to the best of anyone's

00:17:12.880 knowledge, in Canada at this time, but it did raise the discussion and it raised the

00:17:18.060 debate about whether Canada had been far too permissive.

00:17:20.880 Now, this is a country that slammed the door in the faces of Jewish refugees after the

00:17:27.040 Holocaust. 0.77

00:17:27.680 Canada, you know, you may have read Irving Abella's fabulous and very authoritative book

00:17:33.240 on this, None is Too Many, a title inspired by, you know, basically one immigration gatekeeper's

00:17:39.880 approach to how Jewish refugees were to be treated, which is that they are not Canada's

00:17:45.320 problem. And it was a tremendously shameful part of history. And it wasn't just that we were closed

00:17:50.240 immigrants in general, because after the war, Canada had no issues being very lax with opening

00:17:56.760 the door to people who had been Nazis. There was not nearly the scrutiny there should have been

00:18:01.460 on people's identities. And even after the fact, when we learned that people had misrepresented,

00:18:07.580 when we learned that people had misrepresented where they served, who they did, all of that,

00:18:13.540 when we knew that for a fact, Canada had the option to go after these people, to prosecute

00:18:20.060 them, and oftentimes chose not to, or did it in very half-hearted ways. And if you look even after

00:18:26.620 the Deschenes Commission report, one of the real takeaways is that there wasn't really any major

00:18:33.780 prosecution that took place. There were a few attempts, one was acquitted, a few were withdrawn,

00:18:38.780 and ultimately it just sort of died on the vine. And as a result, it's not something we really

00:18:43.720 talk about all that often as a country. And the case of Yaroslav Hanke, who I should say,

00:18:49.680 I have no evidence whatsoever, and I'm not making a claim that he was complicit or involved

00:18:54.380 in any war crimes or any criminality. The SS itself was a criminal organization. This was

00:19:02.380 upheld by Nuremberg, and the 14th Waffen Division was an SS unit. I believe we have Richard Robertson

00:19:09.680 back from B'nai B'rith here. Richard, we'll try this again. Why was the second part of this report

00:19:15.180 never released? That's a really good question, Andrew, and it's one whose answer remains unclear

00:19:21.520 at this time. I believe you had referenced privacy earlier, and it's highly likely that

00:19:27.360 in the 1980s, 86 to be exact, when the Deschenes Commission was releasing its findings,

00:19:33.000 that there was privacy concerns whether or not they were due or undue for the members of the

00:19:38.220 Nazi regime or associates of the Nazi regime who were implicated in the report.

00:19:44.120 when you look at the ss i mean it's important to note that the ss is not frontline german soldiers

00:19:52.080 that had nothing to do with the holocaust that were just fighting in in france the ss was a very

00:19:57.180 specific case the ss was as a whole classified as a criminal organization with war crimes at

00:20:03.780 nuremberg why did canada really carve out it seems like an exception to its policy on ss

00:20:11.060 soldiers with the members of this unit, with Ukrainian SS soldiers.

00:20:19.420 Oh, I believe we have lost Richard once again. We'll give it one more try. If not, we'll

00:20:24.600 definitely move on from this, but I hope we can get him back on because Bnei Brith and

00:20:29.200 Seja, even before this whole business with Yaroslav Hanka, back in, I think it was April,

00:20:35.260 we had Jewish groups that were standing up and saying, and I mentioned on the show earlier this

00:20:40.920 week, Michael Barrett, who is a conservative member of parliament, had introduced a motion

00:20:45.960 before one of the committees. I can't remember which one it was. And it was a motion for the

00:20:50.680 government to release this. And so far as I can tell, I've not been able to see whether that

00:20:56.820 motion was ever voted on. So either the motion never ended up making it to a vote or the motion

00:21:03.860 was passed and the government just decided not to do anything with it. And this would be a very

00:21:08.700 easy win for the government a very easy win for the government right now to come out and say

00:21:13.900 absolutely we believe transparency is important we're going to release this report like I don't

00:21:20.080 understand why that's not a slam dunk unless there are legal considerations whether it's privacy law

00:21:26.040 or something else or what I suspect is that releasing the report will allow people like me

00:21:32.940 allow people like you to look and find that there were a whole bunch of names of people

00:21:36.780 that the government knew were ex-Nazis and chose to do nothing about.

