Pierre Trudeau opposed stripping accused Nazi war criminal of citizenship, government document says

As justice minister in 1967, former prime minister Pierre Elliott Trudeau argued against revoking the citizenship of a Canadian citizen the Soviet Union had convicted of heading a firing squad responsible for the deaths of 5,128 Jews during the Second World War, says a 617-page report prepared for the Commission of Inquiry on War Criminals decades ago.

The document, now largely unredacted, was released by Library and Archives on Thursday. It was originally prepared for the Deschênes Commission, which in the mid-1980s investigated Nazi immigration into Canada.

The document says a Soviet court tried the Canadian in question, identified only as Subject F, in absentia in Riga, Latvia in 1965 and found him guilty.

It was written by historian Alti Rodal. A heavily redacted version under Canada's Access to Information Act was initially released to the public in 1987. Jewish human rights organization B'nai Brith obtained a less censored copy in June 2023 but Trudeau's position on the case was blacked out in that version.

In 1967, when Trudeau was justice minister in the government of Prime Minister Lester Pearson, the Department of External Affairs sought his legal opinion on whether there was a solid case for deporting Subject F, based on the USSR's request.

In July of that year, Trudeau wrote to the department that, «it could not be established that Subject F knowingly concealed material circumstances relating to his good character even if it be assumed that he was, in fact, guilty of the crimes for which he was convicted in absentia.»

In November 1967, Trudeau expanded on his thoughts in a letter to Paul Martin Sr., who was then secretary of state for External Affairs. In it, Trudeau said he was worried about setting a precedent