Anthony Rota had no choice but to resign as House Speaker after he invited a Nazi veteran to Parliament. But, as former NDP leader Tom Mulcair writes in a column for CTVNews.ca, if history is going to retain the profound embarrassment caused by his mistake, it should also recognize the contributions Rota has made to democratic life.
What Mister Rota did was stupid and short-sighted, forgetting that fighting the Russians then meant being a Nazi, unlike now; and he didn’t get all the facts.
And he leaped on his sword as a sacrifice to hopefully stop the beating jackals from making it more than a stupid mistake that everyone else supported in the moment.
Calm the hell down.
I’m seriously confused with the uproar this is getting. How did they find out he served the nazis? Was it a known fact and Rota failed to do basic vetting? I’ve never seen an explanation for this.
Looking into it, the dude had a choice between forced labour and a volunteer unit, he didn’t decide to be a nazi because he wanted to. The morality of that choice is complex and I don’t think anyone truly knows what they would do in his position.
The optics are fucking awful obviously, but the outrage is kneejerk and honestly driving me nuts. Everyone has apologized a million times and there is no evidence any of it was intentional. It’s an embarrassing blip for Canada and that’s about it.
Of course it’s a wet dream for PP, the guy whose only apparent skill is to complain about anything the Liberals do. There’s an excess of valid criticism to be leveled at the Liberals and here we are losing our fucking minds over an honest mistake.