To Globe and Mail | 27Aug2010 | Orest Slepokura

Ottawa urges immigrant communities to report suspicious behaviour

The Editor:

Re: "Ottawa urges immigrant communities to report suspicious behaviour," Steven Chase, Globe and Mail online, 27 August 2010.

While vigilance is important in flagging unusual patterns of behaviour by terrorist wannabes, citizens will need to be careful to not overreact and end up confusing the imagined with the real. The Commission of Inquiry into Nazi War Criminals in Canada headed by Justice Jules Deschênes is instructive in this regard. Over 800 individuals were investigated during the life of the Commission in the mid-1980s, with results contained in a 1986 study. A recurring motif one discovers on reading it is how practically all of their leads led nowhere. A case sourced to an anonymous letter is typical, including "the denunciation as war criminals of a couple bearing a German name, living in a secluded place under the protection of two black dogs and offering old European furniture for sale (cf. Case No. 179 and Case No. 180, pp. 386-387).

Welcome to Kafka country!

Orest Slepokura
Strathmore, Alta