:
Thank you very much, Madam Chair.
Honourable members of Parliament, on behalf of the Canadian Polish Congress, thank you for this opportunity to address the serious matter of the former member of the SS Galicia unit who was invited to be honoured in the House of Commons last year.
Canada’s Polish community, much like Canada’s Jewish community, watched in horror as members of Parliament, inadvertently prompted by the then-Speaker of the House, rose in the chamber to applaud Yaroslav Hunka as a “Ukrainian hero and a Canadian hero” who fought against the Russians. That wording immediately caught our attention, as it quickly became evident who Mr. Hunka had fought for: namely, the SS Galicia unit. This moment was a shock for Polish Canadians, who were baffled at how such an event could have come to pass in our House of Commons.
To properly address that question, it is important to set out the relevant historical context. First, the Waffen SS was not a conventional German Wehrmachtmilitary unit. Rather, it was quite literally the combat wing of the Nazi Party’s Schutzstaffel organization, which was created to implement its aims. Its members were required to swear personal fealty to Adolf Hitler. The SS Galicia, also known as the 14th Waffen Grenadier Division of the SS, 1st Galician, was created by Nazi Germany as a part of a broader strategy to recruit and mobilize non-German ethnic groups in occupied territories to fight alongside the German armed forces.
The SS Galicia was composed mainly of Ukrainian volunteers from the Galicia region, then part of Nazi German-occupied Poland. These volunteers were motivated by various factors, including opposition to Soviet rule, nationalist sentiments and promises of autonomy. Nazi Germany exploited these sentiments to bolster its military forces and further its goals of expansion and domination in eastern Europe.
Mr. Yaroslav Hunka was a member of the SS Galicia, and proudly so. In his own words, published in a readily accessible online blog from 2011 in the The Combatant News, Mr. Hunka recalled, “The Polish army and the civilian population are fleeing along the road in the direction of Berezhany in a continuous stream, and German planes are catching up with them from time to time. Every day we impatiently looked in the direction of the Pomoryans [the Germans] with the hope that those mystical German knights who give 'bullets' to the hated cowards will appear."
Another quote reads, "At the call of the OUN [Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists], many joined the ranks of the UPA [Ukrainian Patriotic Army]. Others, at the call of the Ukrainian Central Committee, went as volunteers to the 'Galichyna' division. In two weeks, eighty thousand volunteers volunteered to join the division, including many students of the Berezhan Gymnasium.
Poland’s Institute of National Remembrance documents SS Galicia’s role in the Huta Pieniacka massacre, which occurred on February 28, 1944, in Nazi German-occupied Poland. This massacre involved the murder of approximately 500 Polish civilians, including women, children and the elderly, by a joint force of soldiers from the SS Galicia and other units under German command.
Further, in a speech to the soldiers of the 1st Galician Division, Heinrich Himmler, the infamous head of the SS, is quoted as saying:
Your homeland has become so much more beautiful since you have lost—on our initiative, I must say—those residents who were so often a dirty blemish on Galicia’s good name, namely the Jews...I know that if I ordered you to liquidate the Poles...I would be giving you permission to do what you are eager to do anyway.
Given historically documented examples like this, it is unfortunate that some have attempted to minimize the criminal nature of the Waffen SS by selectively using Canada’s Deschênes commission report as a sort of fig leaf. What is not often mentioned is that the Deschênes commission was limited by the scope of its investigation, which focused on identifying individuals suspected of involvement in war crimes who had emigrated to Canada after World War II. Moreover, its ability to access evidence, especially from witnesses, foreign governments and agencies was limited, given that the region was still behind the Iron Curtain at that time.
The question of whether or not Mr. Hunka himself was involved in perpetrating war crimes is not central to the debate. What we know is there is no ambiguity about the criminal nature of the SS, of which he was a voluntary member, and this historical fact cannot be dismissed as Russian disinformation.
The brutal attacks carried out by the Waffen SS units, including the Galician Division and others, such as the massacre of Poles in Volhynia and eastern Galicia, are forever part of the tragic legacy of the Second World War in what Yale historian Timothy Snyder appropriately termed the “Bloodlands.”
