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 Rota did was unacceptable. He needed to resign.
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In what way is he a “scapegoat”?
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But the crazies with no sense of realty lack an understanding of that and started banging pots crying about the mistake.
Parliament stared to worry that it would escalate to something more dire, and as such it was agreed that Rota would take the fall to tame the crazy onlookers with no sense of reality in order to avoid a tragedy.
When you bring someone in to be celebrated by the house it’s generally understood that you’ve gone to reasonable lengths to make sure that the person has never sworn an oath to Hitler or is otherwise politically toxic.
It was a reasonable assumption of the MPs that this vetting had been done. Everyone involved in inviting/selecting this person to be celebrated should resign because of their negligence.
If my colleague invited someone to our year-end party and encouraged us to publicly cheer for someone that I didn’t know had sworn an oath to Hitler, I would want them to resign too.
Oh.
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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.
Heard Tom speak about this on CTV, he is very even handed and knowledgeable on this topic.
Tom Mulcair always struck me as an intelligent and even tempered guy. Of course, I guess he was “too boring” as NDP leader, but I always liked him.
I definitely shared your perception, but have learned he has a reputation for being a hothead behind the scenes.
It’s just hearsay though.
Mr Layton was earnest but known for being a little clueless and hapless at times. One of my family was snubbed in a group when Mr Layton forgot that the little people were both union members and voters, and his admin reminded him he should run out and say hello to the people he just marched past.
It was a common oversight he made, but he was still beloved as politicians go. It was like an honest fuckup instead of a cruel trend, and ultimately it was fine as it was without malice.
I think Mr Mulcair, on balance, would have made an equally flawed but intelligent and considerate leader, as we’d get a bit of a passionate hothead in exchange for Mr Singh’s common fault of jumping on the “hair guy bad” cheap-shot and special-interest bandwagon a bit much. Same-same.
I’ll always hold dear in my heart the shot of Mr Harper saying something mind-numbingly dumb in QP and a blurry Mr Mulcair laughing uproariously in the background.
