Canada, Nazis and Ukraine

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky (C) and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau (R), applaud Ukrainian former Nazi Yaroslav Hunka, who served in World War II as a member of the 14th Waffen Grenadier Division of the SS, at the House of Commons in Ottawa, Canada, on September 22, 2023. [Sean Kilpatrick / POOL / AFP]

This story on Aljazeera is a glorious example of what can be done with the English language. It's just glorious. Here's the opening:

The perpetual outrage-du-jour circus otherwise known as Canada’s political discourse is, surprisingly, on pause.

By my count, it’s been about 48 hours or so since the bucolic capital, Ottawa, has been seized by a real or manufactured convulsion that has caused the country – thought by most outsiders to be the much larger, North American equivalent of dull, sedate Switzerland – to appear to have lost its senses.

What a welcomed relief it has been. If only for a moment, Canada has returned to its once reliably boring self.

This week’s big, devoid-of-any-rage news was the election of a new speaker of the House of Commons – a genteel, universally respected Liberal member of parliament, Greg Fergus, who is the first Black Canadian to hold the job.

Of course, the ex-speaker was encouraged to resign after he invited an old Nazi, Yaroslav Hunka, to the House, where the “hero” was feted with a fulsome standing ovation by every member of parliament, including a beaming prime minister and his beaming cabinet, as well as the visiting and beaming president of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

Cue the understandable burst of near aneurysm-inducing fury.

Reading the whole thing is most enjoyable.