ottawa –
Speaker Greg Fergus is considering introducing new guidelines for recognizing certain guests in the House of Commons after MPs twice stood up and applauded a man who he didn’t know had fought for Nazi forces. ing.
Mr Fergus’s spokesman Matthew Gravel said draft guidelines for recognizing guests in joint parliamentary addresses had been distributed to all members of the House of Commons and other parliamentary officials.
“Feedback will be incorporated before the chair shares these guidelines with members,” he said in a statement.
House leadership has not provided details on the draft guidelines, and Gravelle said he could not say more at this time.
Yaroslav Hunka, who fought in the Galician Division of the Waffen-SS, a volunteer force established by the Nazis to help fight the Soviet Union, was welcomed into the House of Commons in September and heard a speech by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy. .
Liberal MP Anthony Rota, who had invited the 98-year-old Hunka and introduced him as a hero, resigned as chairman over his decision. Mr Fergus was elected to replace Lota in October.
In his apology, Rota said he was solely responsible for the invitation and that neither the prime minister’s office nor the Ukrainian delegation were aware of it.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau also apologized on behalf of Parliament.
Senior Canadian politicians called the incident an international embarrassment, while Russia used the controversy to advance propaganda aimed at justifying a full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
A number of MPs subsequently expressed their distaste for joining Mr Hunka in the House of Commons applause, but Conservative Party leader Pierre Poièvre refused to hold a hearing to clarify how the invitation had come about. We promoted the holding of the meeting.
The Conservatives said the government had a responsibility to scrutinize attendees at such high-profile events for safety reasons, and argued that responsibility should lie solely with Downing Street.
Stephen Chaplin, who served as senior legal adviser to the House of Commons for 12 years, said one of the House’s main roles is to hold the government to account.
“So when you appeal to the government for anything, the House of Commons is very, very, very reluctant to do it,” Chaplin said.
The chairperson is also independent from the government regarding invitations.
“Even if (Lota) went to the government and the government said (the invitation) was a bad idea, the government wouldn’t have been able to stop him,” Chaplin said.
That independence also extends to the management of the House of Commons.
“Even if the sergeants and protocol officers knew about this, all they could do is let the members know, because the members control their own processes and it’s not up to the government to decide how things are resolved. It’s up to the House of Commons,” Chaplin said. .
The speaker’s independence was enshrined in a memo brought by the Harper government in the wake of the 2014 gunman attack on Parliament Hill.
The tragedy prompted the creation of the Congressional Protection Agency, which is responsible for the physical security of parliamentary districts.
But the protective service only scrutinizes security threats, not political sensitivities, Chaplin said.
Rota’s former press secretary said in September that the scrutiny of guests who attended President Zelenskiy’s parliamentary speech was “due to physical security threats, not reputational threats.”
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Dec. 26, 2023.