National
PROC – The Uninvited Ovation of the notorious Waffen-SS at the HoC
Liberal Waterloo MP, Bardish Chagger
From The Opposition News Network
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Unmasking the Hunka Fiasco, A Tale of Evasion, Applause, and the Art of Political Cover-Up
Yesterday, at Meeting No. 111 of the PROC – the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs – things got heated, to say the least. We witnessed yet another chapter in what can only be described as the Bloc/NDP/Liberal cover-up coalition’s ongoing saga. Let’s delve into the heart of this matter, shall we?
Rewind to September 22, 2023. Imagine a scene straight out of a political thriller, but this isn’t fiction; it’s the reality we’re living in Canada today. The House of Commons, a revered chamber of democracy, was transformed into a stage for what can only be described as a bewildering spectacle. The center of attention? Yaroslav Hunka, a veteran of the SS Division Galicia, part of the notorious Waffen-SS. And who were leading the standing ovation for this figure? None other than Speaker Anthony Rota, with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and, shockingly, during a visit by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the entire assembly rose in applause.
This moment, surreal as it may seem, unfolded right before our eyes. It’s a scene that, if pitched for a screenplay, would be rejected for its implausibility. Yet, here we are, folks. Speaker Anthony Rota, in the aftermath, claimed full responsibility for this egregious error in judgment. However, this explanation fell short for many, particularly Conservatives who argued that the responsibility doesn’t just lie with Rota but extends to the Prime Minister’s Office for failing to properly vet the guest list.
This incident isn’t just a domestic blunder; it has international ramifications. Russia, amid their war with Ukraine, has been accusing the West, particularly Ukraine, of Nazification to justify their invasion. This event in Canada’s House of Commons, unfortunately, plays right into their narrative. It’s a talking point that was even highlighted in the Tucker Carlson/Vladimir Putin interview on February 8, 2024.
So, what do we have here? A narrative unfolding that would have any observer scratching their head in disbelief. MP Eric Duncan raised a question that cut to the core of the issue, only to be shut down by a Liberal cohort seemingly intent on narrowing the scope of inquiry to a suffocating point. The question wasn’t just relevant; it was crucial. It highlighted not just a single lapse in judgment but a systemic failure in vetting processes that spanned beyond the walls of the House of Commons to other official events. And yet, here we are, witnessing the procedural gymnastics designed to shield the Trudeau administration from further embarrassment.
Let’s dissect the maneuvering, shall we? The Honourable Bardish Chagger, in her role, made an effort to corral the discussion strictly within the confines of what happened in the House of Commons. But why? Is it because the broader implications of this debacle, spanning across multiple events, might further tarnish the image of Trudeau’s government? It seems clear as day that the aim here is to pad the damage, to keep the fallout as contained and as minimal as possible. But at what cost? The truth?
The stench of political maneuvering is all too familiar, folks. From foreign interference to now what’s being dubbed as ‘Nazi-gate,’ it’s the same old dance. Limit the questions, control the narrative, and hope the public’s attention shifts elsewhere. But here’s the thing – the Canadian public deserves to have all their questions asked and answered. It’s not of mere consequence to the likes of Chagger or anyone else looking to shield their party from the fallout; it’s a matter of public interest, of national embarrassment. And speaking of consequences, let’s talk about Waterloo, where MP Bardish Chagger hails from. The latest polls indicate a shifting landscape: LPC at 32% ± 6%, CPC at 38% ± 7%, NDP at 19% ± 5%, and GPC at 8% ± 4%. It seems the constituents are as fed up with these shenanigans as we are. The prospect of Chagger being dethroned in the next election? Well, let’s just say, it wouldn’t be a moment too soon. To rid the committees of this sort of maneuvering would be a breath of fresh air.
The narrative thickens, as MP Eric Duncan doggedly peels back the layers of this bewildering saga, it’s like watching a detective piecing together clues from a crime scene. Only in this case, the crime is against common sense and competence. Duncan, in his relentless pursuit of clarity, tries to navigate through the smoke and mirrors of governmental protocol and accountability—or, more accurately, the lack thereof.
His line of questioning, aimed at understanding past mistakes to prevent future blunders, is met with the kind of resistance you’d expect from an administration knee-deep in damage control. The conversation veers into the territory of the Prime Minister’s infamous trip to India—a diplomatic disaster that still haunts the halls of Canadian politics. A known terrorist ends up on the guest list, and suddenly, Canada’s international reputation is dancing on the edge of a knife.
The witness’s acknowledgment of this past mistake underlines a crucial point: the importance of vetting, the need for thorough background checks, and the dire consequences of neglecting such processes. It’s a lesson in governance, served cold, courtesy of a glaring blunder on the international stage.
