Canada, Kiev and the Hypocrisy of Carney

It was a telling gesture, when Carney chose Ukrainian Independence Day to voice his government’s continued pledge to support Ukraine. Upon his arrival in Kiev, Carney posted on X, “On this Ukrainian Independence Day, and at this critical moment in their nation’s history, Canada is stepping up our support and our efforts towards a just and lasting peace for Ukraine.”

Later the same day he posted, “After three years at war, Ukrainians urgently need more military equipment. Canada is answering that call, providing $2 billion for drones, armoured vehicles, and other critical resources.” Carney’s pledge brings Canada’s expenditure on Ukraine since February 2022 to roughly $22 billion. That could build a lot of homes for Canadians.

And in a somewhat striking comment, he pledged to potentially send Canadian or allied soldiers to assist Ukraine, stating, “I would not exclude the presence of troops.”

Consider for a moment what the prime minister is actually saying: To achieve “peace” for Ukraine, Canada will support further conflict to ensure more Ukrainian men will be pulled off the streets and forced into front-line positions, where they will (if one can believe the stats) surely die in a conflict which most experts agree, they have no possibility of winning.

Similar to his European and British counterparts, Carney’s insistence on prolonging the war is at cross purposes with the US president’s desire to end the conflict as soon as possible..

Consider the comments of Charles Freeman, former Ambassador and US foreign service diplomat for over 50 years:

“Well, there’s a lot of evidence that Mr. Zelensky responds to foreign advice and counsel and direction. The clearest evidence of that was [British Prime Minister] Boris Johnson’s visit to Kyiv [in April 2022], and his apparent sabotage of what appeared to be something very close to an agreement between Russia and Ukraine to end this fight.

It seems that Carney is part of the EU-UK chorus of leaders that want no peace

“We’ve seen that foreigners can direct Mr. Zelensky away from peace. Whether they could direct him toward peace is another question. Let’s remember, however, that this man, although he is a brilliant actor, is an actor. And there is a considerable reason to doubt that the lines he is delivering are original to him. They certainly serve geopolitical purposes of the sort we were discussing. So, I think the answer is yes, if we wanted to have peace, we could, but frankly, there’s no evidence we want peace.”

It seems that Carney is part of the EU-UK chorus of leaders that want no peace.

It is also worth keeping in mind that Canada has been one of the main belligerents in Ukraine, funding and training Ukrainian troops for years before February 2022.

Canada’s training of Ukrainian troops included members of the notorious neo-Nazi terrorists of the Azov regiment. Former Deputy Prime Minister (and Carney’s new special envoy to Ukraine) Chrystia Freeland proudly waved a “Banderite” flag in 2022. She was also a “victim” of “political amnesia” when confronted with the reality of her grandfather being a chief Nazi propagandist—she denied it.

And let us not forget that just two years ago Justin Trudeau invited into a parliamentary session a Ukrainian Nazi, Yaroslav Hunka, who had been a voluntary member of the 1st Galician Division of the Waffen SS – well known for their mass slaughter of civilians.

Carney is merely embracing the tradition of Ottawa’s support of such extremism—support which has nothing to do with protecting the Ukrainian people or fostering peace.

Bring the government spending home

The social media fervor of Ukrainian hashtags has diminished considerably since 2022. Today, you see more and more Canadians demanding their government stop fueling war and start spending money to take care of Canadians.

Carney’s campaign “promised” to ease the cost of living in Canada; yet, rhetoric aside, the prime minister has taken no concrete action to do so. In the many understandably angry replies to Carney’s latest tweets about supporting Ukraine, Canadians are finally demanding accountability.

“Mark Carney stop pretending you’re fighting for “freedom and sovereignty.” You just signed off on $2 BILLION of Canadian money for Ukraine while Canadians can’t even afford rent, food, or heating,” reads one of numerous such replies. “Veterans are abandoned, fentanyl floods our streets, and families collapse under inflation. You stand on foreign soil preaching about democracy while selling out the very people you’re supposed to serve. That’s not leadership that’s betrayal. Canadians never voted for this. You don’t speak for us.”

Scroll through replies to Carney’s Kiev stunt and you’ll find Canadians opposed to the profligate use of their tax dollars urgently needed at home to produce affordable housing and to reduce the cost of living there.

The most glaring hypocrisy, though, is that while Mark Carney “wrings his hands” over Ukraine, The Dorchester Review from last year paints quite a different portrait of the prime minister. And if one examines the decisions he makes today (as prime minister) with those he made previously (as a banker) it seems that he essentially promotes what is in the best interest of Mark Carney rather than the citizens of Canada —and Canadians are getting their fill of it.