Shameless Warmongering Hyperbole from Citizenship and Immigration Minister

The Ukrainian Canadian Congress, an organization which has lent open support to the U.S.-backed pro-Nazi Ukrainian regime of Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk, held a fundraising dinner in Toronto in February where Minister of Citizenship and Immigration Chris Alexander delivered a speech that has been criticized from many quarters for its almost surreal warmongering absurdities and hyperbole. The sections of his speech that have particularly come under fire are as follows: "What is going on in eastern Ukraine... really has to do with the incomplete process of ending the existence of the Soviet Union for good. Ending the oppression and ending the Faustian bargain that was made during the Second World War with Stalin's Soviet Union, for good... "We have been expecting this. We have been expecting a crisis in Ukraine because there have always been Russians, since 1991 -- everywhere -- and now around Vladimir Putin, who wanted to put Humpty Dumpty back together, who couldn't accept that Ukraine could be an independent country. They are a menace to Russia, they are a menace to Ukraine, they are a menace to the whole world. We must speak out against this dangerous ideology, which is present in our own city of Toronto. Which is present across Canada. Which comes to us via Russian, state-sponsored channels which are preaching absolute poison... "All of our democracies, all of our democracies, depend on the outcome of this struggle. This is going to be a great struggle. We are just at the beginning of this struggle. When I see groups like this assembled... I know that the future of Ukraine is still bright. I know that the times that bring Canada to Ukraine have never been stronger." Alexander also stated: "This is the biggest issue facing the world today. In my view. I think in the view of our prime minister, and our team. Yes, there is terrorism. Vladimir Putin is behaving like a terrorist. ... But the buck stops in Ukraine. There is absolutely no scenario going into the future that leads to secure peace and security for this world, that leads to prosperity in Europe, globally, that does not include a full international effort to give Ukraine the tools it needs to drive Russian forces from their borders and to secure its borders for good." A March 13 item entitled "Canada's immigration minister delivers pro-war speech to right-wing Ukrainian audience in Toronto" presents the editorial opinion of the online bulletin The New Cold War: Ukraine and Beyond which aims to provide accurate factual information about the Ukraine conflict and its rapidly-widening consequences. It writes: "The minister delivered a pro-war rant that could easily serve as dialogue in a film sequel to the 1964 doomsday-nuclear war film, 'Dr. Strangelove.' Alexander told the audience that 'every' military option must be exercised in the process of giving a 'comeuppance' to Russian president Vladimir Putin... "The aggressive tone of the minister was no doubt occasioned by the presence of the principal guest speaker at the dinner -- Andriy Parubiy. He is a deputy chairperson of the Ukrainian parliament. He was a founder of an important organization of the extreme right in Ukraine back in 1991, the Social-National Party of Ukraine. The party became a fount of future extreme-right formations, including today's Svoboda Party. "Parubiy was also a 'commander' of the far-right shock troops which seized the leadership of the protest movement called 'Euromaidan' in Kyiv in late 2013 and early 2014. The violent actions of the extreme-right on Maidan Square in Kyiv sparked the overthrow of the elected president Viktor Yanukovych and the commencement of the civil war by the new government against the people of eastern Ukraine. "The dinner was attended by several hundred people. Parubiy travelled to Ottawa the next day where he was feted by the Conservative Party government of Prime Minister Stephen Harper. The shock troop commander received a warm welcome from Canada's minister of foreign affairs, Rob Nicholson, and from many members of Parliament." A March 16 article by David Climenhaga entitled "Citizenship Minister Chris Alexander delivers a troubling speech on Ukraine" was published on Rabble.ca. Climenhaga states: "One of the principal talking points of Prime Minister Stephen Harper and his supporters in the federal election campaign that is now for all intents and purposes under way is that the Conservatives are statesmanlike and mature, while Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau is a crazy kid who could do or say anything and NDP Leader Thomas Mulcair is an angry old man. "But when the media's not around, nobody can match our Conservatives for recklessly immature and angry rhetoric. "Indeed, listening to a recent speech to the Ukrainian Canadian Congress by Chris Alexander ... one gets the feeling that the grownups are no longer in charge in Ottawa, and that the people who are running things are in the middle of a tantrum with potentially catastrophic consequences." Climenhaga also references Alexander's attempt to disassociate the pro-Nazi leanings of the Kiev regime: "Alexander then moved into a long discourse hotly denying the argument modern Ukraine has a problem with neo-Nazis. While the influence of far-right groups and militias has been credibly covered by such generally conservative news organizations as the BBC, the Daily Telegraph and even the normally politically reliable New York Times , Alexander blamed 'Russian language television' for what he called 'one of the greatest perversions of history that I have seen in my lifetime,' the suggestion far-right groups are influencing the Ukrainian government." A March 26 article entitled "Mr. Alexander's fantasy Cold War" in iPolitics by Christopher Westdal, Canadian ambassador to Russia from 2003-06 and to Ukraine from 1996-98, described Alexander's speech as "a scathing attack on Vladimir Putin with a rousing call to arms." He says that Alexander "drove his rhetoric right off a cliff." Westdal writes, "The 'whole mad nightmare' of Vladimir Putin, who is 'behaving like a terrorist,' will only end,[Alexander]predicted, 'when the whole world is standing against him, with every option on the table (and) standing with Ukraine with military assistance.' His call for war was unambiguous: 'Let's join that fight.' "God help us. The minister evidently imagines that before Putin is done, the whole world will have to confront Russia with every option -- including nuclear weapons. This makes no sense." Westdal concludes: "Since nothing in Mr. Alexander's speech has been retracted since he gave it, we must assume that he was speaking for the government. It troubles me greatly to think that these views represent the quality of public discourse and foreign policy analysis Canada is bringing to bear in a deadly serious global security crisis. It troubles me even more to think that Ukrainian Canadians might believe that such facile thought and reckless rhetoric will help the land of their ancestors. Mr. Alexander claimed to speak 'for those of us who have served in Russia.' He did not speak for me." (TML Weekly No. 18, May 2, 2015)