From the perspective of Canada’s Polish community, there is no question that a former member of the 14th Waffen Grenadier Division of the SS (1st Galician) should never have been recognized in the House nor, as we later learned, been invited to a reception hosted by the Prime Minister of Canada for visiting Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. This regrettable incident, which this committee has been investigating, embarrassed President Zelenskyy during his visit, damaged Canada's reputation and played right into Vladimir Putin's false narrative about modern Ukraine at a critical time in its heroic fight for survival against Russian aggression. Worst of all, it was easily avoidable. Mr. Hunka’s words, which I quoted earlier, and his association with SS Galician were readily accessible via a cursory online search.
The Canadian Polish Congress sincerely hopes that the House of Commons and the Government of Canada will reflect on this situation and leverage the significant resources at their disposal to ensure that guests it wishes to single out for recognition are properly vetted and meet our standards of human rights and dignity.
Thank you. I look forward to any questions you may have.
:
Thank you very much, Chair.
Thank you for having me here today. I think it's my first time being at PROC, but I'm really grateful for the insight into this incident.
I'm really grateful for your testimony as well, Mr. Roszak. Thank you so much for being here and for sharing how your organization is dealing with the fallout, and also for offering recommendations and suggestions for solutions and how to ensure this never happens again.
I am a former student of Canadian and international military history, so the other piece about this as well is that I think we need to revisit our histories to really look at how they impact our present and our future. That's a piece I'm grateful you highlighted as well.
You mentioned the importance of properly vetting anyone who comes into our Parliament, but, of course, anyone who might be honoured in the chamber, and, of course, those who support our view of human rights. I appreciated that specific quote.
We certainly recognize the hurt, the horror and humiliation we all felt as members of Parliament, and, for me personally, the chilling effect it's had on future people being honoured in the chamber. I'm very hesitant now. I feel like I'd like to know more about anybody who's suggested to receive applause in the House. I certainly think on a personal level there are certain things we're taking into account, but, again, this is broader on how we can ensure this never happens again as far as the entirety of our government is concerned.
As I mentioned, these are some of the impacts I see as a member of Parliament, but can you explain a bit more about the impacts you're seeing on the Polish Canadian community since the incident? Can you give us any personal anecdotes or anything you've been hearing within the community?
:
Good morning, Madam Chair and honourable MPs.
[Translation]
My name is Michel Monette. I go by Mitch. I'm pleased to be with you today to testify before this committee for the first time since I was appointed director of the Parliamentary Protective Service, or PPS, last November.
[English]
While I will keep my remarks brief, I do want to take a moment to highlight a few things that I bring to this position.
For 31 years, I proudly served as a Royal Canadian Mounted Police officer. I spent 23 of these 31 years specifically in protective operations. As a result, Parliament Hill and many members of its community are already quite familiar to me.
[Translation]
To date, my career has given me the opportunity to live and work in many parts of the country, from the Maritimes to Canada's Far North. That said, my roots are in Timmins, Ontario, and I call myself a proud Franco-Ontarian at every opportunity.
Ever since my appointment a few months ago, I've been committed to strengthening the PPS's solid relationships with its security partners, both on and off the Hill, and to building new ones. Collaboration, communication and consultation are at the heart of everything I do as director.
[English]
Given my personal commitment to client service, my love of history and my sincere respect for those who dedicate themselves to serving our democracy, I am thrilled to contribute my protective experience to supporting the PPS's privileged mandate. Strong and efficient relationships with both our internal security partners, such as the Sergeant-at-Arms and corporate security office, and our external law enforcement partners are pivotal to me, and I nurture and value these connections immensely.
[Translation]
Since my arrival at the PPS, I've thrown myself into the work, spending day after day on site to take the pulse of our community as a whole, from my employees to parliamentarians to Hill employees in general. My commitment to them and to all of you is that I will continue to be present and collaborative in advancing our shared goals with respect to safety and protection. I am always here and always at your disposal because I want to establish and strengthen collaborative relationships that lead to positive outcomes for our communities.
[English]
Finally, please trust that I am honoured and privileged to serve the parliamentary community in my role as director, and that the PPS remains very grateful for your continued support.
Madam Chair and honourable MPs, this concludes my opening remarks. I will be pleased, alongside my colleague Matt Ritchie, who has been around for a long time, to answer your questions.
