Elinor Caplan | Dec. 21, 1999 | Eugene Harasymiw
Resign over Ressam fiasco

ALBERTA UKRAINIAN SELF-RELIANCE LEAGUE
10611 - 110 Ave.
Edmonton, Alberta T5H 1H7
ph. (780) 431-9855; fax (780) 457-5170

December 21, 1999     Faxed to: (613) 992-0887

Hon. Elinor Caplan
Minister of Citizenship & Immigration
House of Commons
Ottawa, ON
K1A 0A6

Dear Madame Minister:

With the arrest by U.S. officials of Ahmed Ressam on smuggling and false statement charges, followed by your refusal to face the media -- a duty that a Minister of the Crown is expected to fulfill -- the time has come for you to re-assess your position as representative of the people of Canada. The Ressam fiasco, as you know, forms but one of a long line of inexcusable gaffes by the Department which you head. These have been thoughtfully compiled by the Canadian Security Intelligence Service thus: �Terrorists in Canada have played a role in the World Trade Center bombing, suicide bombings in Israel, assassinations in India, the murder of tourists in Egypt, the Al Khobar Towers attack in Saudi Arabia and the bombing campaign of the Provisional Irish Republican Army...�

When the foregoing blunders are considered against the backdrop of your involvement in the denaturalization and deportation of so-called war criminals for �heinous crimes� allegedly committed 55 years ago, most thinking Canadians cannot consider you as an effective or even serious representative of the Crown. In short, if you are prepared to strip a person of his citizenship and deport him from Canada based on predominantly (former) KGB supplied �evidence� of acts purportedly committed over a half century ago, but you are unwilling or unable to stop obvious terrorists from entering and operating in or from Canada today, the time has come for you to do the honorable thing and resign.

Yours truly,

Eugene Harasymiw, LL.B.
President