1999: THE YEAR IN REVIEW: Galicia Division cleared, again (12/26/99)

1999: THE YEAR IN REVIEW

Galicia Division cleared, again

The Weekly's first issue of the year carried news about yet another official exoneration of members of the Galicia Division. Canadian Justice Minister and Attorney General Anne McLellan averred in a letter to the Ukrainian Canadian Civil Liberties Association (UCCLA) that "the evidence we have been able to uncover is insufficient to merit the commencement of court proceedings against any members of the Division."

Denaturalization and deportation cases

Meanwhile denaturalization and deportation (D&D) proceedings continued against a number of other Canadian citizens. Formally brought by Canada's Ministry of Citizenship and Immigration, investigated and prosecuted jointly with the Ministry of Justice and the Attorney General's Office, they involved charges of having concealed criminal activity and thus having secured entry and citizenship under false pretenses.

Early in the year, the mainstream press (particularly Toronto daily, The Globe and Mail) gave considerable coverage to a decision handed down in late December by Federal Court Judge Marc Noël in the case against Johann Dueck, a former Volksdeutscher currently living in St. Catharines, Ontario Judge Noël ruled that the prosecution failed to substantiate its charges that Mr. Dueck had committed crimes against humanity in eastern Ukraine during the Nazi occupation, and had likewise failed to prove that Mr. Dueck lied on his applications for entry and Canadian citizenship.

In January Federal Court Judge Marc Nadon found that in the case of Vladimir Katriuk of Montréal (born in western Ukraine), the prosecution had not established the accused's complicity in war crimes, but had proven that Mr. Katriuk entered the country under an alias and that he had concealed his collaboration, (i.e. membership in an auxiliary police unit operating in Belarus in 1941-1942), in his application for Canadian citizenship. As such, pending a Cabinet order to this effect, he can be deported from the country. His lawyers, the Toronto-based team of Orest Rudzik and Nestor Woychyshyn, and the UCCLA have sought a stay.

In February the case against Wasyl Odynsky, a Toronto man born in western Ukraine accused of committing atrocities while serving at a Nazi-run concentration camp in Poland, finally made it to trial. Hearings lasted into the summer, and a decision by Federal Court Judge J. MacKay is pending.

In June Federal Court Judge J. Lufty found that Volhynian-born Serge Kisluk of St. Catharines had concealed his membership in the auxiliary police in Volhynia in applying for citizenship and was, on the balance of probabilities, part of a two-man detail that took a young Jewish woman to be executed in 1942. Mr. Kisluk's lawyers, Messrs. Rudzik and Woychyshyn, also sought a stay in this case.

In October, the government launched its 17th and latest denaturalization and deportation case - against yet another resident of St. Catharines, Jacob Fast. Born on a Mennonite settlement in Ukraine 89 years ago, Mr. Fast was accused, in a letter from Minister of Citizenship and Immigration Elinor Caplan, of failing to disclose "collaboration with German occupying authorities in Ukraine" and "association with the German Security Police and Security Service" when entering Canada in 1947 and seeking Canadian citizenship, which he obtained in 1954.

Community response

The UCC and the UCCLA continued to maintain that the civil-court D&D proceedings were unfair, in that (given the horrific nature of the accusations involved) they did not offer accused persons the protections of a higher standard of proof demanded at criminal court trials. The UCC also pointed out that while former Justice Minister Allan Rock had assured Canadians that no cases would be initiated unless there was strong direct evidence implicating individuals in crimes against humanity, already in four cases judges have upbraided the prosecution for not having sufficient evidence in this regard. (In two instances, judges found against the accused anyway.)

Postcard and letter-writing campaigns produced an estimated 70,000 mailings to federal officials over the year, and a more concerted effort to respond to reports in and provide information to the mainstream media was put in motion.

To further these ends, the UCC and UCCLA cooperated in arranging two in-camera strategy sessions, held in Toronto in May and in October, with defense attorneys from the various D&D cases participating. Vigorous intercessions were proposed, such as the issuance of "writs of mandamus" demanding the government proceed with criminal proceedings in particular cases, but as yet have not materialized.

On the other hand, the UCC president did prepare a formal legal brief on the D&D issue, and at a meeting in Edmonton with Minister McLellan and War Crimes Unit Chief Paul Vickery on August 25, UCC officials were afforded an opportunity to discuss it with the senior officials responsible for setting and executing policy in the country. The UCC also secured participation in future discussions concerning the use of experts in various war crimes proceedings.

In October the UCC's Committee for Justice (chaired by UCC Toronto Branch President Maria Szkambara) organized a fundraising banquet in defense of the community's good name. Donald Bayne, a defense attorney for Mr. Dueck, was the keynote speaker. Mr. Bayne revealed that he was of Ukrainian heritage and described the ongoing threat to Canada's justice system of Soviet evidence.

For her part, Ms. Szkambara denounced the timidity of most Ukrainian Canadian lawyers on the issue in recent years. The UCC activist lamented the apparent lack of civic courage shown by the successors of the late Supreme Court Justice John Sopinka, who while still in private practice appeared on the UCC's behalf before the Deschênes Commission of Inquiry into the presence of war criminals in Canada.

Government policy and media coverage evolve

In October the Toronto daily Globe and Mail carried a story suggesting that Minister McLellan had brought a bill that would amend Canada's war crimes legislation before Cabinet and would prompt prosecutors to initiate criminal court proceedings against individuals accused of war crimes and crimes against humanity.

While an apparent triumph for Ukrainian Canadian lobbying efforts, UCC officials remained cautious about the news, saying that they would reserve comment before they obtained a copy of the draft legislation and/or conferred with the minister. Neither had occurred by year's end.

During the course of the year, mainstream media coverage had also begun to acquire a more multi-dimensional aspect, apparent in reports concerning individual D&D cases as well as Ms. McLellan's proposal.

In Mr. Fast's case, a greater amount of space was devoted to the circumstances in which the alleged frauds on Canada's immigration service occurred and the legal defense his attorney intends to pursue - balance that had been largely absent in coverage up to now.

In coverage of the other cases and the report on the amendments to be made to Canada's war crimes legislation, the impediment to further criminal court prosecutions was still said to have originated in the Supreme Court's acquittal of Imre Finta, a native of Hungary.

However, while no longer claiming that the Supreme Court gave credence to the "following orders" defense (which the UCCLA has hotly disputed), journalists wrote (or quoted government officials as saying) that Canada's senior justices had allegedly accepted Mr. Finta's arguments that he "sincerely believed" that Hungarian Jews "presented a threat" to the state he served (a defense dismissed by, among others, Justice J.A. Tarnopolsky in the 1992 Ontario Court of Appeal decision on the case).

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