Activist against the citizenship and immigration deportation law

Despite sitting on two Commons Committees, Liberal Member of Parliament for Etobicoke-Lakeshore Mr. Borys Wrzesnewskyj makes time to sit in on the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration chaired by Liberal Member of Parliament for Kitchener-Waterloo Andrew Telegdi. "When there is a committee member absent I am asked by Mr. Telegdi to replace that person," said Wrzesnewskyj. He added "I am very respectful of Mr. Telegdi, especially when he resigned as Parliamentary Secretary of Citizenship and Immigration when they first tried to invoke the repatriation of East Europeans that were forced to fight in WW II. This act of principle has never happened before to my knowledge."

Even though that attempt to repatriate these young people who were forced to serve during WW II was overturned by the Court of Appeal, the same issue has been again raised by former minister of Citizenship and Immigration, the Hon. Judy Sgro, before she herself was forced to resign. Her successor, the Hon. Joe Volpe hasn't made any moves to repeal the proposal. "The recommendations break 6 Charter of Rights regulations," said Wrzesnewskyj.

At the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration hearing of Tuesday, February 5, 2005 Wrzesnewskj raised the example of the Odynsky family ,who have been targeted by the Justice Department as war criminals. "These people who were victims of the Nazis are now victims of the Canadian Federal Government," said Wrzesnewskyj . He explains further: "Mr. Odynsky was first recruited by the Nazis during WW II but escaped and was brought back only when his parents were threatened. He was then put to work as an 'outer perimeter guard' of a concentration camp, a person who was unarmed and would raise an alarm if the camp were attacked. His wife was sent to Germany to work as a domestic servant (slave) .

"The proposed legislation by the Hon. Judy Sgro is a surprise to me, because origionally she was opposed to it, then all of a sudden she submitted it," said Wrzesnewskyj. "The legislation is very dangerous because it turns any Canadian who was not born here into a second class citizen - that means 20% of the population or 6 million people. The legislation allows for people to be deported on the whim of the minister without appeal after a closed hearing on the basis of information from the War Crimes Unit of the Department of Justice. When I called the War crimes Unit citizenshipto find out what their criteria was they were vague, arrogant and then they hung up on me."

The proposed process allows for the prosecutor to become the judge as well, in a politicized way, when we have been been used to an unbiased judiciary. We need to take this issue very seriously because a large chunk of our freedoms are about to be eroded.

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