Yet, as Duncan digs deeper, seeking to apply these hard-learned lessons to the current debacle, he’s met with interruptions, procedural objections—tactics to derail, to deflect. It’s the political equivalent of throwing sand in the gears of accountability.
MP Cathay Wagentall point of order captures the essence of the frustration many feel: the need to prevent such embarrassments from recurring, the imperative to shield the Prime Minister from repeated international faux pas. But the irony is palpable. The very mechanisms supposed to protect the integrity of the office are the ones undermining it through their relentless efforts to obscure the truth. This charade, this theater of the absurd we’re witnessing, is more than just a procedural dance. It’s a symptom of a deeper malaise—a government so entangled in its missteps that it seems to have lost sight of its duty to its citizens, its responsibility to uphold the dignity of its office on the world stage.
Luc Berthold stepped into the fray, armed with the kind of questions that make the Trudeau government’s allies squirm in their well-cushioned seats. The issue at hand? The inexplicable invitation of Mr. Hunka to a high-profile event, an invitation that has the fingerprints of incompetence all over it. When Berthold pressed for answers on the how and why of Mr. Hunka’s seating and invitation—moments that should have had clear, straightforward protocols—the responses he received were as clear as mud. The protocol office, seemingly a key player in this drama, claimed ignorance about who gets the golden ticket to the House of Commons gallery. But here’s where it gets interesting: Berthold, with the precision of a prosecutor, pointed out the obvious role the protocol office plays when it comes to diplomatic corps seats. Yet, when it came to Mr. Hunka, suddenly, it’s as if everyone’s memory turned as foggy as a morning in Nova Scotia.
The Liberals tried to shut down the conversation faster than you can say “cover-up.” But Berthold, undeterred, highlighted the gaping holes in their story. The Toronto event, a sideshow in this circus, became a focal point. The witness admitted—oh so reluctantly—that the invitation to Mr. Hunka came from none other than the PMO’s office, upon the suggestion of the Ukrainian embassy. How convenient. But here’s the kicker, folks: despite all attempts to navigate through this mess, the Liberals and their coalition pals, the Bloc and NDP, decided it was time to pull the plug on this embarrassing episode. “Meeting adjourned,” they declared, hoping to sweep the whole affair under the rug. But let me tell you, this isn’t just some parliamentary ping-pong match; this is a glaring testament to the Trudeau government’s disregard for accountability.
And so, as the committee wrapped up, with the cover-up coalition patting themselves on the back for dodging another bullet, one can’t help but marvel at the audacity of it all. Transparency in the Trudeau government? As extinct as the dodo bird.
It’s clear as day, folks. The halls of Ottawa are reeking, and let me tell you, it’s not the scent of maple syrup—it’s the stink of a swamp, a bog of obfuscation that’s determined to muddy the windows through which you, the voter, should be able to see the gears of your government at work. But what we’ve got instead is a theatrical production, a performance so dedicated to the art of cover-up and evasion that it would give Broadway a run for its money.
I, for one, am counting down the days until this Liberal/NDP cover-up coalition is shown the door, kicked to the curb by the very voters they’ve attempted to blindfold. It’s not just a desire; it’s a necessity. It’s a clarion call to the next administration that we, the voters, are fed up. We’re done tolerating the smoke screens, the sleights of hand, and, let’s just say it outright, the outright bullshit that’s been paraded around as governance.
The stench from this swamp has wafted far and wide, but the wind is changing. It’s about time we clear the air, clean house, and restore some semblance of transparency and integrity to the halls of power. So, as we look ahead to the next election, let it be known: the Canadian public is awake, alert, and absolutely unwilling to stomach any more of this. The message is loud and clear—enough is enough.
So, to the powers that be, consider this your official notice. The jig is up. We’re on to you, and we’re not standing for it any longer. It’s time for a clean sweep, a breath of fresh air. Because, at the end of the day, it’s our country, our future, and our very democracy at stake. And that, dear friends, is something worth fighting for.
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Dan Knight
A couple of journos wade through their industry’s moral and professional fatigue. Plus! BBC under fire, sources burn politicos and the Dinger delivers a zinger
“In our country, the lie has become not just a moral category but a pillar of the State. Anyone who wishes to preserve a career, a degree, or merely their daily bread must live by the lie.”
So wrote Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn about life in the Soviet Union in the 1960s.
