A Call for Due Process

Toronto Sun
July 1, 2002

by Andrew Telegdi
M.P for Kitchener- Waterloo

Given my background I, as much as anyone, want all war criminals and those guilty of crimes against humanity brought to justice.

I came to Canada in 1957 as a Hungarian refugee, after spending months in a Jewish refugee camp in Austria with my Jewish stepfather, Roman Catholic mother and two siblings. Having survived the Soviet Communist dictatorship with my parents, who had also survived the Nazi regime, I understand better than most the horrors of totalitarianism. And the risks we all run if, in this country, we fail to respect the rights of every Canadian citizen.

This is why I oppose Canada’s current process for citizenship revocation of suspected Nazi war criminals, a process which in fact confers second-class citizenship on six million naturalized Canadians. Instead of a normal, independent judicial process, the present practice for citizenship revocation does not allow for appeal to the courts. The final decision is made by a special committee of cabinet based on the "balance of probabilities" and may even turn on speculative issues.

When the Citizenship and Immigration committee dealt with this matter, every delegation addressing the issue called for appeal rights. They included such diverse groups as the B’nai Brith, the Canadian Islamic Congress, the Canadian Arab Federation, the National Association of Japanese Canadians, the Ukrainian Canadian Congress and the Canadian Civil Liberties Association.

Amendments to address this lack of appeal rights were drafted by Ken Narvey, chief operating officer of the Coalition of Concerned Congregations on the Law Relating to War Crimes and Crimes Against Humanity, Including Those of the Holocaust. That was done in consultation with David Mathas, senior honourary counsel of B’nai Brith. I supported these amendments because they provided for the fundamental justice guaranteed to all citizens under our Charter. An independent judiciary is one of the pillars of our democracy.

I spoke against C-16, the relevant legislation, during the debate. When I realized the government was not going to support the amendments at report stage, I resigned my position as Parliamentary Secretary to the minister for Citizenship and Immigration and voted against the bill. Many thousands across the country, including legal and civil liberties organizations, virtually every ethnic community in Canada and grass root liberals, support the position I have taken on citizenship rights.

A resolution to make citizenship revocation an independent judicial process, free of political interference, was adopted at the 2001 Liberal policy convention. The same resolution topped the vote in the southwest region policy workshop of the Liberal party’s Ontario annual meeting earlier this month. These resolutions and a petition to change the current draconian law will go to the national biennial convention of the Liberal Party of Canada next February.

Despite all this, some have tried to depict me as a kind of Nazi sympathizer, who would want to keep war criminals in Canada. Among them is Warren Kinsella, a long-time adviser to Prime Minister Jean Chretien, who suggested as much in a recent attack on me and two other MPs in the The Toronto Star. In fact, the overwhelming support for the resolutions shows that many in our party and our government are out of touch on this matter. Those who think like Kinsella might take the time to understand this issue ..

The government introduced bills C-63 and C-16 to amend the current Citizenship Act. Had one of these passed into law, it would have made the present revocation process even more draconian. Under C-63, children of people who were deported under the present process would face the same fate as their parents, even if they arrived 50 years ago.

That sent shivers down my spine. Such an absurdly draconian law could conceivably put my own citizenship at risk.

Such measures harken back to unenlightened, racist measures of the past, such as the Chinese Head Tax, the internment of tens of thousands of Japanese, Ukrainian and other Canadians during both world wars, the deportation of thousands of the unemployed during the Depression, the Asian Exclusion Act and the policy of "none is too many" for the Jews during the Second World War. During the First World War, immigrant soldiers who were wounded fighting for Canada were deported if they needed relief or hospitalization. We have long since become a pluralistic, multicultural country. I say there is no place here for two classes of citizens.