Denaturalization/deportation issue is hot topic at UCC congress
by Andrij Kudla Wynnyckyj
Toronto Press Bureau
WINNIPEG - At the 1998 triennial conclave of theUkrainian Canadian Congress the issue that raised temperatures highest was the matter of the deportation and denaturalization of individuals suspected of war crimes.
It almost resulted in organizational paralysis, as on October 12 newly elected president Evhen Czolij threatened to resign barely 18 hours after he had taken office if resolutions that placed the UCC on a collision course with the federal government were not dropped.
Mr. Czolij objected to calls for Justice Minister Anne McLellan's resignation, as well as to stipulations binding him as president and the UCC executive as a whole to consider the issue the number one priority.
In the end a more loosely stated commitment that the matter should be a priority and a simple censure of the minister's were adopted, along with others which staked out the UCC's position. (See sidebar on resolutions.)
The background
A controversy had been brewing since February, when rank-and-file members of the UCC across Canada began airing feelings of frustration that the national executive was not doing enough to pressure the federal government in this area.
In his pronouncements on the issue, outgoing UCC President Oleh Romaniw consistently stated the Ukrainian umbrella body's opposition to the government's approach since 1995, whereby the policy of criminal prosecutions had been supplanted by civil proceedings in immigration courts, where the burden of proof was lighter and protections afforded defendants lesser.
Mr. Romaniw had also been vocal in defense of Canada's policy of refusing to be a haven for war criminals, particularly in response to allegations made in a February 1997 broadcast by CBS "60 Minutes" titled "Canada's Dark Secret."
However, in the past year, some Ukrainians have claimed that the UCC simply left the chairman of its Justice Committee on Denaturalization and Deportation (JCDD), Winnipeg-based immigration litigator John Petryshyn, out on his own without sufficient backing. They asserted that the UCC was distancing itself from the controversy in order to pursue an agenda of contacts with the government over national constitutional matters and Canada-Ukraine relations.
The UCC executive seemed to do little to dispel such notions. There was a telling element in Mr. Romaniw's triennial report to the congress in Winnipeg on October 9. The outgoing president provided a brief account of his meeting with Prime Minister Jean Chrétien in Ottawa, less than two weeks before the congress, and averred that "there had been no time" to raise the Ukrainian community's concern over the issue of denaturalization and deportation. Mr. Romaniw suggested that Mr. Chrétien had "directed the flow of the conversation" and "after all, one doesn't interrupt the prime minister."
Justice Minister Anne McLellan has avoided any direct meetings or even correspondence with UCC officials, preferring to contact constituents of her Edmonton riding, such as Eugene Harasymiw of the Ukrainian Self-Reliance League.
For Mr. Petryshyn, the UCC's point man on this issue, it was difficult not to feel aggrieved. In July, the Globe and Mail daily ran an editorial cartoon that equated opposition to the government's policy with neo-Nazism.
From the time Ms. McLellan's predecessor, Allan Rock, had announced a shift to civil proceedings in January 1995, Ottawa seemed to pay little heed to the community's concerns. Ms. McLellan has consistently avoided contact with national UCC officials since she took office. She did meet with Mr. Harasymiw in August 1997 to hear his concerns about the hiring of Neal Sher, former director of the U.S. Department of Justice Office of Special Investigations, as a consultant, before giving a green light to the appointment in December.
Rubbing salt in the community's wounds, a report commissioned by the Ministry of Citizenship and Immigration issued in March, titled "Not Just Numbers," included recommendations to further broaden the grounds under which individuals could be stripped of their status as Canadians. In July, the Ministry of Justice reaffirmed its commitment to the pursuit of the civil option in prosecuting war crimes cases and announced a quintupling of the budget for the effort.