:
Let me answer that wearing two hats.
Of course, as a member of the RCMP and having worked extensively on the protective side with the Prime Minister's detail, with the VIP units and with the Governor General's detail, and having been involved in putting together several major events, as well as in my current role as director here, I can say that unless you've lived under a rock, the evolution and polarization of the population have grown significantly. Clearly, the people are right or left. Call it what you will. That's always existed, but now the temperature has changed. That has had a significant impact on security.
How do we do that, and how do we do that in a way that provides the people we serve—and, for that matter, the general public—whereby we find a balance?
The jobs our parliamentarians do, beyond the actual work they do every day, clearly represent something. They represent, of course, Canadian values, democracy and all of that.
How do we provide an adequate security posture that is commensurate to the threat, while leaving an impression—more than an impression, but the fact—of the proximity of the public to our parliamentarians?
I wish I could say there's an easy answer to that. There is no easy answer to that. In fact, we struggle with that on a regular basis. How do we do that?
As we're building the new Parliament in the LTVP context, the Centre Block and all of the projects, how do we find that balance of security, using modern technology—because technology is evolving greatly—while making sure that it doesn't look like a police state? We don't want to replicate that. We see that happening in other places on the planet, and that's not what Canadians want. It's not what this place represents.
We're constantly struggling. I wish there was an easy answer to that. All we can do is try to stay on top of the threats.
I think all police departments, law enforcement, the RCMP inside here and the Sergeant-at-Arms have all increased our intel capacity to try to get ahead of the threat and try to make the difference between what is an actual threat and what is a perceived threat. This is understanding that a person who is receiving negative comments or some kind of security threat, although it may not necessarily be something that's actionable, is going to be concerned. Of course, they won't be well. Of course, it may have an impact, if it's a parliamentarian, on how they do their job.
That's the crux of what this place represents—
When I asked the first question, I was getting to my second one to bring it to the topic, once again, that we're talking about here, which is the incident in the gallery. My point, and what you laid out well, is about the evolving nature of physical threats and cybersecurity, and the protection of the precinct and the work you do.
I think the issue, from what we heard from a lot of witnesses over the course of this study, is that for guest lists and vetting, you would have access to, or get for security purposes...to see if somebody has a history of being a physical threat to the precinct and what's going on.
The challenge we had with the individual we are speaking about and this incident, when things were recognized, was there wasn't further vetting. We had a witness earlier this week who said, “I wish we had done a simple Google search. Maybe this wouldn't have happened, to a certain extent.”
My question to this point is about your capacity and ability to deal with that. I think we've narrowed it down, and PPS does not do an online search of individuals for an issue such as the one that happened here. It's more about a physical nature and the physical threat that members of the precinct have to deal with.
I'll ask you to speak about the capacity. You do not have the capacity, I believe, within existing resources to go and do that extra layer, but please talk about it again and confirm that, and whether you would be the ones best suited to handle that.
:
Thank you, Madam Chair.
Colleagues, thank you.
I apologize to any of my colleagues who had more questions for the Parliamentary Protective Service. I feel and I think a number of my colleagues here feel—at least those on the Conservative side—that we haven't fully gotten to the end of where the issue lies, insofar as coming up with appropriate recommendations and finding out what truly happened are concerned. There seem to be enough inconsistencies in the testimony on whether information was or wasn't shared between parties.... We've heard clearly and have seen through the documents and some of the testimony given that certain lists were vetted, that information was shared, it was said, that wasn't supposed to be shared between parties, and we haven't come to a clear understanding of how Mr. Hunka was invited and who ultimately should have done the reputational vetting portion.
I don't believe that we can do that, Madam Chair and colleagues, until we actually hear from the person central to the invitation, who is our former Speaker, colleague and, frankly, friend, Mr. Rota, and some of the staff he would have been engaged with who directly reported to him. We've heard from the House of Commons administration. We've heard from parliamentary protocol. We've heard from Government of Canada protocol. There are enough inconsistencies, I believe, in the information, such that we actually need to figure out not only how Mr. Hunka was recognized in the House of Commons, but how he also was further invited by the to a fundraiser, a special event, an exclusive reception, as laid out in the motion, in Toronto, as a guest of the Prime Minister of Canada.
