[UPDATE] Canadian House Speaker Announces Resignation After Praising Nazi Veteran

Canadian House Speaker Anthony Rota announces his resignation following a controversy over his remarks where he praised a Nazi veteran that Russia said helped justify its war on Ukraine.

Rota, the North American country's House of Commons lower chamber speaker, announced on Tuesday. He told legislators that he had made a mistake when he invited former soldier Yaroslav Hunka, nine years old, to attend a session in the House honoring Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky last Friday.

Canadian House Speaker Announces Resignation

At the time, the Canadian House speaker publicly recognized the former soldier and called him a hero. His position quickly became untenable after it emerged that Hunka, who received two standing ovations from lawmakers, was found to have served in one of Adolf Hitler's Waffen SS units during World War II.

In a statement, Rota said that the public recognition has resulted in pain to individuals and communities, including the Jewish community in Canada and worldwide. He added that he was taking full responsibility for his actions, saying his resignation would take effect on Wednesday, as per Reuters.

The situation played out into the narrative that Russian President Vladimir Putin promoted that he sent his army into Ukraine last year to "demilitarize and denazify" the nation, a claim that Kyiv and Western allies called baseless.

The furor also helped tarnish the visit by Zelensky, who expressed his gratitude to Canada for the billions of dollars in aid and weapons provided to Ukraine since Russia's initial invasion in February 2022.

Additionally, Canadian Foreign Minister Melanie Joy said previously that Rota should resign while Prime Minister Justin Trudeau called on him to think about his future. However, opposition parties blamed what they called failings by Trudeau's Liberal government for the affair.

According to Inquirer, House government leader Karina Gould said that all of the main opposition parties called for Rota's resignation following the controversy, saying that lawmakers had lost their confidence in the House speaker.

Honoring a Nazi Veteran

Gould added that Rota did not inform the government or the delegation from Ukraine when he invited and recognized Hunka. She added that the House speaker also did not inform anyone and did not do diligence, which broke the trust with lawmakers.

The government leader noted that she had never imagined that the speaker of the House would have asked his colleagues to stand and applaud someone who fought with the Nazis. She said the situation was very emotional as her family are Jewish holocaust survivors.

Earlier this week, Peter Julian, the progressive New Democratic Party's House leader, said that Rota had made an "unforgivable error that puts the entire House in disrepute." When asked about the House speaker's resignation announcement, Julian said that the steps need to be taken to ensure that the incident does not happen in the future in a Canadian Parliament.

Julian also noted that it remains unclear when a vote to determine the next speaker will occur. Fellow parliament members are the ones who elect the speaker of the House of Commons to preside over the proceedings in the chamber, said Aljazeera.