On September 23, just prior to the UCC's triennial, the Justice Ministry suffered its first formal setback in its denaturalization and deportation effort. Justice William McKeown, who had some months earlier ruled that Wasily Bogutin should be stripped of his citizenship because of a misrepresentation of his wartime past, ruled that Peteris Vitols had not done so. In an article in the Ottawa Citizen daily on the following day, Minister McLellan was quoted as saying, "We're disappointed with the decision of Mr. Justice McKeown, but obviously we will respect it."
Some in the Ukrainian community were outraged, feeling that the minister had tainted future proceedings on the matter, and called for the minister's resignation. Others felt that Ms. McLellan was merely expressing her opinion as the country's top prosecutor that a case had not gone her way.
The workshop
In a measured fashion, during the workshop on the issue held on October 10, Mr. Petryshyn asked "Why is Minister McLellan disappointed?" The JCDD chairman suggested that her disappointment was surprising and, to his mind, inappropriate.
Mr. Petryshyn outlined his committee's efforts in January to establish the Educational Research Fund on Deportation and Denaturalization. Its aim is to allow the UCC to conduct research and retain experts in questions of history and law. He expressed frustration with the low response to repeated calls to support the ERFDD and its fundraising goal of $250,000.
He thanked former Reform Party Justice Critic Jack Ramsay for his efforts in securing the April 28 parliamentary hearing into the hiring of Mr. Sher, and Progressive Conservative Justice Critic Peter MacKay's for his active and cogent participation in the review.
The JCDD chair commented on the Justice Ministry's war crimes division report and the announced increases to its budget, telling his audience that "it's your money they're spending, so you have a right to tell them whether you approve of how they're spending it."
While Mr. Petryshyn asserted that "the battleground is in the courts," he said the UCC should intervene on general points of law and principle, not in advocacy for particular individuals under prosecution.
The UCC official reiterated his expectation that the umbrella body would once again hook up with the Ukrainian Canadian Students' Association (SUSK) in a lobby effort similar to the successful mobilizations of 1985-1986, which featured visits to the offices of members of Parliament and senators, and participation in public debates on the war crimes issue.
The chairman of the Ukrainian Canadian Civil Liberties Association, retired Toronto-based lawyer John Gregorovich, also was a panelist. "The current situation is as it was in 1985 - an attack has been mounted on the Ukrainian community and individuals within it," he underlined.
The UCCLA chairman reiterated his contention that Canada's policy "has created two classes of citizens: people who are Canadian by birth face criminal court proceedings; people who are Canadian by choice [immigration] face denaturalization and deportation hearings."
Mr. Gregorovich said the Canadian government's policy "reflects [its] view of our ability to exert influence in Canada." He pointed out that during the Deschênes Commission of Inquiry the community attracted powerful allies, and thus it was able to influence the government of the day in the way it pursued prosecutions. He said that in 1995, when Mr. Rock announced the policy shift, there was "no reaction."
Olia Odynsky-Grod, the daughter of Wasyl Odynsky, a man, currently subject to denaturalization and deportation proceedings, was given the floor to present a personal perspective on what it means to have a family member be the target of a federal prosecution.
Ms. Odynsky-Grod said that since the RCMP came knocking on the family's front door in August 1997, she has come to realize that "this fight [is] not only about Wasyl Odynsky - my father," because of the concerns felt by others who also came to Canada after the war.
"During discussions with potential witnesses for my father," Ms. Odynsky-Grod related, "one gentleman concluded by saying:
'I grew up dominated by the Poles in Ukraine and felt like nothing. Then came the Russians and the Germans, and I felt like nothing. The Germans forcibly took me to work in a factory, and I was nothing.
'Later, for four years I sat in a [displaced persons'] camp, praying that some country would take me and I felt like nothing. But then Canada took me in, and on the day I became a Canadian citizen I was a somebody. Even though other Canadians called me a DP, even though I spoke in broken English and they laughed at me, in my heart I knew I was somebody.
