Discovery of secret list of alleged Nazi war criminals in Canada raises questions about government secrecy

Of note (embarrassing to various Canadian governments that refused their release):

U.S. researchers have found what they say is a late draft of a secret list of more than 700 suspected Nazi war criminals believed to have settled in Canada after the Second World War, prompting fresh calls for the federal government to finally unseal and release the full list.

A research team led by UCLA historian Jared McBride, an expert on war crimes in the Second World War, has unearthed what he concludes is an annotated version of the list of alleged war criminals in this country examined by a 1986 Commission of Inquiry led by retired Superior Court of Quebec judge Jules Deschênes.

Anonymized descriptions of such individuals living here were published in Part 1 of the Deschênes inquiry report. But the second half of the report, naming them, has been kept secret for decades, despite calls to release it, including from historians, Jewish groups and the Canadian Polish Congress.

Last year, the government rejected an access to information request from The Globe and Mail to make it public. The Globe has seen the list of names, and accompanying notes on their investigation, unearthed by the UCLA team.

Jaime Kirzner-Roberts, senior director of policy and advocacy at the Friends of Simon Wiesenthal Center, said “there is no longer any rationale for the government to continue to keep these documents secret.”

“The government must immediately release the full case files and once and for all reckon with the truth instead of preserving the shameful cover-up that has shielded war criminals for so many years,” she said.

Prof. McBride found the partly redacted ledger, which includes notes on identity checks, in a batch of documents collated by the RCMP in the Canadian government’s archives….

Source: Discovery of secret list of alleged Nazi war criminals in Canada raises questions about government secrecy