00:21:43.460 And that, I believe, is the only rationale,

00:21:46.980 the only compelling rationale for why the government would not want to release this,

00:21:50.720 is that it would show a failure by the Canadian government,

00:21:53.780 a failure over successive governments over many decades,

00:21:57.400 a failure to deal with this problem despite having the evidence.

00:22:01.680 And I mentioned Simon Wiesenthal earlier.

00:22:04.260 Simon Wiesenthal made it very easy.

00:22:06.100 he wasn't asking for the government to launch any investigations. He handed the data. He did

00:22:10.620 all the work himself as a Jewish man who cared deeply about this, about justice, and he handed

00:22:16.180 it to governments. He handed it to Canada, to the US, to Germany, all of these governments,

00:22:20.580 and it was upon them to take the steps to put that into action. And there was a piece in 1997

00:22:28.000 in the New York Times which delved into this, an article that showed very significantly how Canada

00:22:35.400 had been, at the time, earning a reputation around the world

00:22:39.660 as being a haven for Nazi war criminals.

00:22:43.100 Not exactly the reputation you want.

00:22:45.060 And this Yaroslav Hanka business has, I think, reinvigorated that very discussion.

00:22:50.340 And I want to go back to what Krista Freeland said yesterday.

00:22:53.340 You have to hear just how little of anything resembling something even close

00:22:58.280 to an answer there is when she's asked if the government will reopen this report.

00:23:05.400 There are calls by B'nai B'rith to reopen a report by the Duchesne Commission so that Canadians can know how many veterans who fought with the Nazis are here in our country.

00:23:15.640 Will the government do so, and what is your response to that?

00:23:19.100 I think, you know, let me just start by reiterating,

00:23:32.300 and I don't think it can be said too many times,

00:23:36.960 how hurtful for so many people in Canada and around the world

00:23:45.520 And what happened was and has been and continues to be.

00:23:56.940 As MPs, in our capacity as MPs, it's important for appropriate next steps in the House to

00:24:08.800 be taken.

00:24:10.340 And I think that is our immediate focus.

00:24:15.440 And as a government, we're going to be very thoughtful about any further steps that need to be taken.

00:24:26.520 As you heard there, not really addressing the question head on,

00:24:30.840 the point that I mentioned a moment ago is that I feel the only possible reason

00:24:35.820 that the government is not wanting to release this is because it will just reveal

00:24:40.020 how much information the government had and still opted not to prosecute former Nazis.

00:24:45.980 And again, it's a theory on my part, but it's the only one that I can really see.

00:24:50.780 We'll try Richard Robertson from B'nai B'rith one more time.

00:24:53.920 And I don't blame you for this, Richard.

00:24:55.380 It's technology.

00:24:56.340 It happens sometimes.

00:24:57.180 But, you know, do you see another explanation for why they wouldn't release it than that,

00:25:02.520 that it just highlights government inaction on this file over decades?

00:25:05.840 Yeah, and the troubling thing, Andrew, is that it is over a series of decades. This has been an

00:25:11.840 ongoing saga, which our organization has been directly involved in since the 1980s. B'nai

00:25:18.500 Brith was represented by David Matus at the Duchesne Commission in the 1980s and has been

00:25:24.200 advocating with increasing vigor for the last number of years to finally give Canadians what

00:25:30.380 they're due, which is access to this information.

00:25:34.160 One of the challenges here, and I alluded to this earlier, is that, you know, with each

00:25:38.020 passing year, it becomes harder and harder to get justice.

00:25:42.160 I mean, there was the Helmut Oberlander case not far from me in southwestern Ontario, where

00:25:46.440 we had a guy who had served in a very brutal Nazi unit, irrespective of what his individual

00:25:52.320 actions were, which there's debate about.

00:25:55.000 He lied when coming to Canada, which regardless of what you've done is that the slam dunk

00:26:00.460 And it took decades, I mean, like a decade and a half, I think, of litigation.

00:26:05.120 He was ordered deported, overturned, over-deported, citizenship stripped, all of that.