Three decades after his words were smuggled out of Russia and published in the West, Bill Kovach and Tom Rosenstiel wrote their seminal work, The Elements of Journalism. In that, they made it clear that the craft’s first obligation is to the truth that eluded Solzhenitsyn’s life and its first loyalty is to citizens. Everything else flows from there.
As I have noted ad nauseum, too many titles continue to mask government sources feeding them strategic information and excuse the practice by claiming the sources are “not authorized.” This suspension of disbelief not only undermines trust in the craft, it stirs further memories of Solzhenitsyn, a Nobel Prize winner and perhaps the most famous of Soviet dissidents, who was exiled to the West in 1974. As he once famously said:
“We know that they are lying, they know that they are lying, they even know that we know they are lying, we also know that they know we know they are lying too, they of course know that we certainly know they know we know they are lying too as well, but they are still lying. In our country, the lie has become not just a moral category, but the pillar industry of this country.”
Which is why, if journalism is to fulfill its loyalty to citizens, it needs to diligently apply itself to its first obligation and expose political lies – which Solzhenitsyn denounced as a tool of state control – and misrepresentation in all its forms at every opportunity.
Recently, we saw some encouraging examples of journalists doing just that.
Brian Passifiume of the Toronto Sun noticed there was something off about Prime Minister Mark Carney’s Sept. 14 Build Canada Homes announcement in Ottawa
To him, it had the scent of a movie set. He wasn’t the only one to wonder but many of his cohorts either ignored that angle or, exposing a corrosive sense of moral and professional ennui, shrugged and accepted the performance as routine political misrepresentation, as if that makes it OK. Canadian Press even went so far as to publish a “fact check” that defended Carney and stated “Claims government built fake homes for photo op misleading.”
Late in November, following inquiries by a Tory MP, Passifiume was able to report that “The Privy Council Office has finally admitted what I originally reported back in September — the Nepean construction site used by the PM for his Sept. 14 Build Canada Homes announcement was all for show, and cost $32K.”
I get that some will argue this ruse is a justifiable use of taxpayers’ money. Others won’t. Which is probably the way it should be. On the upside, the government now knows there are reporters still willing to fulfill their obligation to the truth and their loyalty to citizens.
The downside is that, at the time of writing, Canadian Press’s fact check remained unchanged and still insisted no added costs were involved.
Felice Chin of The Hub (I am a contributor) also fired a shot across the bows of politicians and their too frequent dysfunctional relationships with the truth.
In her “Fact check: Elizabeth May’s tanker claims don’t add up” piece she not only corrected the Green Party leader on west coast marine geography and tanker traffic, she outed Conservative Andrew Scheer for his, ahem, embellishments on the same file.
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While on the topic of unnamed sources, at least one reporter recently got badly burned by someone he protected while another was pushed into explanation mode.
Going with a single, unnamed government source, Global News’s Mackenzie Gray informed Canadians that “Steven Guilbeault won’t resign from Mark Carney’s cabinet over the upcoming pipeline agreement” with Alberta.
Hours later, Guilbeault did just that.
The Toronto Sun’s Brian Lilley went with multiple unnamed sources to announce “Canada’s embassy and official residence in Paris is lovely. It’s no wonder Melanie Joly wants to be appointed Ambassador to France and leave Carney’s cabinet.”
Joly unequivocally rejected that idea, forcing Lilley to play some defence while sticking to his guns. We’ll wait and see how this one turns out.
Meanwhile, CBC pretty much took the bar below ground last week when reporter Darren Major explained that:
“CBC News has agreed to not name the source because they weren’t authorized to speak publicly about the proposed amendment.”
We are left to assume that this gibberish means they were authorized to speak, but only privately. More on this in the weeks ahead.
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Dave Rich is a contributor to The Guardian, an author, and an expert on left wing antisemitism which, based on my life experience, is far more widespread and embedded in our institutions than the right wing version of the same cancerous prejudice ever got close to. His Nov. 10 Substack post via Everyday Hate points out that the Prescott Report embroiling the BBC contains “a litany of jaw-dropping editorial and journalistic failings.”
Rich writes as a fan of the BBC but points out, sadly, that the details of the report suggest “that these errors are not random, but a product of an internal culture of bias and a particular political mindset.”
Of noteworthy concern is BBC Arabic.
“The Telegraph has since reported that BBC Arabic had to make 215 corrections in two years to its coverage of Israel and Gaza – that’s two per week,” Rich writes. “It’s staggering.”
Sound like anyone you know? Don’t expect Canadian news organizations to be hiring Michael Prescott to study their entrails any time soon.
