"We deserve the opportunity to learn from our past and to come to terms with the shortcomings of Canada," said B'nai Brith Canada's Richard Robertson.
A 618-page report from 1986 examining the postwar arrival in Canada of those alleged of Nazi war crimes still hasn’t been fully declassified, but certain segments must now be made public, according to a recent Federal Court ruling.
In a 21-page ruling issued Tuesday, Justice Simon Fothergill said the public interest in preserving the historical record, the many decades that have passed and the weakness of the government’s reasons for continued secrecy all weighed in favour of increased disclosure of historian Alti Rodal’s report.
“We deserve the opportunity to learn from our past and to come to terms with the shortcomings of Canada,” Richard Robertson, B’nai Brith Canada’s Director of Research and Advocacy said.
The decision follows years of attempts to obtain an uncensored version of the study, Nazi War Criminals in Canada: The Historical and Policy Setting from the 1940s to the Present, commonly called the Rodal Report.
Prepared for the Commission of Inquiry on War Criminals in Canada — the Deschênes Commission — the report examined the circumstances under which alleged Nazi war criminals and collaborators came to Canada after the Second World War. Although substantial parts of the previously unpublished study have become public, significant passages remained concealed.
Rodal concluded that weak screening procedures enabled some perpetrators of Nazi crimes to enter Canada.
Robertson told the National Post that it was his organization’s advocacy that pushed the case, as it was in February 2024, when Library and Archives Canada released new segments in response to an access-to-information request from B’nai Brith. The release revealed numerous passages that had previously been censored, but redactions remained on seven pages in one section and in RCMP file references contained in 14 endnotes.
The contents of newly declassified materials are as yet unknown, he said.
A 618-page report from 1986 examining the postwar arrival in Canada of those alleged of Nazi war crimes still hasn’t been fully declassified, but certain segments must now be made public, according to a recent Federal Court ruling.
In a 21-page ruling issued Tuesday, Justice Simon Fothergill said the public interest in preserving the historical record, the many decades that have passed and the weakness of the government’s reasons for continued secrecy all weighed in favour of increased disclosure of historian Alti Rodal’s report.
“We deserve the opportunity to learn from our past and to come to terms with the shortcomings of Canada,” Richard Robertson, B’nai Brith Canada’s Director of Research and Advocacy said.
The decision follows years of attempts to obtain an uncensored version of the study, Nazi War Criminals in Canada: The Historical and Policy Setting from the 1940s to the Present, commonly called the Rodal Report.
Prepared for the Commission of Inquiry on War Criminals in Canada — the Deschênes Commission — the report examined the circumstances under which alleged Nazi war criminals and collaborators came to Canada after the Second World War. Although substantial parts of the previously unpublished study have become public, significant passages remained concealed.
Rodal concluded that weak screening procedures enabled some perpetrators of Nazi crimes to enter Canada.
Robertson told the National Post that it was his organization’s advocacy that pushed the case, as it was in February 2024, when Library and Archives Canada released new segments in response to an access-to-information request from B’nai Brith. The release revealed numerous passages that had previously been censored, but redactions remained on seven pages in one section and in RCMP file references contained in 14 endnotes.
The contents of newly declassified materials are as yet unknown, he said.
The still-withheld section concerned Canadian officials’ 1954 discovery of a covert U.S. intelligence initiative that allegedly helped Nazis and Nazi collaborators settle in Canada while bypassing normal security procedures.
Library and Archives Canada argued that the withheld text was protected by section 15(1)(a) of the Access to Information Act, which permits the government to refuse disclosure where release could harm Canada’s international relations. It also relied on section 13 for one passage: a U.S. official’s assessment of American immigration law that Canada had allegedly received in confidence from the United States.
The agency also withheld RCMP file numbers under section 15(1)(d)(ii), which covers intelligence information whose release could undermine efforts to detect, prevent, or suppress subversive or hostile activity.
Justice Fothergill dismissed all but one of Library and Archives Canada’s exemption arguments. He found that the institution had not established that releasing information of clear historical importance would, today, damage Canada’s international relations or national security.
Greater public knowledge of the country’s past, he added, promotes informed discussion and reinforces democratic life.
The judge allowed the continued withholding of the quoted U.S. official’s remarks under section 13, because the material had been received from a foreign government in confidence. Still, he described the contents as apparently “innocuous” and said Canada should continue seeking U.S. permission to disclose them.
“Frankly, I think the opening of the report, if that actually happens any time soon, is a non-event. There’s likely nothing in the report that’s not already known, or at least suspected by the Jewish community. I think the bigger story is how hard over the years the Canadian government has fought the Jewish community on every level regarding this issue. The non-release of this report until now is just a symptom of that,” said Steven Rambam, founder and CEO of Pallorium, Inc., a Brooklyn-based licensed investigative agency.