00:26:09.860 And in the end of it, he dies in Canada because the process, when you get to a certain age,

00:26:14.000 is just to prolong, prolong, prolong so nothing can happen.

00:26:17.660 I mean, here we have, I mean, Yaroslav Hanke last week is 98 years old.

00:26:22.440 That's probably going to be about what any of these other folks you'd get are here.

00:26:26.800 So do you think the government's hiding behind that in a way and that, you know, wait until there's really no action that it could take because everyone's dead?

00:26:35.480 Well, it's one thing to, you know, refrain from extraditing an individual because of their age.

00:26:40.380 And that's an entirely different question.

00:26:42.620 But it's another thing to deny Canadians access to their past.

00:26:47.380 With each passing day, we lose the opportunity to seek justice, as you discussed.

00:26:52.360 We also lose the opportunity to educate as time continues to pass the amount of analysis that we can do.

00:27:00.800 The relevancy of the material which is presently being denied to Canadians arguably loses some of its value.

00:27:08.940 While we still have both survivors and the persecutors from the era of the Nazi regime alive,

00:27:16.400 It's quintessential that we have access to this information, not only so that we can seek justice, so that we can provide those few survivors who remain with some sense of confidence that their nation is doing the right thing.

00:27:31.260 Why did the government, it seems, kind of carve out an exemption to its approach on Nazis seeking to move to Canada with the Ukrainian veterans?

00:27:43.360 Why did they get kind of a pass effectively?

00:27:46.700 That's an interesting question, Andrew. One whose answers likely exist within the documents on redaction we are presently calling for. I think that there's a logical answer, which is that there was a large Ukrainian population in Canada at that time.

00:28:06.920 There was documents open to the public from the British government in the 2000s, I believe in 2005, that suggest that the British government housed a large portion of the Galician division of Ukrainian POWs and that they were looking to send them either to Canada or back to Germany.

00:28:28.320 there is really no justification or no known answer as to why Canada ended up taking these

00:28:36.200 Ukrainian POWs in at the time and providing them with refuge. We do believe, though, that

00:28:43.980 portions of the commission and of the documents made available to commission, principally the

00:28:50.280 Rodau report, which has only been released in redacted form, do further explain the rationale

00:28:56.880 behind Canada's policy making when it came to the admittance of Nazis. So these are questions

00:29:02.820 that we hope to be able to answer once we successfully have this archive open to the

00:29:07.800 public. I think anyone who's ever studied Holocaust history and post-war history knows that

00:29:14.200 most of the world, I think, failed when it came to the obligation to take in Jewish refugees.

00:29:20.700 There were very few people that came. I mean, China, oddly, did very well in its efforts to

00:29:26.020 help Jews during the Holocaust, but Canada slammed the door in Jewish refugees' faces

00:29:30.100 and, you know, ultimately later on became very lax on allowing in former Nazis.

00:29:35.300 And I'm curious if Canada is worse than everyone else or if everyone was equally bad based

00:29:41.880 on what we know now with the benefit of hindsight.

00:29:45.700 I would say that when you started by commenting that the world failed, that the world did

00:29:53.160 fail.

00:29:53.540 However, as a Canadian organization representing grassroots Canadian Jewry and mandated to combat racism, hatred, and anti-Semitism here in Canada, in all of its forms, our focus is on Canada, and Canada failed.

00:30:08.340 The moniker None is Too Many symbolizes Canada's failure to admit Jewish refugees seeking to escape Nazi persecution in the 30s and the 40s to this country.

00:30:20.240 What transpired on our shores was unacceptable.

00:30:23.540 And we are doing an additional disservice to the victims of the Nazis, those who we sent back to the concentration camps when we admit they're persecutors to our country and then ultimately fail to learn from that.

00:30:41.600 Right now, we have a spotlight on this issue in Canada and, you know, once again, around the world.

00:30:48.500 Are you more optimistic now that you'll be able to get what you want and get this report unredacted now in light of all of this than you've had success or the lack of success you've had in recent years on this and even going back to the 80s?

00:31:01.960 I think that optimism is a strong term, Andrew, but we're hopeful.

00:31:05.520 And often misplaced in politics.