The reputational damage, I don't think we need to belabour any more. Everybody here acknowledges that, and if we want to have a fulsome set of recommendations, I believe, which would perhaps change the protocols for how we ensure that no further reputational damage is done while at the same being able to recognize and honour Canadians in the gallery.... Some of the more amazing things I've ever been able to do in the 18 plus years that I've been here have been to stand and applaud not only great leaders from around our country and abroad, but great human beings, and not only Canadians but people from abroad.
I would hate to think that with insufficient information, without fully understanding how this particular incident came to pass, we would make a recommendation that would somehow jeopardize our ability to be an open and free democracy willing to celebrate great achievements and great achievers, without fully understanding how we can vet to make sure that something as unfortunate as the Hunka incident doesn't happen again.
I would encourage my colleagues to consider this. The motion is written with good intent. I believe that there is still more information this committee can receive to help fill in the missing pieces of the puzzle, to help close the gap on the inconsistencies in the testimony that we've heard, so that we can come up with the best recommendations possible, not only for the betterment of our country but the betterment of this institution and the betterment of our democracy.
With that, I'll give up the floor.
Thank you, Madam Chair, for letting me speak to my motion.
:
Thank you very much, Madam Chair.
I'd like to express my support right away for the motion that was tabled by my colleague Mr. Calkins.
Without rereading it in its entirety, I'd like to come back to its main elements and explain why it's important.
Remember that this all stems from the study we're conducting on the event that took place here in the House of Commons. It appears that another event to which the same individual was invited took place during the same period.
The wording of the motion begins as follows:
That, given that on September 19, 2023, the Prime Minister invited Yaroslav Hunka to attend his exclusive reception with the President of Ukraine in Toronto on September 22, 2023…
In his motion, Mr. Calkins is obviously talking about the damage and international embarrassment resulting from the honour that was bestowed on Yaroslav Hunka here. It's an embarrassment that could have been avoided if the Prime Minister's Office had done its due diligence in checking the guest list it had sent to the Office of Protocol of Canada.
It even states in the motion that neither the Prime Minister nor any member of his cabinet has yet apologized for this invitation. Therefore, we ask to be given the opportunity to speak about it.
This week, we held a meeting. As you can see, Madam Chair, we made several attempts to ask questions about the Toronto event. The representatives of the government party were quick to raise a point of order and tell us that our questions were out of order and not specifically related to the motion under discussion. You responded to their opposition by asking Mr. Duncan, who was present at the time, to return to the subject at hand, namely Mr. Hunka's presence in the House.
The two events are so intertwined that, when I had the opportunity to question the protocol officer, he himself started talking about the Toronto event. From then on, I was able to continue asking my questions.
Then the point of order was raised again by our Liberal colleagues, asking you to call us to order. However, as you quite rightly pointed out, I was able to continue on the subject since it had been addressed by the witness himself. Unfortunately, I was coming to the very end of my turn to speak.
This leads me to tell you that I had several questions to ask regarding the link between the two events. Unfortunately, if we keep going the way we're going, we won't be able to ask these questions. We weren't able to ask them of the protocol officer, and we won't be able to ask questions related to the Toronto event because every time we do, a representative from the government side raises a point of order saying they're out of order.
However, we can't treat these two events, which took place within hours of each other, as if they were unrelated. We absolutely must be able to make connections. It's not true that the lists haven't been released or that we can't get answers.
What we wanted to know about Mr. Hunka's presence is: Why was he invited to this exclusive reception with the President of Ukraine in Toronto?
We know that a guest list was provided by the Ukrainian Canadian Congress. Again, is it normal not to check a list of 1,000 people? We could have asked. Unfortunately, we were prevented from pursuing the matter further.
Does Canada's Office of Protocol, which I'll talk about later, have some role to play in conducting background checks on people invited to events requested by the Prime Minister?
I don't know the answer, because I didn't get to ask the question. However, if the answer is yes, couldn't we borrow the process followed by the Office of Protocol and apply it to invitations issued by the House of Commons?