In the mid-1990s, Rambam and his associates compiled a list of 2,000 possible Nazi war criminals living in Canada, and winnowed them down to 200 of the worst to investigate. He located 170 suspected Nazi war criminals and collaborators living in Canada, and interviewed about 70 of them undercover.
“I can personally attest to the fact that all the war criminals were known decades ago. The Canadian government could have done much, much more,” he told the Post. “There’s no war criminal that entered Canada that wasn’t known to the RCMP. That I feel confident in saying.”
Library and Archives Canada argued that the withheld text was protected by section 15(1)(a) of the Access to Information Act, which permits the government to refuse disclosure where release could harm Canada’s international relations. It also relied on section 13 for one passage: a U.S. official’s assessment of American immigration law that Canada had allegedly received in confidence from the United States.
The agency also withheld RCMP file numbers under section 15(1)(d)(ii), which covers intelligence information whose release could undermine efforts to detect, prevent, or suppress subversive or hostile activity.
Justice Fothergill dismissed all but one of Library and Archives Canada’s exemption arguments. He found that the institution had not established that releasing information of clear historical importance would, today, damage Canada’s international relations or national security.
Greater public knowledge of the country’s past, he added, promotes informed discussion and reinforces democratic life.
The judge allowed the continued withholding of the quoted U.S. official’s remarks under section 13, because the material had been received from a foreign government in confidence. Still, he described the contents as apparently “innocuous” and said Canada should continue seeking U.S. permission to disclose them.
“Frankly, I think the opening of the report, if that actually happens any time soon, is a non-event. There’s likely nothing in the report that’s not already known, or at least suspected by the Jewish community. I think the bigger story is how hard over the years the Canadian government has fought the Jewish community on every level regarding this issue. The non-release of this report until now is just a symptom of that,” said Steven Rambam, founder and CEO of Pallorium, Inc., a Brooklyn-based licensed investigative agency.
In the mid-1990s, Rambam and his associates compiled a list of 2,000 possible Nazi war criminals living in Canada, and winnowed them down to 200 of the worst to investigate. He located 170 suspected Nazi war criminals and collaborators living in Canada, and interviewed about 70 of them undercover.
“I can personally attest to the fact that all the war criminals were known decades ago. The Canadian government could have done much, much more,” he told the Post. “There’s no war criminal that entered Canada that wasn’t known to the RCMP. That I feel confident in saying.”
Steven Rambam, one-time Nazi hunter, and founder and CEO of Pallorium, Inc.
The federal government has 30 days to appeal the Sept. 1 ruling, and Robertson said that “it’s a real possibility” that they could do so, to delay even further.
“What will the unsealing of the few remaining portions of this report, if it happens, actually reveal to Canadians or to the Jewish community in particular? Nothing that hasn’t already been known for decades,” Rambam said. Complete accountability, in Robertson’s view, would look like “full disclosure of Canada’s Nazi past, the full release of the Rodal Report, the full release of the Deschenes Commission Part 2, and turning this into part of Canadian education, so that Canadians can learn from the mistakes of our past and can understand them and come to grips with them.”
He added: “Rather than try to sweep that history under the rug and to fight about whether or not that history should be disclosed to the public, our government should be exercising its ability in acting with moral fortitude, and leadership.”
The issue of Canada’s allowing in of suspected former Nazis returned sharply to public attention in September 2023, when MPs in parliament gave a standing ovation to Yaroslav Hunka, who had served in the Waffen-SS Galicia Division. The controversy prompted renewed scrutiny of Canada’s immigration, vetting, and historical-record practices concerning alleged Nazi war criminals and collaborators.
“What will the unsealing of the few remaining portions of this report, if it happens, actually reveal to Canadians or to the Jewish community in particular? Nothing that hasn’t already been known for decades,” Rambam said. Complete accountability, in Robertson’s view, would look like “full disclosure of Canada’s Nazi past, the full release of the Rodal Report, the full release of the Deschenes Commission Part 2, and turning this into part of Canadian education, so that Canadians can learn from the mistakes of our past and can understand them and come to grips with them.”
He added: “Rather than try to sweep that history under the rug and to fight about whether or not that history should be disclosed to the public, our government should be exercising its ability in acting with moral fortitude, and leadership.”
The issue of Canada’s allowing in of suspected former Nazis returned sharply to public attention in September 2023, when MPs in parliament gave a standing ovation to Yaroslav Hunka, who had served in the Waffen-SS Galicia Division. The controversy prompted renewed scrutiny of Canada’s immigration, vetting, and historical-record practices concerning alleged Nazi war criminals and collaborators.
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