About the Lists of Suspected War Criminals from Deschênes Commission
Canada's 1986 Commission of Inquiry on War Criminals (Deschênes Commission) did not conduct investigations of its own to find war criminals in Canada. The Commission compiled a list of around 900 names from "various sources" consisting of a Master List of 774 suspected war criminals, an Addendum of 38 names brought to the Commission's attention during its proceedings, and a list of 71 German scientists and technicians who were permitted to immigrate to Canada. It did not include the 50 or so names submitted by the Soviet Embassy. It did not cast a wider net and did not look for individuals by cross-referencing war criminals' lists compiled after the war using Canadian immigration records.[1] It did not include a list of the 2,000 or so members of the Ukrainian Nazi Waffen SS Galizien, although some of their names may be on the list.[2]
The Commission concluded that of these suspected war criminals, 341 had not come to Canada, 86 did come to Canada but had since died, 21 were admitted to Canada but had since left Canada, for a total of 448 who were not at the time living in Canada and whose files should be closed. No investigation was to be conducted as to how the suspected war criminals who had allegedly died or left Canada had been allowed into Canada, and what was known about them.
This shows how the Commission refused to address, much less settle scores with, the role of the Canadian state in the service of British and then U.S. imperialism and their promotion and protection of Nazis after WWII.
The Commission also violated the decisions of the Nuremberg Trials that the Nazi SS was a criminal organization, and those who voluntarily joined the SS division could be indicted for war crimes. The Commission not only rejected international law but falsely stated that members of the Waffen SS had been "cleared" by British authorities, a claim that was thoroughly debunked by its own investigation.
The Deschênes Commission recommended that a further 154 files should be closed because there was no prima facie evidence of war crimes. A prima facie case is one where there is enough proof of guilt to proceed to trial or judgement. In no way were these suspects exonerated; the files were closed without any further investigation. Added to this were the cases of four individuals that the Commission did not find. In all, 294 files remained.[3]
A further 97 cases were disposed of for "lack of evidence" because the Commission refused to collect any. Conservative backbenchers and the Ukrainian Canadian Congress (UCC) organized to delay the Mulroney government from making requests of foreign governments. When the Commission finally decided that it would travel to foreign countries where the crimes took place, the government refused to make requests through normal diplomatic channels.
The Commission further stalled by making irregular demands about how hearings would be conducted. When the governments of the Soviet Union and Poland accepted all the demands, the Commission declared it was "too late" and there was "no time."
The 38 names added during the Commission proceedings which formed an Addendum, were dispatched with a recommendation that the "appropriate authorities" pursue these cases, since the inquiry was "out of time." Nothing was done about the names of the scientists and technicians, again based on "lack of time." All outstanding cases were left to the discretion of the government, which eventually charged four individuals, took one case to trial which ended in an acquittal, and dropped the charges against the remaining three individuals.
Notes
1. "Nazi War Criminals in Canada: The Historical and Policy Setting from the 1940s to the Present, Part I," Alti Rodal, Library and Archives Canada.
2. The Canadian government has never revealed whether it has a list of members of the Waffen SS Galizien, who were admitted to Canada en masse or whether this information was deliberately destroyed along with many other immigration files in the early 1980s. A list of the approximately 8,000 Waffen SS members who were brought to Britain, including the 2,000 or so who immigrated to Canada has remained classified. The Ukrainian Canadian Committee, now the Ukrainian Canadian Congress, had as its member organization the Brotherhood of Former Soldiers of the First Ukrainian Division of the Ukrainian National Army (Waffen SS Galizien). The UCC lobbied strongly for their admission into the UCC, but that any lists they certainly possessed be kept classified.
3. When the Deschênes Commission began its work, the Ukrainian Canadian Committee hired lawyer John Sopinka, himself of Ukrainian descent, to make their submission. He argued that evidence collected by the Soviet Union should be prohibited. He reasoned that the collection of evidence from defeated Nazis and their collaborators held in captivity due to their war crimes violated Canada's Charter of Rights and Freedoms, never mind that such evidence would also have included testimonies from the victims of the Nazis themselves. In the UCC's submission to the Commission, Sopinka wrote:
"Where a court concludes that the evidence was obtained in a manner that infringed or denied any rights or freedoms guaranteed by the Charter, the evidence shall be excluded if it is established that, having regard to all the circumstances, the admission of it in the proceedings would bring the administration of justice into disrepute.
"In my submission, the taking of Soviet evidence in the course of any proceedings under any circumstances which the Soviets could be expected to agree to, would be in violation of the principles of fundamental justice and bring the administration of justice into disrepute."
In 1988, Sopinka was involved with the World Congress of Free Ukrainians to promote the Holodomor myth on the world stage. That same year he was appointed to the Supreme Court by Prime Minister Brian Mulroney.
(With files from Hardial Bains Resource Centre Archives)
This article was published in
Volume 54
Number 48 - December 12, 2024
Article Link:
https://cpcml.ca/Tmlm2024/Articles/TS54485.HTM
Website: www.cpcml.ca Email: editor@cpcml.ca