00:31:07.540 If a silver lining can come from this parliamentary debacle and that silver lining is that the Deschenes Commission is released its reports and its reports are released in their entirety and Canada's Holocaust records are open to the public, then that would be a small victory for us. 0.76

00:31:28.160 That's been a long time coming.

00:31:29.720 It will also be bittersweet as this is something that as representatives of Canada's Jewish community, we've been advocating for vigorously for a number of years now.

00:31:41.300 And sadly, our efforts have fallen on deaf ears.

00:31:44.660 So for it to take a member of the Waffen-SS being granted a standing ovation in our parliament for this to be given what it's deserved, that is bittersweet.

00:31:57.400 Yeah, and I think that's a very fair way of putting it.

00:32:00.460 I'm glad we were able to sort out the connection issues.

00:32:03.020 Richard Robertson, Research Manager with B'nai B'rith Canada.

00:32:06.600 Good to talk to you, Richard.

00:32:07.420 Thanks for coming on today.

00:32:08.820 You as well, Andrew.

00:32:09.500 Thank you for having me.

00:32:10.320 All right, thank you.

00:32:10.940 I'm so glad that worked out.

00:32:12.080 And nothing worse than when I'm looking forward to a conversation

00:32:14.000 and the technical issues prevent it from happening.

00:32:17.000 But sometimes it's just a matter of changing your network.

00:32:19.040 So next time you have a Zoom call that drops off,

00:32:21.080 just switch to another network.

00:32:22.500 Or if, conversely, you're trying to get out of a work Zoom meeting,

00:32:25.220 you can switch to the bad network and then blame those issues as well but you didn't get that advice

00:32:30.180 from me i mentioned that yesterday justin trudeau did like the thing that i joke about like i

00:32:36.460 literally joked about this on the show probably on monday maybe tuesday the thing that justin

00:32:42.100 trudeau does whenever he's caught and it becomes a learning opportunity for everyone he's in black

00:32:46.720 face well we all need to do better about racism he gropes a reporter in bc well we all need to

00:32:52.780 learn more about boundaries. He vacations with the Aga Khan. Well, we all need to take a look 0.68

00:32:57.180 in the mirror and wonder what it is to be friends and all that. And lo and behold, doesn't he issue

00:33:02.500 an apology, not on his own behalf, but on behalf of Canadians. And while he's at it, he throws in

00:33:10.020 a little bit of a jab at Russia inexplicably. I also want to reiterate how deeply sorry Canada

00:33:17.240 is for the situation this put President Zelenskyy and the Ukrainian delegation in.

00:33:23.400 It is extremely troubling to think that this egregious error

00:33:27.780 is being politicized by Russia and its supporters

00:33:31.660 to provide false propaganda about what Ukraine is fighting for.

00:33:37.880 Friday's joint session was about what Canada stands for.

00:33:43.280 it's about canada apologizing canada is sorry justin trudeau's not sorry canada is sorry so

00:33:53.500 you as a presumably canadian watching this you're like well hang on i i didn't do it i i didn't i

00:33:59.140 didn't stand up for the guy i didn't invite the guy why why am i sorry for it but this is the i

00:34:04.280 mean the the successes are won individually the failures are born collectively that is the

00:34:11.300 Justin Trudeau mantra, if ever there was one. Pierre Polyev saw through this yesterday in the

00:34:17.920 House of Commons. He tried to get a personal apology from Justin Trudeau. It, well, didn't

00:34:24.140 really work out. It was the personal responsibility of the Prime Minister to invite President

00:34:33.820 Zelensky to the floor of this House of Commons. It was his personal responsibility to make sure

00:34:38.240 was a diplomatic success. It was his personal responsibility to continue to lead the government

00:34:44.640 that has the security, intelligence and diplomatic agencies that could have and should have vetted

00:34:52.960 all individuals who were present and recognized. Yet this Prime Minister allowed for a monumental

00:35:01.680 unprecedented and global shame to unfold in this chamber. Will he take personal responsibility

00:35:08.520 for this shame and personally apologize on behalf of himself?

00:35:13.500 On behalf of all of us in this House, I would like to present unreserved apologies for what

00:35:24.120 took place on Friday and to President Zelensky and the Ukrainian delegation for the position

00:35:30.340 they were put in. For all of us who were present to have unknowingly recognized this individual

00:35:36.120 was a terrible mistake and a violation of the memory of those who suffered

00:35:41.040 grievously at the hands of the Nazi regime.

