Federal court orders release of records on Nazi war criminals who settled in Canada

A Federal Court judge has ordered the release of government records detailing how a U.S. program secretly resettled Nazi war criminals in Canada after the Second World War, often with Canadian officials' support.

Judge Simon Fothergill issued the ruling on September 1, rejecting claims from the federal government that disclosure would damage relations with the United States. "A bald statement of ongoing 'tensions' between Canada and the United States is not a sufficient basis to refuse disclosure of very specific information related to efforts by the United States to resettle suspected Nazis and Nazi collaborators in Canada following World War II," Fothergill wrote.

B'nai Brith Canada pursued the case after receiving a heavily redacted copy of the Rodal Report, a study commissioned for the 1985 Deschênes Commission on Nazi war criminals. The report documented how inadequate security screening allowed perpetrators of Nazi war crimes to enter Canada, and how Canada was reluctant to prosecute them once they arrived.

The U.S. intelligence agencies recruited Nazis and Nazi collaborators—many from eastern Europe—for covert operations against the Soviet Union after the war, then resettled large numbers of them in Canada by circumventing proper security checks. Similar information has already been released by the CIA and the U.S. government itself, strengthening the judge's finding that withholding it was unreasonable.

Richard Robertson, B'nai Brith's director of advocacy, called the ruling a victory. "This is information that all Canadians deserve to have made accessible," he said. B'nai Brith has committed to pushing for release of the full Rodal Report and the second part of the Deschênes Commission report, which remain undisclosed.