NEWS AND VIEWS: Canadian law creates two classes of Canadians with different rights (04/05/98)

NEWS AND VIEWS

Canadian law creates two classes of Canadians with different rights

by John. B Gregorovich

The major issue in the denaturalization and deportation of suspected war criminals in Canada is whether Canadians-by-choice (immigrants) have the same rights to justice as Canadians-by-birth.

A Canadian-by-birth accused of war crimes is tried in Canadian criminal courts.

A Canadian-by-choice, whether citizen or not, accused of war crimes, is not tried for the crimes in the Canadian criminal system with the safeguards built up over the years that provide the accused with the right to a fair trial. Instead, the Canadian-by-choice is accused of having failed to answer questions correctly upon entry to Canada, and is denaturalized and deported without having been convicted of a crime.

However, a Canadian-by-choice accused of a serious crime other than a war crime is tried in a Canadian criminal court. Only if he is convicted of the crime is a proceeding to denaturalize and deport him commenced.

The current situation is a result of events in Canada after the second world war. Millions of East Europeans fled to Western Europe to escape the Russian Communist holocaust. After the initial period of repatriation of these victims to Russian gallows and concentration camps, public opinion in the West forced Western countries to suspend repatriation. With Western Europe at a low ebb economically, the emigration of the displaced persons to the rest of the world began.

The entry of displaced East Europeans to Canada was opposed vocally and vehemently by overtly Communist groups, pro-Communist organizations and organizations of ethnic groups.

The Ukrainian Canadian community was successful, however, in convincing the prime minister, MacKenzie King, that displaced persons should be allowed to enter Canada.

Since the 1950s, accusations that Canada is harboring hordes of war criminals, - 5,000, 10,000 and so on - have been a staple of the Canadian media. No proof has been offered, but that has not stopped the accusations and the resulting publicity.

A particular target has been the Waffen-SS 14th Grenadier Division, composed of Ukrainian patriots, popularly known as the Galicia Divizia (Division). The attack is based on the fraudulent equation of "SS" and "Waffen-SS." The (Nazi political) SS was a police organization that ran concentration camps, killing units, etc. The Waffen-SS comprised elite military units of non-Germans serving in the German armed forces exclusively in the war against Soviet Russia. Whereas the SS was judged a criminal organization at the Nuremberg trials, and membership automatically made a person a war criminal, no such findings were made against the Waffen-SS. By ignoring this crucial difference, the slanderers - including those now active on the Internet - are pushing the Canadian government to declare all members of the Division to be war criminals who should be automatically denaturalized and deported.

The campaign to denaturalize and deport East Europeans continued during the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s. This continued until the attackers found a prime minister without the backbone to refuse to act on suspicion, not proof. Brian Mulroney panicked and set up the Deschenes Commission in 1985. The Ukrainian Canadian community reacted strongly and in a three-year campaign through the Civil Liberties Commission (now the Ukrainian Canadian Civil Liberties Association), in alliance with other ethnic groups under the umbrella group Canadians for Justice, successfully convinced the Deschenes Commission, the Canadian public and the government that alleged war criminals should be tried in Canadian criminal courts under Canadian criminal law. The result was an amendment to the Canadian Criminal Code that gave Canadian courts the right to try persons accused of any war crimes committed anywhere in the world. The person is then tried for specific crimes under Canadian law, i.e., kidnapping, torture, murder, manslaughter, etc.

Cases were then brought forward in Canada under Canadian criminal law. They were not successful because the evidence provided did not meet Canadian standards of criminal proof. The Finta case is interesting because of its misuse by the proponents of denaturalization and deportation without proof of complicity in war crimes. A jury found Imre Finta not guilty at his first trial. The government appealed the finding and ultimately the matter arrived at the Supreme Court of Canada, which upheld the jury decision of insufficient evidence to convict Mr. Finta. The judgment is twisted by those who allege that the Supreme Court decided that no accused could be convicted if he argued that he followed orders. That was not the court's finding, however. The Supreme Court concluded that the evidence against Mr. Finta did not meet Canadian standards. The organizations pushing for denaturalization and deportation falsely claim no one can be convicted of a war crime in Canada. They assert that accusations are enough, that evidence is unnecessary to deport and denaturalize suspects.

Three years ago the government advised the central organizations of the affected communities of the government's intention not to prove that the suspects are criminals via criminal trials, but to proceed by alleging that they could not have gotten into Canada without concealing their past. The government, in contrast to a normal case whereby it has to prove with evidence that the person actually lied, is simply asserting in lieu of evidence that a person must have lied.

Groups in Canada asking for this type of kangaroo court justice point to the success of the United States, where over a 20-year period about three people a year have been denaturalized and deported, some to their deaths. The American law is odd. It covers only crimes on behalf of Germany committed during 1933-1945. War crimes before and after, or elsewhere, are not covered.

In contrast, Canadian war crimes legislation covers all war crimes in the past, present and in the future, anywhere in the world. It is the first legislation of its type anywhere in the world. Canadians can be proud that Canada pioneered this field.

The agency in the United States charged with enforcing American law on Nazi war crimes, the Office of Special Investigations (OSI), has been found by American courts to have concealed evidence and lied to the courts. It is from this background that the Canadian government has hired a former head of the OSI, Neal Sher. Will he now introduce such sleazy tactics into Canadian law enforcement?

The fundamental questions remain:

Are Canadians-by-choice (immigrants) to have less safeguards than Canadians born in Canada?

Are Canadians-by-choice to be treated by the government as second-class citizens?

Are Canadians born in Eastern Europe to have fewer safeguards than Canadians born elsewhere?

Are Canadians-by-choice of East European origin to be third-class citizens?

The choice of first-class or second-class or third-class citizenship will be made by Canadians affected by the Canadian government's decision to introduce classes of citizenship in administering justice. If they allow Prime Minister Jean Chrétien to make the choice for them, instead of insisting on their rights to full Canadian citizenship, they will have chosen to be less.

John B. Gregorovich is chairman of the Ukrainian Canadian Civil Liberties Commission.