Rick Bell of the Calgary Herald/Sun/whatever was the first to report that Prime Minister Mark Carney and Alberta Premier Danielle Smith had reached an agreement and would be signing a Memorandum of Understanding on pipeline development in Calgary on Nov. 27. A couple of days after Bell, aka The Dinger, let the cat out of the bag, others started breathlessly quoting “sources” as if they were breaking the story. This prompted Bell, who prematurely entered curmudgeonhood decades ago, to say.
“News isn’t really news, even if it is about Alberta, until the self-styled smart set in Toronto and Ottawa say it’s news.”
Amen, brother.
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(Peter Menzies is a commentator and consultant on media, Macdonald-Laurier Institute Senior Fellow, a past publisher of the Calgary Herald, a former vice chair of the CRTC and a National Newspaper Award winner.)
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From the Frontier Centre for Public Policy
At what point does Ottawa admit its EV plan isn’t working?
Electric vehicles produce more pollution than the gas-powered cars they’re replacing.
This revelation, emerging from life-cycle and supply chain audits, exposes the false claim behind Ottawa’s more than $50 billion experiment. A Volvo study found that manufacturing an EV generates 70 per cent more emissions than building a comparable conventional vehicle because battery production is energy-intensive and often powered by coal in countries such as China. Depending on the electricity grid, it can take years or never for an EV to offset that initial carbon debt.
Prime Minister Mark Carney paused the federal electric vehicle (EV) mandate for 2026 due to public pressure and corporate failures while keeping the 2030 and 2035 targets. The mandate requires 20 per cent of new vehicles sold in 2026 to be zero-emission, rising to 60 per cent in 2030 and 100 per cent in 2035. Carney inherited this policy crisis but is reluctant to abandon it.
Industry failures and Trump tariffs forced Ottawa’s hand. Northvolt received $240 million in federal subsidies for a Quebec battery plant before filing for bankruptcy. Lion Electric burned through $100 million before announcing layoffs. Arrival, a U.K.-based electric van and bus manufacturer, collapsed entirely. Stellantis and LG Energy Solution extracted $15 billion for Windsor. Volkswagen secured $13 billion for St. Thomas.
The federal government committed more than $50 billion in subsidies and tax credits to prop up Canada’s EV industry. Ottawa defended these payouts as necessary to match the U.S. Inflation Reduction Act, which offers major incentives for EV and battery manufacturing. That is twice Manitoba’s annual operating budget. Every Manitoban could have had a two-year tax holiday with the public money Ottawa wasted on EVs.
Even with incentives, EVs reached only 15 per cent of new vehicle sales in 2024, far short of the mandated levels for 2026 and 2030. When federal subsidies ended in January 2025, sales collapsed to nine per cent, revealing the true level of consumer demand. Dealer lots overflowed with unsold inventory. EV sales also slowed in the U.S. and Europe in 2024, showing that cooling demand is a broader trend.
As economist Friedrich Hayek observed, “The curious task of economics is to demonstrate to men how little they really know about what they imagine they can design.” Politicians and bureaucrats cannot know what millions of Canadians know about their own needs. When federal ministers mandate which vehicles Canadians must buy and which companies deserve billions, they substitute the judgment of a few hundred officials for the collective wisdom of an entire market.
Bureaucrats draft regulations that determine the vehicles Canadians must purchase years from now, as if they can predict technology and consumer preferences better than markets.
Green ideology provided perfect cover. Invoke a climate emergency and fiscal responsibility vanishes. Question more than $50 billion in subsidies and you are labelled a climate denier. Point out the environmental costs of battery production, and you are accused of spreading misinformation.
History repeatedly teaches that central planning always fails. Soviet five-year plans, Venezuela’s resource nationalization and Britain’s industrial policy failures all show the same pattern. Every attempt to run economies from political offices ends in misallocation, waste and outcomes opposite to those promised. Concentrated political power cannot ever match the intelligence of free markets responding to real prices and constraints.
Markets collect information that no central planner can access. Prices signal scarcity and value. Profits and losses reward accuracy and punish error. When governments override these mechanisms with mandates and subsidies, they impair the information system that enables rational economic decisions.
The EV mandate forced a technological shift and failed. Billions in subsidies went to failing companies. Taxpayers absorbed losses while corporations walked away. Workers lost their jobs.
Canada needs a full repeal of the EV mandate and a retreat from PMO planners directing market decisions. The law must be struck, not paused. The contrived 2030 and 2035 targets must be abandoned.
Markets, not cabinet ministers, must determine what technologies Canadians choose.
Marco Navarro-Genie is vice-president of research at the Frontier Centre for Public Policy and co-author, with Barry Cooper, of Canada’s COVID: The Story of a Pandemic Moral Panic (2023).
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