00:35:47.180 That is, it's just great. Will you personally apologize? Let me apologize on behalf of, I mean

00:35:53.240 that one was at least on behalf of everyone in the House of Commons. That wasn't the

00:35:56.940 apology on behalf of Canada. So that was an apology diffused only 338 ways. The other apology

00:36:04.640 was diffused like 37 million ways. So that's basically where things are going here. I've

00:36:11.840 mentioned this point throughout the week, and I want to delve into it in a bit more detail if I

00:36:15.480 can in these closing moments, that of all the MPs in the House of Commons who stood up and applauded

00:36:21.640 without really twigging to the, wait a minute, World War II fought against Russia, something

00:36:28.560 doesn't add up there. The one who would have known was Chrystia Freeland. Now, this is the

00:36:35.700 Deputy Prime Minister of this country, and people may not be fond of what she stands for or how she

00:36:40.700 presents herself on a number of issues, but she is an incredibly smart woman. She's incredibly

00:36:46.880 well educated she knows her stuff and she knows ukraine she knows ukraine's history she knows

00:36:52.800 world war ii as it relates to ukraine she knows soviet history she spent time in the soviet union

00:36:58.800 she's got a pad in ukraine she knows this back to front she speaks the language she knows the

00:37:06.000 players when you've seen that photo of her hugging zelensky you see how much of an affinity she has

00:37:13.120 for ukraine and i think many canadians would encourage her to move to ukraine and take up

00:37:18.720 service in the government there that might be helpful on some files in canada nevertheless

00:37:23.840 she knows this so if there's one person in the house of commons who lacks the deniability to

00:37:30.160 say well how are we to know it would be her now we've learned a little bit more in recent days

00:37:36.000 one thing that jumps out is that yaroslav hunka's family donated thirty thousand dollars to the

00:37:41.520 University of Alberta for an endowment fund in Yaroslav and his wife Margaret's name. Now $30,000

00:37:49.720 as far as university endowments go is not a huge amount of money. Some of the endowments to the

00:37:54.860 Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies were in the millions of dollars but it's not something

00:38:00.240 that most Canadians could do to write a check for $30,000 to a university. So the fact that this

00:38:05.620 happened suggests to me that his family probably was somewhat known in the Ukrainian community,

00:38:12.180 at least somewhat. I don't know if Chrystia Freeland knew him or if they knew Chrystia Freeland,

00:38:16.560 but I do know that she's been involved with the Institute of Ukrainian Studies,

00:38:20.660 has had this family. So perhaps they've crossed paths, perhaps they haven't. I don't know.

00:38:26.380 But what I do know is that Chrystia Freeland knows this chapter of history very intimately.

00:38:30.980 And I've done some digging on this this week, and I found that she had in her youth, and she was 18 years old at the time, I think that needs to be known, she contributed to a journal, to an encyclopedia of Ukraine that was published in 1986, a very seminal piece, and she was a contributor to this.

00:38:49.880 Now, the editor, the editor of this encyclopedia is a known Nazi collaborator, a known Nazi collaborator.

00:38:59.740 Now, I should qualify that by pointing out that he was deceased at the time the encyclopedia was published.

00:39:07.000 Christopher Freeland likely never, ever worked with him, but it was based on his original work in Ukraine, Volodymyr Kubayevich.

00:39:15.820 And my pronunciation notwithstanding, he was a Nazi collaborator, an anti-Semite, a proponent of ethnic cleansing, but a scholar whose work founded, whose work basically served as the foundation of the Encyclopedia of Ukraine, which was a product of the Canadian Institute for Ukrainian Studies.

00:39:34.800 Chrystia Freeland was a contributor to this.

00:39:36.700 Now, her office did something it has not done in years,

00:39:40.040 which has responded to me when I asked them for some details on this.

00:39:43.960 And they told me that she was a contributor to only a few sections,

00:39:48.780 none of which had anything to do with the particular issue at hand,

00:39:54.220 which is the Waffen 14th SS Division.

