Defunding the Myths and Cults of
Cold War Canada:
Ongoing state support for East European
émigré groups with deep fascist roots
(Collaborators, Crusades and Coverups in an era of “truth and reconciliation”)

Issue #70, Press for Conversion! (Spring 2021)
Publication of the Coalition to Oppose the Arms Trade (COAT)
Read a summary of this issue            See articles on the state funding of fascist-linked groups

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Defunding Cold War Canada

Table of Contents

Canada’s anti-Red, Cold War propaganda in context
L.B.Pearson: Godfather of Cda’s Cold War on the new "Red" enemy
Pearson College and NATO’s United World Colleges
The CBC’s “Voice of Canada” --  Weapon of Cold War propaganda
‘Voice of America’ & the CIA’s ‘Radio Free Europe’ & “Radio Liberty’
L.B.Pearson: Groomed by King, St. Laurent & the ‘Big antiRed Machine'
Mackenzie King gave shocking praise for Hitler until the eve of war in 1939
Liberal immigration: "None is too many" and Too many is not enough
Why did King have such adoring admiration for Nazi Germany's dictator?
King loved Hitler’s hate speech against “Jewish international Bolshevism”

“Captive Nations” and their "Black-Ribbon-Day" crusade
The ignored historical context of “Black Ribbon Day” (Aug. 23, 1939)
“Captive Nations”: Nazi trope to CIA meme to Cold-War trump card
The “Captive Nations” conceit in Nazi propaganda
John Diefenbaker: Strong voice at the UN for “Captive Nations” bloc
The BRD campaign: Canada’s top Cold War propaganda export
The late Cold War context of the BRD crusade
Ongoing propaganda of the former "Captive Nations":
    (1) Canada’s anti-communism monument and (2) the Magnitsky laws

Far-right roots:
East European émigré groups in Canada & abroad
Estonian Central Council in Canada
   Estonia glorifies Nazi veterans as ‘freedom fighters’
Estonian World Council
Lithuanian Canadian Community and the Lithuanian World Community
   Lithuanian nationalists now have 'freedom' to glorify Nazi heritage
Latvian National Federation in Canada
World Federation of Free Latvians
Slovak World Congress and the Canadian Slovak League
Council of Free Czechoslovakia & Czechoslovak Nat'l Assoc. of Cda.

Ukrainian linchpin of Cda’s postwar, far-right diaspora
Krakow and Ottawa, 1940: "A Tale of Two Cities," and two UCCs:
(1) Germany’s Ukrainian Central Cttee. and (2) Canada's Ukrainian Canadian Cttee.
The Anti-Bolshevik Bloc of Nations & World AntiCommunist League
Yaroslav Stetsko: Leader of proNazi Ukraine, 1941
State-funded centres of Canada’s Bandera cult and its Bandera youth
Roman Shukhevych: Assassin, terrorist, war criminal and cult hero
Getting them young: Instilling Ukrainian patriotism in children and youth
Plast recruited for Nazi’s Waffen SS Galicia; now recruits for Ukraine
From Chomiak to Freeland: “keep that flame alive”
Chrystia Freeland: “Accidental journalist” or groomed for the job?
Myron Kuropas: Downplaying Holocaust; Exaggerating Holodomor
Turning from same page: Freeland wrote for pro-fascist publications
Yuri Shymko: From Bandera youth leader, MPP & MP, to elder statesman
Lisa Shymko: In the footsteps of family, community & far-right, war heroes
Rubbing political shoulders with the ABN in Toronto

The struggle continues...                                            Abridged Index

Two ongoing propaganda campaigns waged by the former “Captive Nations”

By Richard Sanders

(Click here for a PDF to see this article as it appears in print)

(1) "Axis of Hate":
Canada’s anticommunist monument
(CBC article, re: profascist funding of this monument)
(CBC interview, Efraim Zuroff, Simon Wiesenthal Centre)
(Ottawa Serbian Heritage Society condemned this monument when endorsing petition to stop Canada's funding of fascist-glorifying groups.)

On Black Ribbon Day 2013, Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper granted a federal gift of prime, unceded Algonquin Anishinabe territory within Ottawa’s near-sacred parliamentary precinct, plus $1.5 million, to construct a huge monument promoting virulent anticommunism. After initially increasing their commitment to $2 million, the Liberal government added an additional $4 million to the monument's budget in the 2021 budget.

This monument is spearheaded by several emigre groups that were founded and led by Nazi collaborators including veterans of Waffen SS legions and other fascist military formations.

Calling themselves ‘Tribute to Liberty’ (TTL), the organizers' Board of Directors is dominated by far-right East Europe diaspora groups that are unified by their intense hatred of all communists.

