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Long before Galicia Division veteran Yaroslav Hunka ever scored an invite to Parliament Hill, Canada spent decades overlooking and even providing official cover for an organization that would later claim to be full of Ukrainian freedom-fighters, but was founded by Nazis, served under Nazi command and fought exclusively to serve Nazi aims.

There are monuments to the unit at cemeteries in both Alberta and Oakville, Ont., both of which avoid any mention of its SS origins, instead referring to it as the 1st Ukrainian Division of the Ukrainian National Army. When this was pointed out by the Russian Foreign Ministry in 2018, documents later obtained by Postmedia would show that Global Affairs Canada rushed to have the claim labelled as “misinformation.” The minister of foreign affairs at the time, Chrystia Freeland, has also played the “disinformation” card whenever Russia has pointed out that her own family tree contains a Ukrainian collaborator (although not one who served with the Galicia Division).

After the war, a disproportionate number of Galicia Division veterans would find their way to Canada. Immigration policy at the time was to reject any veteran of the German Wehrmacht or the SS, but according to a 1986 federal public inquiry into war criminals on Canadian soil, members of the Galicia Division were given a cabinet-level exemption in 1950.

Quite the history....oh and it was a Liberal government under St. Laurent in 1950.

https://nationalpost.com/opinion/can...box=1695674531