http://www.telusplanet.net/public/mozuz/odynsky/odynsky.html
Canadian citizenship is highly prized everywhere. So it would probably
confound
those granted landed immigrant status to know they are better off
without it.
And it would likely amaze everyone else to know that resident aliens
have more
rights and privileges than citizens.
Wasyl Odynsky came to Canada in 1949, one of the many displaced persons
to whom
this country became a sanctuary. He worked hard, saved enough to buy a
house in
Etobicoke, Ont., and then retired. He has been, by all accounts, a model
citizen. Now the federal cabinet is debating whether to deport him.
Mr. Odynsky, an ethnic Ukrainian, was born into a part of Poland that no
longer
exists. In 1941, his homeland was overrun by the German army. He was
dragooned
into forced labour. After escaping, he learned his family had been
targeted for
retribution. So he returned and was made a guard at a forced-labour
camp.
In March, Justice W. Andrew MacKay of the Federal Court of Canada ruled
that Mr.
Odynsky was innocent of any war crimes, in particular, an SS massacre of
Jews in
his region in 1943. Mr. Justice MacKay, however, did find him guilty by
association. Mr. Odynsky is imperiled because of things he is alleged
not to
have said to Canadian immigration officials 53 years ago.
Mr. Justice MacKay wrote, "After careful consideration of the evidence
presented, on a balance of probabilities it is more probable than not
Mr.
Odynsky did not truthfully answer questions that were put to him
concerning his
wartime experience."
Why should this matter? Twenty years ago it was widely believed that
Canada was
rife with Nazis. Sol Littman of Toronto's Simon Wiesenthal Centre
claimed, in a
letter to prime minister Brian Mulroney, to have evidence that the
notorious
Josef Mengele had applied to enter Canada as an immigrant. In response,
Mr.
Mulroney established the Deschenes Commission; it derided Mr. Littman's
claim
but concluded it was possible some Nazi war criminals were still here.
The
Mulroney government passed legislation to allow the prosecution in
Canada of
those alleged to have committed war crimes in other countries.
Only one man, Imre Finta, alleged to have committed crimes against Jews
in
Hungary, was ever prosecuted. He was acquitted without even having to
present
evidence in his own defense. The prosecutor admitted afterward that "the
time
and effort may simply be too great" to warrant further trials.
Meanwhile, those
accused of war crimes were dying off. Canada's War Crimes Unit opted for
another
strategy: civil prosecutions alleging that naturalized Canadian citizens
had
falsified their particulars when they came to Canada. There were two
strong
advantages to this approach:
1) Criminal standards of evidence would not apply; and
2) Those prosecuted would be ineligible for legal aid.
Canadians could now be stripped of their citizenship on a "balance of
probabilities." The Federal Court has decided 10 cases; the federal
government
has won seven. The government's argument is simple and elegant.
Immigration
officials must have asked Mr. Odynsky and the others about Nazi
associations
(because that was government policy), and they must have lied (because
they
would not have been admitted otherwise).
