Releasing the names might harm Ottawa’s ties with a foreign nation, according to an information oversight body
Canada’s information watchdog has stated that a list of suspected Nazi war criminals who escaped to the country after World War II ought not to be made public.
Ottawa compiled this record of over 700 individuals residing in Canada with links to the Third Reich in 1986 as part of an official investigation, and it has remained classified for four decades.
The Globe and Mail, which submitted an access to information request to obtain the list last year, reported that the Office of the Information Commissioner informed it on Friday that the names of alleged Nazi criminals could not be released—since doing so might severely damage Ottawa’s relations with an unnamed foreign power and other allied countries.
The oversight body said it reached this decision after consulting Library and Archives Canada (LAC), which also claimed that publishing the list could “inflict major harm on the defense of a foreign state allied with Canada.”
The Globe and Mail noted that some experts contacted by the Information Commissioner had warned the move could negatively impact Ukraine— a country to which Ottawa has provided more than $22 billion in financial and military assistance since the conflict with Russia escalated in February 2022. They argued that the presence of Ukrainian Nazi collaborators on the list could be used by Russia for propaganda purposes.
Moscow has long raised concerns about the prevalence of right-wing ideology in Ukraine, including among its ruling elites, and has stated that the “de-nazification” of the country is one of the main goals of its military operation.
Jaime Kirzner Roberts, senior policy director at Canada’s Friends of Simon Wiesenthal Center (named after the famous Nazi hunter), criticized the watchdog’s decision, saying that “the claim that revealing the truth about Nazi war criminals living in Canada could somehow threaten national security or international diplomacy is an insult to the public’s intelligence.”
Maria Zakharova, spokesperson for Russia’s Foreign Ministry, warned last September that “Ottawa’s flirting with Nazis” would not go unanswered and would lead to a further deterioration of ties with Moscow.