00:39:57.800 They said that she contributed to the entries Hayfields,

00:40:01.800 horse breeding, the jute hemp industry, and insurance, not anything to do with the Second

00:40:08.300 World War, which is plausible enough. Again, she was an 18-year-old research assistant,

00:40:12.420 but she nonetheless contributed to this encyclopedia, which if you look into it,

00:40:17.420 has a complete whitewash of the Ukrainian SS Division's role in World War II. For example,

00:40:25.380 This SS division is referred to as being the nucleus of Ukrainian independence.

00:40:32.420 They're called a German force instead of being part of the Nazi forces.

00:40:39.140 They're spoken about as really this germ of Ukrainian nationalism and not as a tool that was very deliberately chosen by German command, by Nazi command, and fondly viewed by Heinrich Himmler.

00:40:52.700 One of the most evil Nazis to have existed during this period.

00:40:56.860 You see there the Division Galician, that's the Galicia Division,

00:41:01.940 as a nucleus of a future army in an independent Ukraine.

00:41:05.940 This encyclopedia, which was published 40 years after World War II ended,

00:41:09.860 makes no reference to the finding of the SS as a criminal organization at Nuremberg.

00:41:14.980 It makes no reference to the accusations of war crimes against Polish civilians

00:41:20.320 that have been leveled against this group. It makes no reference whatsoever to the fact that

00:41:25.820 it was under Nazi command. Now, again, I am not saying Chrystia Freeland wrote this entry or

00:41:31.600 edited it or was involved in this part of it. I'm saying that for the entirety of her adult life,

00:41:37.580 she has steeped herself in the history of Ukraine and knows full well the intricacies and complexities

00:41:43.580 complexities of this issue. And I spoke to a gentleman who was her advisor on this, who was

00:41:49.840 the research supervisor for Chrystia Freeland. And he had said that it was a tremendous shame

00:41:56.140 what happened in Parliament on Friday. He said Ukrainians have had to reckon with their history

00:42:00.620 and the way they do that is not by standing up and applauding a Nazi. And that is something that

00:42:05.560 Chrystia Freeland, better than anyone else, would have, and I suspect, did know full well.

00:42:11.640 So with that, you can read the full details at tnc.news.

00:42:15.700 I've got the report up there, and I'm very proud of this.

00:42:18.800 And I should mention that donation that was made to the University of Alberta,

00:42:23.020 the school last night announced it would be returning.

00:42:26.320 Now, whether that's fair or appropriate, I'll leave people to decide.

00:42:29.920 But all of this has come about just because, for whatever reason,

00:42:34.360 we were told to look up to this man in the House of Commons and give a standing ovation.

00:42:38.960 And I said earlier this week that there's a part of me that is unsettled by the effect this all has on a family who has done nothing wrong, on people that only know of Jaroslav Junka as a father and a grandfather and now have to see him live his final years on this earth being maligned and denounced as a Nazi.

00:43:01.040 But at the same time, people in that family should have understood the complexities of this.

00:43:05.740 Yaroslav Junka himself should have understood the complexity of this.

00:43:09.800 And the fact that that has not happened has now set this huge chain of events in motion

00:43:15.580 that, as we were hearing earlier from our friend at Bnebreth,

00:43:19.660 may actually result in a bit more transparency than we've ever been able to have on this file in Canada.

00:43:25.200 So we'll keep an eye peeled for that.

00:43:27.180 One more plug before we go.

00:43:28.620 True North Nation coming up October 21st in Calgary.

00:43:32.580 The keynote speaker, which we just announced on this show,

00:43:35.220 is none other than Alberta Premier Danielle Smith.

00:43:38.140 So we look forward to that.

00:43:39.740 We will see you all in Calgary, and we will see you all on Monday.

00:43:43.280 Have a good weekend, everyone.

00:43:44.540 Thank you, God bless, and good day to you all.

00:43:47.720 Thanks for listening to The Andrew Lawton Show.

00:43:50.280 Support the program by donating to True North at www.tnc.news.

00:43:58.620 We'll be right back.

00:44:28.620 We'll be right back.

00:44:58.620 Thank you.

Juno News - September 28, 2023

Danielle Smith says booster plans are none of the media's business

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