Carney Appoints New Special Envoy to Ukraine--“Special” Indeed

Freeland’s grandfather worked for the Nazis

In a statement on Tuesday, Carney said that Freeland, who also held posts of international trade minister and transport minister, has been offered a newly created job of Canada’s Special Representative for the Reconstruction of Ukraine, in addition to her responsibilities as an MP.

Carney did not provide any details of what Freeland’s position would entail.

In a separate statement, Freeland did not comment on her new role, but confirmed that she was leaving the cabinet and is not planning to run in the next election.

Her family’s troubled legacy is well-documented. Her maternal grandfather, Michael Chomiak, edited the Krakivski Visti newspaper in Nazi-occupied Poland and Austria during WWII. The paper, according to the Los Angeles Holocaust Museum, was controlled by the Nazis and published Nazi propaganda and antisemitic material, including appeals supporting the German-approved SS “1st Galician Division,” composed mostly of ethnic Ukrainians and linked to the massacre of over 100,000 Poles.

The Globe and Mail reported that an official in Freeland’s office denied the minister’s grandfather was a Nazi collaborator.

Moreover, the claims were dismissed outright by those in the Canadian-Ukrainian community. “It is the continued Russian modus operandi that they have,” Paul Grod, president of the Canadian Ukrainian Congress told the Globe and Mail. “Fake news, disinformation and targeting different individuals. It is just so outlandish when you hear some of these allegations—whether they are directed at minister Freeland or others.”

Well, it actually isn’t so outlandish. Michael Chomiak was a Nazi collaborator. But you don’t have to take my word for it, that of the Globe and Mail or the Los Angele Holocaust Museum.

There are other, well-documented sources for the information that Freeland’s grandfather worked for the Nazis.

The Ukraine Archival Records held by the Province of Alberta attest to this. It has quite an extensive file on Chomiak, including his own details about his days editing the newspaper Krakivski Visti. Researcher Alex Boykowich and his colleague surveyed files on Chomiak, discovering details of his role as editor.

So much for Russian disinformation

Chrystia Freeland was made aware, in great detail, of her Ukrainian grandfather's pivotal role as a newspaper editor overseeing this hatemongering "fake news," because she was acknowledged in a scholarly article on that subject. The article, "Krakivski visti and the Jews, 1943," was published in 1996 by John Paul Himka, a prominent Ukrainian Canadian scholar who was then a professor of history at the University of Alberta.

So, what was the Krakivski Visti? Like other publications during the era of National Socialism, it had been seized by the Nazis from their Jewish owners and then operated as propaganda outlets.

Here is what the Los Angeles Holocaust Museum has to say about Krakivski Visti and a similar newspaper, Lvivski Visti, both publications associated with the Nazi regime.

“The editorial boards carried out a policy of soliciting Ukrainian support for the German cause,” the Holocaust Museum noted. “It was typical, within these publications, to not to give any accounts of the German genocidal policy, and largely, the editions resorted to silencing the mass killing of Jews in Galicia. Ukrainian newspapers presented the Jewish Question in light of the official Nazi propaganda, corollary to the Jewish world conspiracy.”

“In 1943 and 1944, both Lvivski Visti and Krakivski Visti hailed the German-approved formation of the 14^th Waffen SS Division Halychyna, composed of Ukrainian volunteers,” the museum pointed out.

So much for Russian disinformation.

The Globe and Mail reported that, “Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland knew for more than two decades that her maternal Ukrainian grandfather was the chief editor of a Nazi newspaper.”

For years, Freeland rejected any claims of Chomiak’s collaboration with the Nazis as “Russian disinformation,” although Canadian media, including The Globe and Mail, have reported she had known for decades about her grandfather’s work.

We must not forget that during her tenure in office, Freeland applauded in concert with the rest of parliament, a known Nazi invited into its chambers. She would later deny knowledge that the man had the same political lineage as her grandfather.

As part of Ukrainian President Volodomyr Zelensky’s visit to Canada, House Speaker Anthony Rota introduced Yaroslav Hunka during a speech to the Commons. Although everyone in the Canadian parliament (and especially Justin Trudeau) feigned ignorance and apologized ad nauseum for the event, the truth of Hunka’s past has been known for years.

The Forward reported that Hunka had specifically volunteered to fight with the Nazis’ Waffen SS 14th Grenadier Division in Ukraine. Formed in 1943, the group is linked to the massacres of Jewish and Polish civilians, with the unit’s officers and commanders personally taking part in mass execution campaigns. As noted by The Forward, subunits of the division committed the Huta Pieniacka massacre, during which the Nazi collaborators burned 500 to 1,000 Polish villagers alive.

It should also be noted that members of the SS division were cleared of war crimes by the 1986 Commission of Inquiry on War Criminals in Canada -- a ruling that was subsequently excoriated as a “whitewash” by historians. Monuments honoring the unit still exist in Edmonton and Oakville to this day.

As a laudable footnote to history, it should be mentioned that Canada’s new “special envoy to Ukraine” also clashed with US President Donald Trump, who labeled Freeland “totally toxic.” When she resigned from the cabinet of former Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in December, Trump celebrated the news, saying, “She will not be missed!!!!”

In commenting on her appointment as “special envoy,” Carney said:

”Chrystia is truly uniquely positioned for this timely and essential work….” He cited her “deep relationships and understanding of Ukraine….”

Boy, isn’t that the truth!

It seems to this writer that the appointment of Freeland as “special envoy to Ukraine” says as much about where her heart is as it does about Mark Carney’s--and that’s not good for Canada.