June 14, 2002

Cabinet Special Committee of Council
Parliament of Canada
Ottawa, ON K1A 0A6

Attention: Hon. Don Boudria, Chair (via fax to Committee members)

Our Council represents all five parishes of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church in the city of Edmonton. We speak for approximately 2,000 families in this city, and we are expressing the sentiments of many, many more Canadians.

It is with sadness and disbelief that news reached us that the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration is recommending the denaturalization of Mr. Wasyl Odynsky.

Mr. Odynsky is neither a war criminal, nor a Nazi, nor a liar. He was a victim of a ruthless totalitarian regime a half century ago; today he is a victim of a government that has been persuaded that it is perfectly acceptable for politics to be allowed to masquerade as justice.

The process that is being used against Mr. Odynsky and others has no place in either a nation guided by the rule of law, or a society that purports to be free and democratic. Denaturalization and deportation as a process intended to deal with non-existent "war criminals" is so seriously flawed that its continued presence in this nation represents not an expression of due process, but its repudiation.

We request that the Committee retain Mr. Odynsky's citizenship, for he and his family have suffered enough. Allow the man the decency to live in his adopted land, where he can spend his final days fighting the cancer that, like the threatened action of the government, is slowing killing him.

May the Holy Spirit be among you when you conduct your deliberations.

Yours respectfully,

Rt. Rev. M. Kryschuk
Chairman of the Board