Defunding the Myths and Cults of Cold War Canada: Ongoing state support for East European émigré groups with deep fascist roots

 

The Canadian government has long supported East European émigré associations whose much-revered founders, leaders and war heroes include veterans of Waffen SS divisions and other fascist military formations, perpetrators of the Holocaust and other ethnic-cleansing campaigns, officials from and apologists for Nazi puppet regimes, postwar CIA propaganda assets, proponents of Cold War terrorist groups like the US-armed Nicaraguan contras and Afghan mujahideen, and other virulently anticommunist "freedom fighters" and their ideologues.

Over the past few years alone, the most influential of these ethnonationalist émigré organizations -- those representing the rightwing Ukrainian diaspora -- have received millions of dollars in Canadian government grants and contributions. For many decades, the Canadian government's financial largesse has helped subsidize the most powerful of these groups' day-to-day operations, their office spaces, meeting halls, events and publications. In doing so the Canadian government continues to aid and abet these associations' efforts to glorify, with cult-like adoration, their fascist heroes from WWII and the Cold War.

Throughout the Cold War, Canada's rightwing émigré groups—such as those representing Czechs, Estonians, Latvians, Lithuanians, Poles, Slovaks and Ukrainians—were enthusiastic cheerleaders for the Canadian government's devotion to proUS and proNATO policies. Their ongoing support for Canada's hawkish foreign policies has not wavered.

Long recognized by Canada's government as officially representing their ethnic communities, these émigré organizations continue to promote propaganda narratives that whitewash their histories. These histories would be publicly embarrassing to them and to their government allies if the mass media were ever to expose them. However, the corporate press has itself been deeply complicit in perpetuating the very propaganda that still needs to be exposed.

Canada's ethnonationalist organizations continue to push their political agendas by initiating and assisting rightwing government policies that suit their shared goals. They also serve government interests by mobilizing electoral support from their ethnic communities and the public at large for mainstream politicians, their parties and corporate-friendly programs.  (more...)

Defunding the Myths and Cults of Cold War Canada: Ongoing state support for East European émigré groups with deep fascist roots