Ukrainian community leaders are planning a legal challenge to keep secret the names of alleged Nazi war criminals who came to Canada after the Second World War.
They have started to raise funds for a Federal Court action to be triggered if Ottawa decides to release a report naming hundreds of alleged Nazi war criminals who settled in Canada, including those who fought in a Ukrainian SS division.
Libraries and Archives Canada has been consulting on releasing Part 2 of the 1986 Commission of Inquiry on War Criminals in Canada led by retired Superior Court of Quebec judge Jules Deschênes. That part of the report has been kept secret for decades. The consultation is in response to access to information requests lodged by The Globe and Mail and two other organizations.
Part 2 of the Deschênes report contains the names of around 900 alleged war criminals who came to Canada after the Second World War, including members of the Ukrainian SS Galicia division. Last year, there was an outcry after a veteran of the SS division, Yaroslav Hunka, received two standing ovations in the House of Commons during a visit by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. Former Commons Speaker Anthony Rota, who invited Mr. Hunka and praised him as a hero, later resigned.
The Ukrainian Canadian Congress has written to its supporters asking for donations to fund a possible Federal Court challenge to protect “the good name of our community.”
The letter, sent last week by Ihor Michalchyshyn, chief executive officer of the Congress, said “it is appalling that the Canadian Government could attempt, for no good reason, to subject innocent Canadians, their family members and descendants to public scorn.”
“When the announcement is made, we will have to be ready to go to the Federal Court challenging the Government’s authority to ignore Justice Deschênes on confidentiality,” the letter says, adding that if the government opts to release the names, “the UCC will have to be ready at a moment’s notice.”
Libraries and Archives Canada consulted in June and July on whether to release the second part of the Deschênes report, but it has faced a backlash for failing to consult leading historians, human rights and Holocaust organizations, and Holocaust survivors.
Historian John-Paul Himka, professor emeritus at the University of Alberta, who has extensively researched the Holocaust in Ukraine and is an expert on the Ukrainian SS Galicia Division, was among those not invited to participate in the consultation.
He is one of more than 70 academics worldwide to sign a petition to the government last year asking for the report to be released in full.
“After World War II, many Ukrainians who had one way or another collaborated in the crimes of the German occupation retreated westward, fearing repression by the returning Soviet regime. Many later migrated to Canada, where they and their descendants have dominated the organized Ukrainian diaspora community,” he said.
“They have done everything in their power to distort and suppress the historical record. It is hardly surprising that they wish to keep the investigation into a dark history under wraps.”
Jaime Kirzner-Roberts, senior director of policy and advocacy at the Friends of Simon Wiesenthal Center for Holocaust Studies, on Thursday wrote to Leslie Weir, the Librarian and Archivist of Canada, saying that as the leading Holocaust education and advocacy organization in Canada, it should have been included in the consultation. She asked for a chance to contribute.
“The omission of critical stakeholders appears to have left your consultation process with a heavily biased set of findings and recommendations,” the letter says, referring to a report by Libraries and Archives Canada about what it heard during its consultation. “We consider the repeated concerns raised during the consultation process about the trauma that might be experienced by war criminals if evidence of their crimes is made public to be particularly outrageous.”
The Raoul Wallenberg Centre for Human Rights – whose International Chair, Irwin Cotler, was Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s former special envoy on preserving Holocaust remembrance and combating antisemitism – was also not included in the consultation.
Dara Solomon, executive director of the Toronto Holocaust Museum, said it would have liked to have been consulted, too, adding experts on the period in history should have the chance to contribute before a decision is made.
The Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs, which did take part in the consultation, urged caution about how names are released.
“Nazi war criminals should not be allowed to live carefree in Canada, they should be held accountable and pay for their crimes. The issue of releasing Part 2 of the Deschênes Commission report, however, is not black and white,” said president and CEO, Shimon Koffler Fogel.
“We support the principle of transparency. However, as Alti Rodal, director of historical research at the Deschênes Commission justly said, context was crucial and that these were merely allegations ‘that were minimally investigated. They were not well researched, let alone proven in a court.’”
Ms. Rodal was among those consulted by Libraries and Archives Canada.
“Any form of disclosure should be done smartly and properly contextualized. This cannot turn into a witch hunt where all those named are tried and convicted by the court of public opinion as war criminals, as that may not be the case.”
Mr. Michalchyshyn of the Ukrainian Canadian Congress said the government should be “bound by the ruling of Justice Deschênes,” who said Part 2 of his report is “destined to remain confidential.”
“The position of the Ukrainian Canadian Congress has always been that no war criminal should ever find safe haven in Canada,” he said. “All alleged war criminals, regardless of their ethnic, religious, racial or cultural origin, or where or when they committed their crimes, should be brought to trial in Canada under Canadian criminal law.”