Are there any differences between the two protocol offices, which must act in concert when it comes to events taking place in Parliament and must otherwise act completely independently? After the meeting, which was unfortunately not public, I had the opportunity to speak with the Chief of Protocol. He explained to me that the Office of Protocol of Canada was called upon for all events, without exception, where diplomats or foreigners were expected, or for any event requiring, in one way or another, protocol activities. This is normal.
On the other hand, this does not apply to protocol activities organized by the House of Commons, which are automatically excluded because this is another area of jurisdiction. This is not a problem. Indeed, we don't want the government's protocol office to handle House of Commons protocol, because we don't want to see the government tinting or colouring the activities of the House of Commons, which is non-partisan by nature and allows every party to be present.
We can still wonder if the Office of Protocol of Canada could have helped us by using the event in Toronto, giving us examples of how it unfolded and letting us know exactly how we could have handled the situation.
Could the folks at Canada's Office of Protocol tell us how they receive these lists and manage the invitations? After the meeting, I also had the opportunity to ask a question that I wouldn't have been able to ask during the meeting, since, as I recall, it wasn't public. My question was about how people are received, who is responsible for making sure that the person coming to the event has their invitation, that it's really the person who's been invited, and so on. This is the responsibility of the Office of Protocol of Canada for all other events. Here, however, our way of operating is different.
There are a lot of very pertinent questions that could be asked, in my opinion, so that we can get to the bottom of this and come up with a report that includes not only answers, but above all, ways of proceeding so that an incident of this kind doesn't happen again.
As you know, I receive comments at least once a week about the fact that we honoured this person in the Speaker's gallery. I'm not going to quote the content of those comments. I think all the members here have received them. I'm still receiving them, even though it's been several months since the incident. We have no choice but to act responsibly.
We can't close our eyes, put on blinders and consider only what happened here, without taking into account the other event, which happened almost at the same time and involved two completely different protocol services. I absolutely want to know the difference between them. I want to be able to ask questions about this incident so that I can put these events into context.
The Office of Protocol of Canada organizes a very large number of events, many more than the Parliamentary Protocol Service. This is to be expected. Canada is a vast country, with events taking place all over the country and guests attending. For example, today we met people from the Parliamentary Protective Service who were preparing for the visit of the French Prime Minister. For its part, the Office of Protocol of Canada had to manage the rest of the visit across the country, which is no mean feat. It's a useful experience, and one we need to address here.
For all these reasons, we need to be able to ask questions about the Toronto event, because it involves the same individual. Even though he declined the invitation, he was invited. I want to know how the process went in the case of that invitation, how far it went, why, who was involved, and so on. The question arises here too.
The second part of the motion refers to Mr. Rota, for whom I have a great deal of respect. He accepted responsibility for this unfortunate event. He subsequently resigned. It's quite rare for someone to resign following a mistake. Since 2015, it hasn't happened very often. It could also be for reasons we don't know. Indeed, we haven't had the opportunity to ask him about it.
Since the beginning of the study, everyone has been beating about the bush. We're trying to get answers from the Prime Minister's Office and the Office of Protocol. We want to know how the invitation was made and transmitted.
We received a letter from Mr. Rota, who assumed his responsibility in a very dignified manner, to say the least. That said, Mr. Rota has the answers to many of our questions.
As I said, I personally received reprimands in connection with this event, and still do. Mr. Rota could explain things to us. He could give us the last word on the situation or tell us something else. We need to ask him questions and give him the opportunity to defend his reputation. Maybe that's what Mr. Rota will do, but I don't know, because we haven't had a chance to ask him any questions. How did things unfold? How did Mr. Rota pass on the invitation? How did he find out about Mr. Hunka? When did he decide to pay tribute to him? Who wrote his speech? How was the speech written? Did he submit this information to the Prime Minister's Office?
It has to be said that this was an important visit, especially in the context of the conflict with Russia. One thing's for sure, though: the government stumbled. In fact, if it wasn't aware of every step and every second of Mr. Zelenskyy's visit, it blundered. If it was aware, then there's a lack of due diligence regarding the guest.
On several occasions, we tried to get answers from several witnesses. Unfortunately, it seems that until we hear, first-hand, the comments of the former Speaker of the House of Commons, that is, Mr. Rota, we won't be able to get answers to these questions.
Mr. Rota and his team—