Transcript:
John Oakley: Making the news. It continues to reverberate that of course, was the situation two Fridays ago, with Volodymyr Zelenskyy in town, and he was also up in Ottawa as we well know.
And the speaker introduced an individual whose background was, needless to say, horrific, and all of this is not going down well with many in the Jewish community, one of whom is John Landau, who's joined us her—
John Oakley: Uh Jake Landau, my apologies, who's joined us, a Liberal organizer and a Research Consultant who wrote an op-ed piece in the Post: “As a dedicated Jewish Liberal organizer, this won't be forgiven or forgotten.”
To that end, I wanted to see exactly the impact and what it all means.
Jake. Good to have you on the Oakley Show.
Good afternoon.
Jake Landau: Thank you. It's a good afternoon. Thank you for having me, John.
John Oakley: I appreciate that. I was reading your op-ed piece with interest, and in it, you say little consideration has been given to the deep emotional impact that
this has had on Canadian Jews: “Beyond our rage, there's now a sense of fear. We've come to realize that we're not safe in Canada.”
Is that a conclusion that you came by? I mean, explain that to me.
Jake Landau: Well, the frequent refrain in our community is like, we're never safe anywhere. The only place we're safe is Israel and that's always our backup option.
And I've never liked that because, first and foremost, I'm a Canadian Jew. I was born in Canada. I've only ever lived in Canada. Canada is my home, and, ideally, we want Jews to be safe to live around the world.
And it would be one thing if it was only one party that was involved in this debacle.
And sure, it was Anthony Rota who introduced him without thinking and clearly without reading his speech beforehand.
But it's another thing that like the entire Parliament unanimously applauded. They all heard the words "fought against Russia during World World War II" and either had no idea what that meant or simply didn't care what it meant.
And either, it doesn't matter whether we're unsafe because you're a fool or we're unsafe because you're knowing, either way we're unsafe.
And when we have nobody in parliament who recognized what was happening and stood up, that was when many of us realized we're not safe here, because there's nobody speaking for us.
John Oakley: Well, you're even critical of Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland, you say noted scholar of Ukrainian history.
How could she not have known?
Jake Landau: That's…that's what baffles me too, because I've met Chrystia and she is an incredibly bright and intelligent woman.
She's smarter than I am. She's frankly more knowledgeable than I am.
And considering that she literally edited an academic paper about her grandfather's own activities at the newspaper he ran during the occupation which recruited for this exact division.
I just find it impossible that she could hear the words "Fought against Russia during World War II" and not know what it meant.
Like, she literally evaded the KGB while in the eighties, while she was a student on a trip there to interview members of the Ukrainian underground during the Soviet occupation, and then bring their stories to the West.
It's like, she's so knowledgeable about the history of Ukraine, and frankly it's a good thing to be knowledgeable about your history. Yet that didn't simply click for her? It just doesn't make sense.
John Oakley: So there's no excusing it. Do you think that this is, like, a dog whistle to suggest that somebody fought against the Russians in World War Two?
Jake Landau: I don't know whether it's a dog whistle, but like…I don't want to believe that every single person who had their hands on this was too much of a fool to realize what was going on because I'd rather insult someone's motives than someone's intelligence.
But like, truthfully, it doesn't actually matter to Jews whether it was intentional or not.
Either way, we're unsafe.
Like, either way, Parliament just unanimously applauded a literal Nazi, a veteran of the Waffen SS who participated in a unit that perpetuated numerous massacres of Jews, Poles, and other partisans.
I don't really care what the motive was or why it happened.
I'm upset.
And sure, it was the Speaker's Office only, and the PMO and Deputy Prime Minister's Office weren't involved.
And 99% of the time I will say yes, the Speaker needs to have independence from the Prime Minister's Office.
You do not want the Prime Minister deciding what guests the Opposition canbring in on a normal day.
But this was not a normal day.
This is one of the most famous world leaders on the entire planet.
A world leader that Putin wants to take down at any cost, and we set him up for failure.
We took a Ukrainian Jew whose family were murdered by collaborators and we put a literal collaborator in front of him. That's disgusting! I feel incredibly sad for Zelenskyy.
If I was him, I would be irate! We’ve put him in such an awful position and I don't know how anyone can claim to support Ukraine and then do this to them. It’s horrific.
John Oakley: Again with Jake Landau, a Liberal organizer and Research Consultant, wrote an op-ed piece in the National Post where he said “As a dedicated Jewish Liberal organizer, this won't be forgiven or forgotten.”
Well, you know, some people say that this has somehow been addressed historically, with the Deschênes Commission back in the mid-eighties, you're not buying it.
Jake Landau: Well, no, it wasn't addressed with the Deschênes Commission because the moment the Deschenes Commission released half their report, we were all immediately angry in the Jewish community, and we've been angry for the last 40 years! But Gentile Canada decided to ignore our anger because it wasn't convenient for them during the Cold War.
Like, we've been yelling for years about the monuments to this exact Waffen SS unit in Oakville and in Edmonton and nobody has cared. Hopefully, we might actually get concrete changes out of that. Taking down those monuments would be a nice start.
Another thing that would help would be revealing the other half of the Deschenes Commission report, which is still classified to this very day. And frankly, I'm highly suspicious of what's in there that successive governments, Liberal and Conservative, have never wanted us to see.
John Oakley: Do you think there will ever be full revelations on that front?
Jake Landau: I think there'll be full revelations after most of the people involved in writing that report are dead.
John Oakley: We'll leave on that note, but I appreciate it. I understand that this is obviously very emotional and you've expressed yourself on that front.
Jake, thanks so much for your time this afternoon.
Jake Landau: Thank you for having me, John.
John Oakley: Jake Landau, Liberal organizer, Research Consultant.
The John Oakley Show - Oct 2nd, 2023 - Yaroslav Hunka Affair