Where is the scorn for today’s bigots?

What was most astonishing about the Ukrainian president’s visit to the House of Commons last week — beyond the hideous fact that a literal Nazi received a standing ovation — is that for a moment, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was having a good day.

Amid constant reports of his poor standing in the polls, skyrocketing tensions with India, and a personal life on the rocks, the Prime Minister experienced a rare reprieve from bad news with his name on it in the heroic form of Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

On Sept. 22, the Ukrainian president gave a rousing speech in Canada’s House of Commons about perseverance in the face of tyranny. So did Trudeau. “History will judge us on how we defend democratic values,” the prime minister said. Hopefully for his sake historians will redact what happened next.

Trudeau’s bad-news reprieve came to a stunning end when it was revealed that he and Zelenskyy, as well as everyone else in the chamber, gave a standing ovation to Yaroslav Hunka, a 98-year-old man who, during the Second World War, fought for the 14th Waffen Division of the Nazi SS, also known as the “Galicia” division.

Thanks to what can only be described as an epic vetting fail on the part of Anthony Rota, the Speaker of the House, who has since resigned in shame, everyone present was led to believe Hunka was merely a veteran hero in Ukraine’s war against Russia. However, one needn’t be a scholar of history to determine that an enemy of Russia during the Second World War was likely an ally of … you guessed it.

Needless to say the entire affair was and remains a disaster, not only for Canada’s reputation but more crucially for Zelenskyy, whose Russian enemies couldn’t have asked for a better propaganda image than the Ukrainian president applauding a former Nazi.

The prime minister’s political opponents are correct. It doesn’t matter who was directly responsible for the vetting failure; Trudeau should have worn this disaster from the start. He certainly shouldn’t have left Rota and Jewish MP Karina Gould to pick up the pieces, before issuing a more fulsome apology himself.

And yet, during the federal Conservatives’ much deserved roasting of the prime minister in the House of Commons this week — a depressing thought dawned on me. It’s reassuring, for a Jewish person especially, to witness unanimous disgust and outrage in the face of Nazism. But where is our nation’s matched outrage in the face of modern and therefore more urgent forms of hate?

Since last week’s incident many have made the case that the federal government must learn to better vet its honoured guests. (Googling them would be a start).

But just as closer scrutiny of guests in the House of Commons is urgently needed, so too is closer scrutiny of threats posed by right wing extremists today and those who wink in their direction.

Why do we so easily condemn a Nazi at the end of his life, yet fail to properly condemn racist extremists whose careers are in full swing? Consider the fact that earlier this year three Conservative MPs dined with far-right German extremist Christine Anderson, who belongs to an openly racist political party that, according to the BBC, borrowed one of its slogans directly from the Nazis. Federal Conservative party leader Pierre Poilievre condemned Anderson but refused to remove from caucus the MPs who met with her.

Consider the fact that right wing extremism is on the rise in Canada; a scathing report from 2022 found that membership in white supremacist extremist groups is growing at an “alarming rate” among members of the Canadian Armed Forces.

Consider the fact that in 2018, a white supremacist placed third in Toronto’s mayoral election.

None of these people were Nazis in the 1940s and they shouldn’t be judged as such. But they should certainly be judged far more than they are.

Make no mistake: even a defanged Nazi at death’s door like Yaroslav Hunka is deserving of our nation’s scorn. It’s simply a shame we can’t muster similar outrage for those still in the prime of their hate.