The Liberals Quadrupled Government Funding for Canada's Monument to AntiCommunism

This monument to vilify communists has been plagued by public opposition, mired by widespread controversy and faltered by extremely poor management.  To salvage this highly-politicised propaganda project, Trudeau's Liberal government has quadrupled the Conservatives' initial promise of $1.5 million in federal funding.

The total cost of this long-delayed monument, which is still only just beginning construction, is now estimated to be $7.5 million. With $6 million now coming from the government, this raises taxpayers' contribution to 80% of the total construction costs. (In comparison, the nearby National Holocaust monument received only 50% of it budget from the government.)

The most recent boost in federal funding to the anticommunism monument was bestowed thanks to Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland, who -- being long-associated with far-right Ukrainian organizations behind the monument -- bailed out the TTL's project with a boost of an additional $4 million in the government's spring 2021 budget.1

Despite Widespread Public Opposition,
Canada's antiCommunism Monument enjoys
Conservative, Liberal, NDP and Green-party Support

With keen support from the Conservative, Liberal, NDP and Green parties, the so-called "Memorial to the Victims of Communism" is opposed by 77% of Canada’s public (27% ‘strongly’).

While only 23% support it at all, only 4% say they support it ‘strongly.".2

So, who is behind this unpopular, government-funded monument?
Six of TTL’s nine Board of Directors3 represent far-right East European groups discussed in this issue of Press for Conversion!:

• Markus Hess
president, Estonian Central Council in Canada
executive member, Estonian World Council
founder, International Black Ribbon Day Committee (BRDC)
chair, Central and Eastern European Council

• Alide Forstmanis
former president, Latvian National Federation in Canada
treasurer/secretary, BRDC (Kitchener-Waterloo).

Group donors
While the above groups all helped fund the TTL monument, its largest donors are the CPC ($25-$50,000) and the UCC ($25,000). Other donors include the Latvian National Federation in Canada, the League of Ukrainian Canadians (LUC)  and LUC Women (see also), and the Lithuanian Canadian Community.

State Donors

Lithuanian

 $211,000

 $193,000

 $175,000

$144,000

$142,000

$131,000

$100,000

  $90,000

  $59,000

  $41,000

  $26,000

Latvia

$6,000,000

$130,000

$25 - 50,000

$25 - 50,000

$35,000

$26,000

$22,000

$17,000

Bill Blum wryly noted that: "The Black Book of Communism ... is to the study of communism as "The Protocols of the Elders of Zionism' is to Judaism, or the collected statements of George W. Bush are to understanding why we are fighting in Iraq."

The TTL’s stated purpose is to "commemorate over 100 million victims of Communist terror."7 This exaggerates a wildly-inflated 94-million death toll in the TTL’s far-right bible, The Black Book of Communism, which has been criticized as nonsense by many scholars including Noam Chomsky. Even some of its own coauthors later denounced these figures as absurd. William Blum, a former US State Department staffer turned antiwar author, ridiculed the book’s use by the far-right to spread hateful lies:

David Frum (left) was chosen by "Tribute to Liberty" to be on their jury to select the designer of Canada's government-funded, anticommunist monument in Ottawa. In 2002, Frum, the son of CBC icon Barbara Frum, wrote the infamous "Axis-of-Evil" speech for Pres. George W. Bush (right).  He originally formulated the epithet for America's enemies as "The Axis of Hate."

Ironically, the jury which selected the designer of the anticommunist TTL monument in Ottawa included David Frum9 (the son of CBC’s Barbara Frum).  It was David Frum, who as George W. Bush’s speechwriter, wrote the president's infamous "Axis-of-Evil" speech. Frum however initially formulated this epithet/catchphrase for America’s top enemies as "The Axis of Hate."10

Learn more....  You may also be interested in these resources...

Click to read the contents of this magazine online



Captive Canada
Renditions of the
Peaceable Kingdom at War,
from Narratives of WWI
and the Red Scare to the
Mass Internment of Civilians

(Or, how we learned to stop worrying,
keep calm and carry on loving the
myths that define and confine us.)
 

Read the introductory article:
"The Canada Syndrome,
a Captivating Mass Psychosis"
 

Click to read the contents of this magazine online



Fictive Canada
Indigenous Slaves
and the Captivating Narratives
of a Mythic Nation
 

Read the introductory article:
"True Crime Stories and
the Politics of Literary Escapism:
Canada as a Fiction in the
Imperial Genre"

Watch the COAT website
for news about....

  (1) an upcoming book by Richard Sanders

with the
  working title...

(2)  PLEASE SIGN OUR PETITION to
Stop Canadian government
funding of groups that
glorify Nazi collaborators

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