I am sorry that, because of a previous engagement, Laurie Hawn of the Conservative Party, couldn’t attend. Although I am not Laurie’s official representative here, I will try to answer any questions that you may have.

Nevertheless, I would like to explain to you, and to Ms. McLellan in particular, why I have been working so hard on Laurie’s campaign to defeat her in this election.

The issue is the denaturalization and deportation (or d&d) policy which de facto targets Ukrainian refugees from WWII. It started with the Deschenes Commisssion in 1985 -- created to deal with the so-called Nazi War Criminal craze fomented by fraudulent newsmedia articles. As a result, the Mulroney government opted for a made-in-Canada solution to allow for retroactive prosecutions in Canadian criminal courts. They specifically stated that there would be no denaturalizations and deportations. Several prosecutions were attempted but all failed because the jury could not be convinced of the guilt of the accused. For example, the acquittal of Imre Finta was upheld by the Supreme Court of Canada.

However, in 1995 the Chretien government did an about-face and announced that they would, indeed, use the d&d process rather than the criminal process, although Allan Rock stated that no cases would be initiated unless there was convincing evidence of war criminality. In not one of the 20 or so cases initiated during the Chretien era has individual war criminality been proven.

These so-called war crimes trials have now morphed into immigration hearings alleging that the accused victim must have lied about his activities when they immigrated to Canada. The War Crimes Unit is justifying its existence and budget by fraudulently claiming that immigration infractions are somehow equivalent to war criminality.

Now, whereas the criminal process uses rigorous rules of evidence, trial by jury and “beyond a reasonable doubt” criteria, d&d is a civil process using lax rules of evidence, a single solitary judge and “on the balance of probabilities” criteria. In other words, in a criminal process you are considered “innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt”. In a civil process, there is no presumption of innocence. You are considered guilty until and unless you can prove your innocence.

I will repeat. In a criminal trial the onus is on the state to prove your guilt. In a civil trial, the onus is on the accused to try to prove his innocence. If a bureaucrat points his finger at you and states that you are guilty, you are considered guilty unless you can prove your innocence!

Particularly painful was that in November 1997 Anne McLellan, as Justice Minister, hired Neal Sher to “put fire in the belly” of Canada's War Crimes Unit, despite the urgings of the Ukrainian community here in Edmonton not to do so. Neal Sher was the head of the OSI in the United States which perpetrated “fraud on the court” by withholding exculpatory evidence in obtaining the extradition of John Demjanjuk to Israel in 1986. More recently, he has been disbarred for having allegedly defrauded Holocaust victims.

Many of you probably recall the cases of Vladimir Katriuk, Helmut Oberlander and Wasyl Odynsky. The Ukrainian community in Edmonton worked very hard to convince MPs such as Don Boudria, David Kilgour, Peter Goldring, Deb Gray and others of the injustice of d&d. They all appeared to agree with our position.

And yet when Bill C-18, the proposed new Citizenship of Canada Act, was tabled in the House of Commons on Oct. 31, 2002, the revocation of citizenship provisions were even more draconian than in the present Act. At hearings of the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration held in various cities across Canada, the overwhelming majority of the presentations were strongly opposed to these provisions. Fortunately, Bill C-18 died when parliament was prorogued.

That was the Jean Chretien era. What can we expect in the Paul Martin era?

Well, Irwin Cotler has been appointed Justice Minister. He was the lead counsel for the Canadian Jewish Congress during the Deschenes Commission Witchhunt. When the Israeli Supreme Court ruled in September 1993 that John Demjanjuk could not be charged with other crimes and must be returned to the United States, Mr. Cotler was shown on CBC TV vowing that he would pursue John Demjanjuk to the ends of the earth. In the Toronto Star, Jan. 21, 1992, Peter Small quotes Mr. Cotler as follows: "Each time we bring a war criminal to justice we strike a blow against the Holocaust denial movement."

In other words, Mr. Cotler admits pursuing old, decrepit and defenseless men from the WWII era not in the interests of justice, but to “strike a blow” against Holocaust-deniers and the Holocaust denial movement.

And what about Anne McLellan? By being appointed Deputy Prime Minister, she now has oversight responsibility for all Ministers in Paul Martin’s Cabinet, including the bureaucrats in the various departments. She was also appointed Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness. This Ministry has a division called the Canada Border Services Agency, which is now responsible for Canada’s War Crimes Unit, which uses the d&d process to persecute old, defenceless men for alleged immigration infractions.

So I suspect that it is Ms. McLellan, who is responsible for initiating revocation of citizenship proceedings against Jura Skomatchuk in St Catherines and Josef Furman here in Edmonton. She is the one responsible for appealing the ruling of Justice Reilly that he has jurisdiction to examine the validity of the d&d process in the Oberlander case. Finally, she is the one who will make the decision whether to appeal, or not, the Federal Court of Appeal ruling restoring the citizenship of Helmut Oberlander.

In an article in the July 16, 2001 issue of the Edmonton Journal titled “McLellan has ‘lost control’ of secretive Justice bureaucrats”, Liberal MP John Bryden is quoted as saying: “She has lost control. She’s acting more like an employee of the Justice Department than its minister.”

And then again:
“The Justice Department has a total monopoly over legislation in Canada. It proposes policy, writes legislation and interprets legislation for all cabinet ministers. The whole process is dominated by one single group of bureaucrats and what makes it worse is that it is a badly abused, secret monopoly.”

In my estimation, that is a perfect description of the interaction between Ms. McLellan and the bureaucrats in Ottawa who run this country. Should she not be held accountable?