Subject: re: A sorry tale of two MPs
Date: Tue, 15 May 2001 01:13:35 -0500
From: "V. Walter Halchuk" [[email protected]]
To: [email protected] [Toronto Globe and Mail]
CC: Edward Greenspon [[email protected]]

Re: A sorry tale of two MPs
by Edward Greenspon
The Globe and Mail
Sat, 12 May 2001

Dear Editor

Mr. Greenspon's May 12th tale of MP duality, sets a double standard itself. Mr. Greenspon pays an inordinate amount of attention to Mr. Andrew Telegdi's comparison of current Canadian denaturalization and deportation proceedings to Nazi Germany's methods. If there is no excuse for Nazi comparisons, where was he last November when the now Immigration Minister Elinor Caplan, the one deciding citizenship issues, made her inflammatory and hurtful Nazi and neo-nazi remarks? Did she also "lose her marbles"?

Mr. Telegdi did not lose his. His proposition was highlighted in the media and his argument broadly supported. He reflects a growing conviction held by a constituency far wider than his Ontario Kitchener-Waterloo riding: It is wrong for government to be the lawmaker, the prosecution, the judge and the executioner. We all agree "Elected officials can't be trusted to keep politics out of such serious decisions".

Does no one else in Ottawa remember that only some sixty years ago, elected officials, not a coup, in the name of their country implemented two-tier citizenship that ultimately resulted in a world war that killed some 50 million people? Why borrow anything from them? What happened to "never again"?

Immigrant Canadians are now second class citizens. If the likes of (Canadian born) Paul Bernardo and Clifford Olson have the right of appeal when convicted on the basis of solid and direct evidence, why is it then that Canadian citizens, born elsewhere, do not have at least that same right of appeal on Federal Court rulings concerning denaturalization and deportation, - rulings that are based on the balance of probabilities rather than on direct evidence?

Sincerely
Walter Halchuk