From: Eugene Harasymiw
Sent: Sat 9/28/2002 1:29 PM
To: [email protected]; [email protected]; [email protected]; [email protected]; [email protected]
CC: [email protected]
Subject: FW: Peter Goldring, Member of Parliament

Dear Canadian Alliance members:

If you have not already read Mr. Peter Goldring's exemplary letter to the Hon. D. Coderre, copied below, we are taking the liberty of forwarding it to you.

Speaking on behalf of our over 1,000 members in Alberta, I can say without hesitation that Mr. Goldring has raised one of the most important issues facing Canada's justice system (and perhaps the immigration system as well), and he has done so in complete harmony with Canadian Alliance principles (i.e. green Declaration of Policy, specifically Policy No. 61 and 48.)

Speaking personally, I can tell you without reservation that Mr. Goldring has, practically overnight, earned the lasting respect of members of our organization and the community as a whole for his principled and courageous stand on what to some misinformed elements in our society is an unpopular topic. With this, I pledge my continued support to Mr. Goldring, not only in this campaign to see true justice (as opposed to vengeance) achieved, but also come election time.

I suggest to you that you have a leader in your midst, and that your active support of this issue befits you and your Party.

Yours respectfully,

Eugene Harasymiw, B.A.(Hon.), LL.B.
Chair
Civil Liberties Standing Committee
Alberta Ukrainian Self-Reliance League
10611 - 110 Ave.
Edmonton, AB T5H 1H7
fax (780) 457-5170

-----Original Message-----

Please find attached a letter that was recently sent by Mr. Goldring to the Minister regarding Wasyl Odynsky.

Terence Scheltema, Executive Assistant
Peter Goldring, Member of Parliament
Edmonton Centre-East
613 992 3821
Fax 992 6898

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http://www.petergoldring.ca

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Hon. Denis Coderre, PC, MP,
OTTAWA
Minister of Immigration,
September 13, 2002
648-D Centre Block,
House of Commons INTRA

Dear Minister Coderre:

Re : Proposed Deportation of Wasyl Odynsky

I am writing to you concerning the proposed deportation of the above-referenced individual, whose circumstances are a matter of extensive public knowledge. I have chosen to become involved with Mr. Odynsky's case at the request of members of the Ukrainian community in Edmonton and elsewhere; my wife is also of Ukrainian descent. As you know, Mr. Odynsky is facing deportation based on a determination that, on balance, he must have misrepresented his World War II associations to Canadian immigration officials at the time of his application to immigrate to Canada. It has been determined that there is in fact no evidence to support this conclusion, but that the conclusion is instead one derived from suppositions as to administrative practices of Canadian immigration officials at the time. Mr. Odynsky's activities during World War II have been judicially determined to exclude any involvement in war crimes. It has also been judicially determined that Mr. Odynsky's association, as a Ukrainian teenager, with a German SS auxiliary unit was not voluntary, but the result of coercion.

In my view, given Mr. Odynsky`s age and his unblemished record of over fifty years as a Canadian citizen, a decision to deport him based on supposed misrepresentations as to World War II associations, unsupported by evidence, is patently unreasonable. I suggest further that, even if such misrepresentations had evidentiary support, the significant efforts that Mr. Odynsky has spent over the last five years to successfully clear his name, including the exhaustion of his retirement savings, is sufficient cause for Ministerial discretion or clemency to be exercised by you. I note that, over the past year, there has been no action on the part of Cabinet to approve the proposed deportation order of Mr. Odynsky. I respectfully submit that such inaction, coupled with no judicial finding of war crime participation on the part of Mr. Odynsky, should be sufficient grounds to permit Mr. Odynsky to continue the balance of his life in Canada, as a valued contributor to his community and as a Canadian citizen whose actions are substantially beyond reproach. I hope that you will agree. I look forward to receiving your views on the foregoing, at your earliest possible convenience.

Yours truly,

Peter Goldring, Member of Parliament, Edmonton Centre-East