House Hansard - 277

44th Parl. 1st Sess.

February 7, 2024 02:00PM

Feb/7/24 5:04:52 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I would like to return to the question of privilege that was raised by the member for Regina—Qu'Appelle yesterday regarding who was responsible for inviting Yaroslav Hunka to attend events with the President of Ukraine during his visit to Canada in September 2023. I must say that I agree with the House leader of the official opposition on this issue. Here are the facts. On the afternoon of Monday, February 5, The Globe and Mail reported that the Prime Minister's Office had invited Yaroslav Hunka, a former soldier of the Ukrainian Waffen-SS who received ovations in the House of Commons during Volodymyr Zelenskyy's visit on September 22, 2023, to a reception that was held in honour of the Ukrainian President that evening in Toronto at the Fort York Armoury. The article also stated that the Prime Minister's invitation had in fact been sent by Canada's protocol office four days before the reception. However, when the Prime Minister was repeatedly asked about it in the House in the week following President Zelenskyy's visit, he blamed the Speaker of the House without taking any responsibility himself. He said on September 27, 2023, that the Speaker was “solely responsible” for inviting and paying tribute to former Nazi soldier Yaroslav Hunka. He said, “we all recognize that the former speaker of the House made a serious mistake.” He also said, “the Speaker of this House of Commons invited an individual without apparently doing that Google search, but it is not up to the government of the day to oversee or to have a veto power over those who the Speaker or, indeed, members of official parties choose to invite into this House.” The then speaker took full responsibility for this situation and decided to resign from that role. Two weeks ago, in an interview with CTV News Northern Ontario, he explained that it is actually the Prime Minister's Office that approves invitations for major international events organized on Parliament Hill, such as President Zelenskyy's address during his visit to Parliament in September. Let me quote him directly: “Normally, it goes to the Prime Minister's Office, and they go through it with a fine-toothed comb, and then the invitation goes out from protocol.” According to House of Commons Procedure and Practice, it is appropriate to raise a question of privilege when the House has been misled following statements made in the chamber by one of its members, whether they are a member of Parliament, a minister or the Prime Minister. The Prime Minister's statements on September 27, 2023, seem to meet the three criteria set out in previous rulings by Speakers of the House under similar circumstances. First, the Prime Minister's statements were misleading, in that they implied that the Prime Minister and the Prime Minister's Office did not know Yaroslav Hunka and had nothing to do with inviting him to the House when members of all the opposition parties were attempting to find out exactly what role the PMO or the Prime Minister himself had played in inviting Mr. Hunka during President Zelenskyy's visit. As a matter of fact, acting on behalf of the Prime Minister, the PMO itself had invited the Ukrainian former SS member to a reception that very evening in Toronto. Second, the Prime Minister must have known that those statements were misleading because he would be hard-pressed to claim that he was not aware that the PMO had extended such an invitation on his behalf. Third, it seems entirely reasonable to believe that the Prime Minister intended to mislead the House because, at the time he made those statements, since the entire world was focused on the Parliament of Canada, the Prime Minister had every reason to hope that he would not be held responsible and that the blame would fall on someone other than himself. In his apology on September 27, the Prime Minister described this mistake as a “horrendous violation” of the memory of the millions of people who died in the Holocaust and said it was “deeply, deeply painful for Jewish people...Polish people, Roma people, 2SLGBTQI+ people, disabled people, racialized people and the many millions who were targeted by the Nazi genocide.” This demonstrates how seriously the Prime Minister was taking this matter. Anyone in this situation would have every reason to hope that they would not be associated with this mistake and not be held responsible. In conclusion, the Bloc Québécois is of the opinion that there is a prima facie breach of parliamentary privilege and that the matter must be referred to the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs for study.

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House Hansard - 277