A few pertinent facts about Nazi war criminals in Canada

Imre Finta stood trial for war crimes in Canada.

Lubomyr Luciuk, in a March 9 opinion piece defending Canadian Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland from criticism because her grandfather had Nazi ties, attacks the effort to bring Nazi war criminals in Canada to justice. He writes: “just after the war’s end, Jewish Canadians were alarmed at the prospect of ‘Ukrainian Nazis’ escaping justice by posing as Displaced Persons.” Yet, the concern about war criminals escaping justice was not something that arose just after the Second World War; it continues to this day. The concern was not confined to Jewish Canadians. It was and is shared by every Canadian who cares about justice. And the concern was directed to all war criminals, Ukrainian and non-Ukrainian alike.

Luciuk calls the claim of “thousands of Nazi war criminals hiding in Canada” hysterical. Yet, research published by the University of Toronto Press written by former Department of Justice War Crimes Unit historian Howard Margolian sets out that Canada admitted 2,000 Nazi war criminals and collaborators.

Luciuk asserts that Mr. Justice Jules Deschênes, Commissioner for the 1985-1986 Commission of Inquiry on War Criminals, had a “peculiar bias” because he did not address Soviet war crimes. Yet, Justice Jules Deschênes was a distinguished, fair-minded judge. His report focused on the mandate it was given.

Luciuk writes: “It was fake news then and still is. Allegations about ‘Nazis in Canada.’ ”  The Commission on War Criminals, which limited itself to considering only those allegations submitted to it, concluded that there was prima facie evidence against 20 individuals.

Luciuk observes that “not a single person was ever convicted of being a ‘Nazi’ in a Canadian criminal court.” He omits to mention that the Supreme Court of Canada made the Canadian war crimes law unworkable by a ruling in the 1994 case of Imre Finta, a man responsible for shipping Jews off in box cars from Szeged, Hungary to Auschwitz and other camps. The court held that the fact that Finta thought the Jews were his enemies was a legally permissible defence.   (more...)

A few pertinent facts about Nazi war criminals in Canada

Related:

The Struggle for Justice: Nazi War Criminals in Canada

Question: Given the large numbers of crimigrants in Canada, and in view of the documented transfer of entire industrial complexes from Nazi-occupied Europe to Argentina, has any Nazi infrastructure taken root in Canada, either in the industrial or financial spheres? Could a consequent war chest provide the purchasing power needed to keep these Nazis immune from justice?