Canada Has a Nazi Monument Problem

 

A journalist in Edmonton is the most recent Canadian to be charged with vandalizing a Nazi monument. How Canada came to be home to so many monuments dedicated to Ukrainian Nazi collaborators is rooted in some dark chapters in the country’s history.

On October 14 2022 the Edmonton Police Service filed a mischief under $5,000 charge against journalist Duncan Kinney, claiming he spray-painted the words “actual Nazi” on a bust of Roman Shukhevych, a World War II–era Ukrainian ultranationalist and Nazi collaborator. The charge relates to an August 2021 incident in which the monument, located on the grounds of the Ukrainian Youth Unity Complex in North Edmonton, was found to have been vandalized.

Kinney is an independent journalist and the editor and primary contributor to the Progress Report, a media project of Progress Alberta that includes a weekly podcast, a newsletter, and regular investigative reporting. Kinney has reported on the Shukhevych monument, including the vandalism against it, several times in recent years.

This is not the first time the Shukhevych monument has been vandalized with graffiti pointing out that the man was a Nazi collaborator: in December of 2019 it was tagged with the words “Nazi scum.” Kinney reported in 2020 that representatives of the Ukrainian Youth Unity Complex and the League of Ukrainian Canadians’ Edmonton Branch had contacted Progress Alberta to indicate their belief the Edmonton police were investigating the incident as a possible hate crime, though this was not confirmed at the time.

In a statement issued on October 31, 2022, Kinney explained that he was arrested by a constable from the Edmonton police’s Hate Crimes and Violent Extremism Unit, accompanied by three other offices.

The Shukhevych monument is not alone among commemorations to World War II Ukrainian collaborators in Canada. The monument is located near a cenotaph in Edmonton’s St. Michael’s Cemetery which is dedicated to the veterans of the 14th Waffen Grenadier Division of the SS, also known as the Galicia Division, a volunteer division composed of Ukrainian nationalists. That monument was vandalized in 2021 with the words “Nazi Monument 14th Waffen SS.” Jewish and Polish groups in Canada have been calling for the monuments’ removal for decades and, in the wake of recent incidents, have renewed their demands.  (more...)

Canada Has a Nazi Monument Problem