Turning the pages back... January 28, 1996 (01/26/03)

Turning the pages back...

January 28, 1996

Six years ago, The Ukrainian Weekly's Toronto correspondent, Andrij Wynnyckyj, reported that Canada's Justice and Immigration ministries were seeking to deport two more individuals suspected of war crimes. According to the Toronto Star of January 23, 1996, the government had informed one Canadian citizen and one permanent resident that proceedings had been initiated against them.

Jim Mathieson, acting director of the country's federal war crimes unit at the Ministry of Justice, refused to elaborate. "They [the two cases] are not at the point where we can release any details of the situation," he told the Star. Officials from the Justice Ministry did not return The Weekly's calls.

In 1987 the federal government had passed a law allowing for a "made in Canada" solution: prosecutions in the country's courts of war crimes committed elsewhere. In 1994 the first case under the law ended in an acquittal upheld by a Supreme Court decision that critics said made obtaining convictions difficult.

However, in January 1995, Canada's Liberal government decided to depart from the policy of its predecessor. It was announced that the ministries of Justice and Immigration would act in concert to seek to strip accused individuals of their citizenship or other status, and deport them. In April and May 1995 papers were filed at the Federal Court in Ottawa, accusing four individuals of concealing their Nazi past when applying for citizenship - this was grounds for denaturalization and deportation. What the policy change meant was that persons accused of participation in war crimes would not actually be tried for those crimes but for lying on applications for entry into Canada and/or citizenship.

The Ukrainian Canadian Congress and the Ukrainian Canadian Civil Liberties Association voiced their continuing opposition to the use of deportation proceedings.

John B. Gregorovich, chairman of the UCCLA, said Canada is the only country in the world to have adopted an aggressive and permanent statute on prosecuting war criminals from any conflict and any time caught within its borders, but is now fudging its "moral responsibility." He reaffirmed the UCCLA's belief that war criminals caught in Canada, no matter what their background, when or where their crimes were committed, should be prosecuted to the full extent of the country's criminal law.

UCC President Oleh Romaniw's reaction was terse. "We have always opposed and will continue to oppose the use of administrative measures to deal with criminal matters," Mr. Romaniw said.

Source: "Canadian government pursues deportation option for war crimes," by Andrij Wynnyckyj, The Ukrainian Weekly, January 28, 1996, Vol. LXIV, No. 4.

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