'But today, Ukrainians are once again the target of disparaging comments. Ukrainian history is once again being questioned. And once again, at age 78, I know I am nobody.' "
Ms. Odynsky-Grod said that Yaroslaw Botiuk, a Toronto-based lawyer who presented testimony before the Deschênes Commission, told her "The cause is just - don't give up." She said: "It's become my motto. I hope it will become yours."
Orest Rudzik and Nestor Woychyshyn, two Toronto-based lawyers who represent four defendants subject to hearings also gave presentations. Mr. Rudzik said the community should guard against the urge to "substitute venting [of anger] for action."
The defense counsel said that in 1985 the Ukrainian community was successful because it hired the best lawyer it could find, the late John Sopinka, but that in this round it had "gone to sleep."
Mr. Rudzik concurred with Mr. Gregorovich's suggestion that all Ukrainians in Canada are under attack, saying that "once again, assertions have surfaced that German extermination policies were almost secondary to the atrocities committed by the Nazi regime's collaborators, and that Ukrainians outran Germans in perpetuating these atrocities."
Mr. Woychyshyn pointed out that, "when the government decided to bring forward denaturalization and deportation cases, our organizations were essentially silent until this matter came home to roost and affected our community - namely some of its individual members - directly."
"Had we acted earlier," added Mr. Woychyshyn, "we might have had greater fairness in the process now."
Messrs. Rudzik and Woychyshyn both said there are important and precedent-setting legal issues to be debated, and that just as Canada had "created" a form of prosecution for war crimes in 1986, and thus made an important contribution to world jurisprudence, the opportunities continue to exist if the country's best legal minds, including those in the Ukrainian Canadian community, get involved.
Mr. Woychyshyn pragmatically, added "it is not realistic to expect the government to stop this line of [denaturalization and deportation] cases" unless it loses another three or four cases in a row following the recent Vitols decision. Mr. Woychyshyn said the government "is not likely to make the same mistakes [as in the Vitols case] again."
He said that a general legal fund has to be created, and not necessarily a monetary one. "We haven't gotten any aid in terms of information, logistical support or money," he explained. Mr. Woychyshyn welcomed any advice other lawyers might have in arguing particular points of law. He also said the period in question requires considerably more responsible academic study.
The view from the U.S.
Paul Zumbakis Jr., the Chicago-based lawyer well-known to the Ukrainian community in both the U.S. and Canada since the 1980s, and who has often been invited across the border to discuss the issue of war crimes prosecutions, also was a panelist.
Mr. Zumbakis told the community not to be unduly discouraged by Minister McLellan's reticence in meeting with UCC officials or not responding to invitations to attend the conference. "After all," he quipped, "you don't expect baloney to come to the meat grinder."
He said Canada was "just getting what we've had [ in the U.S.] since the late 1970s."
"[Denaturalization and deportation proceedings] are political trails that Western societies [purport to] abhor," Mr. Zumbakis said. "Jury trials are dangerous to people who are tyrants. The OSI hates jury trials."
The lawyer praised the U.S.-based Latvian community for its strategy of establishing a fund, back in 1975, which has been constantly replenished, in anticipation that a member of the community might be named in a case. "The result: the OSI decided not to go after them," Mr. Zumbakis said.
In addition to a cooperative legal effort, the Chicago jurist said it is important to establish good lines of communication with the intellectual community - academics, journalists, writers. He said it is particularly important to contact members of the Jewish community in order to try to arrive at a balanced view of the historical and legal issues involved in war crimes prosecutions.
Mr. Czolij was not a panelist in the workshop, but made his views clear. He concurred with Mr. Rudzik's contention that more than venting and "thunderous resolutions" are required.
"When the Deschênes Commission was established, we didn't pass resolutions, we hired one of the country's best lawyers and gave him ammunition - money," the new UCC president said.
A Montreal-based lawyer, he offered the community some free advice on how to best assist litigants' efforts: "Don't applaud them, pay them."
Copyright © The Ukrainian Weekly, November 29, 1998, No. 48, Vol. LXVI
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