It is starting to look more and more like a federal election is coming soon. The Liberal Party after three terms in office seems tired and mired in scandal. The Greater Toronto area with its large immigrant population has long been a bastion of support helping it to form the government. In fact, the Liberal party across the country has long been regarded as the party the immigrant community supports.

The politicians have already started their ritualistic song and dance about pretending to listen to what their electorate wants and promising to deliver it. One of the issues that concern the expatriate Estonian community and other East European communities having the misfortune to be overrun by the Nazis during the Second World War is the treatment of so-called war criminals.

Several years ago the Supreme Court of Canada effectively made criminal prosecution of war crimes committed during the Second World War impossible. This was a wise decision because the passage of time and the locale where the alleged crimes were committed made proof beyond a reasonable doubt next to impossible. In any event, the perpetuators are almost now of such an age that little is to be gained by persecuting them. Almost all have led exemplary lives since they arrived in the country and paid their own way.

Undeterred by this, the Liberal governments simply bypassed the safeguards built into the criminal judicial system and used civil litigation to its advantage to achieve the same practical result. There are two glaring items that have justifiably caused civil libertarians great concern. One is that the onus of proof has greatly and unfairly changed and in actual fact shifted to the defendant who has to prove that he didn’t lie to an immigration officer some 50 years ago. The second is that the usual avenue of appeal to the highest court in the land otherwise available to all citizens has been blocked. This is most disturbing in a country founded on the premise that everyone is equal before the law.

For many years Paul Telegdi, a Liberal MP of Hungarian background from the Kitchener-Waterloo area championed the cause of judicial review by the highest court in the land for those unfortunate enough to have been stripped of their Canadian citizenship though the process outlined above. He was not successful in persuading his colleagues in the Liberal caucus to change the law. His main point was that those of us who are immigrants to this country should not be categorized as second class citizens before the law.

This, along with the recent scandals and fiasco with the firearms registry system well detailed by the Auditor General is perhaps something that people should question their candidates on and consider when they mark their ballots.

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