Federal Court orders Ottawa to disclose CIA-linked Nazi resettlement records

A Federal Court ruling compels Ottawa to release redacted sections of a 1985 report on Nazi war criminals resettled in Canada via a secret CIA program.

Federal Court orders release of secret CIA-linked Nazi resettlement files

Canada's Federal Court has ordered the federal government to publish previously redacted sections of a report detailing how Nazi war criminals were resettled in Canada through a covert CIA program following the Second World War, Google News CA — Crime (EN) reports.

The ruling, issued Tuesday by Justice Simon Fothergill, is the result of legal action brought by B'nai Brith Canada. The Jewish organization had challenged Ottawa's decision to keep classified certain details — contained in a report written four decades ago — about American efforts to help Nazi collaborators enter Canada.

The judgment concerns portions of a report authored by historian Alti Rodal for the 1985–86 Commission of Inquiry on War Criminals in Canada, chaired by former Quebec judge Jules Deschênes. The commission had investigated allegations that Canada had become a safe haven for Nazi war criminals after the war.

Most of the Rodal report had already been made public, with additional declassified material released in 2024. Tuesday's ruling addresses a section focused on "irregularities in resettlement of defectors and former agents" — a portion that has never been fully disclosed, the court noted, "despite its age and historical importance."

Justice Fothergill wrote that his considerations included "the importance of the historical record" and "the passage of time."

CIA cover organization channelled collaborators into Canada

The Rodal report found that Nazi collaborators who had assisted the United States — including by supplying intelligence — were helped into Canada by the Research and Resettlement Branch of the United States Army in Europe, known as USAREUR. That organization, the report concluded, functioned as a cover for the CIA and other American intelligence agencies.

USAREUR acknowledged that some of its informants held criminal records, including a number of cases involving what was categorized as moral turpitude — the classification under which Nazi collaborators were listed. Although the U.S. maintained a policy of admitting 100 such collaborators per year, the report indicated that it may have preferred sending "the less desirable ones" to other countries, including Canada.

Rodal's research documented irregularities in how Canadian immigration offices in Europe processed applications submitted by USAREUR. Some of those applications were accepted without background checks.

"A right to know the truth"

Simon Wolle, chief executive officer of B'nai Brith Canada, said in a statement: "It is a scandal that, during a time when Canada maintained severe restrictions on Jewish immigration to this country, it facilitated the entry of perpetrators of Nazi crimes. Canadians have a right to know the truth about not only Canada's actions but the U.S.'s covert efforts to sneak ex-Nazis into Canada after the Second World War."

Historians welcomed the ruling, saying it could clarify the extent to which American intelligence agencies facilitated the settlement of Nazi collaborators in Canada — some using false identities and forged documentation.

Jared McBride, a history professor at the University of California, Los Angeles, who provided witness testimony during the court hearing, said some Nazi collaborators who furnished postwar intelligence to the Americans would have been promised a new life in the U.S. or elsewhere as a reward. Some would have entered Canada using laundered identities and false documents with U.S. intelligence assistance, he said, given that their wartime activities under the Third Reich would otherwise have barred entry.

"The CIA program alluded to in the Rodal Report remains largely shrouded in mystery," McBride said in an e-mail. "The U.S. government developed a variety of mechanisms for relocating individuals deemed problematic intelligence assets from Europe, sometimes transferring them directly to the United States and, in other cases, facilitating their movement to countries in South America and elsewhere."

He added that postwar programs facilitating the relocation of such individuals to Canada and other allied countries "remain insufficiently researched and warrant considerably greater scholarly attention."

Heritage minister's weighing of public interest found deficient

The Federal Court found that the Minister for Canadian Heritage — a post currently held by Marc Miller — "did not properly weigh either the public's right to know or the historical importance of the information withheld from the Rodal Report."

The ruling follows years of efforts by B'nai Brith to obtain the complete report, including an access to information request filed in 2023 and a subsequent lawsuit contesting the decision to withhold sections of it.

Unless successfully appealed by the federal government, the judgment will result in the removal of nearly all remaining redactions from the Rodal report. The disclosure is expected to reveal details including how many Nazi collaborators were resettled in Canada with U.S. assistance, along with the identities of some Canadian and American officials involved.

Rodal welcomed the decision, saying in an interview that she had always intended her report to be made fully public. "After decades of misguided decisions, serious neglect, and lack of transparency, it is long overdue for the Government of Canada to make its Holocaust-related records publicly available in a comprehensive digital archive," she added in an e-mail.

The Department of Canadian Heritage did not respond to a request for comment, including on whether it intends to appeal the ruling.

Source: Google News CA — Crime (EN)