OTTAWA, ONTARIO | A Federal Court judge has ordered the Canadian government to disclose previously secret portions of a landmark report examining how alleged Nazi war criminals and collaborators were able to enter and settle in Canada after the Second World War.
Justice Simon Fothergill ruled Sept. 1 that Library and Archives Canada must release most of the remaining disputed redactions from historian Alti Rodal’s 1986 report, Nazi War Criminals in Canada: The Historical and Policy Setting from the 1940s to the Present.
The decision represents a significant victory for B’nai Brith Canada, which has fought for years for greater public access to the historical record.
“Having regard to all of the relevant policy considerations, including the importance of the historical record, the passage of time, and the inadequacy of the Minister’s rationale for continuing to withhold the information from the public, I am satisfied the Court should order that the information be disclosed,” Fothergill wrote in his 21-page judgment, according to B’nai Brith Canada.
At issue are passages concerning the postwar resettlement of alleged Nazi collaborators in Canada, including information about the role of American intelligence agencies.
The Canadian Press reported that Library and Archives Canada had continued withholding passages discussing American intelligence agencies and their role in facilitating the settlement of Nazi collaborators in Canada. Fothergill rejected the federal government’s argument that disclosure of additional decades-old information could harm Canada’s international relations.
A Report Written For Canada’s Nazi War-Crimes Inquiry
Rodal prepared the study for the Commission of Inquiry on War Criminals, commonly known as the Deschรชnes Commission.
The federal government established the commission in 1985 amid mounting questions about whether Nazi war criminals had entered Canada after the Second World War and, if so, how they had been admitted.
Library and Archives Canada says the commission was specifically tasked with investigating whether war criminals were present in Canada and the circumstances through which they were able to enter the country.
Rodal submitted her historical report in September 1986.
Drawing on archival material, she examined Canadian immigration and refugee policies, the government’s treatment of suspected war criminals and the circumstances surrounding the admission of individuals and groups accused of wartime collaboration.
The report was initially released in heavily redacted form.
Decades later, substantial portions remained secret.
Questions About American Intelligence
Among the most consequential remaining passages concern American intelligence activities.
The disputed material includes Canada’s discovery in 1954 of information concerning a covert U.S. program that allegedly facilitated the movement of Nazis and collaborators while bypassing ordinary Canadian security screening.
The Federal Court ruling does not itself establish that every person admitted through such mechanisms was a Nazi war criminal. The historical material concerns alleged war criminals, Nazi collaborators and the actions of intelligence and government agencies. That distinction is important when assessing individual cases.
The ruling does, however, clear the way for Canadians to see substantially more of the historical evidence upon which Rodal based her findings.
Fothergill concluded that the government had failed to demonstrate sufficient contemporary harm to justify continuing to conceal most of the material.
One quotation that had been provided confidentially by a U.S. official may remain withheld.
Years Of Pressure For Disclosure
The latest ruling follows a prolonged effort to declassify more of the report.
In February 2024, Library and Archives Canada released additional portions after an Access to Information request from B’nai Brith Canada.
The federal Office of the Information Commissioner subsequently found B’nai Brith’s complaint over the remaining secrecy to be well founded.
The commissioner’s investigation found that Library and Archives Canada could not demonstrate that all the withheld information met the requirements for exemptions under the Access to Information Act. During that process, the archives released most of the previously withheld information but continued relying on provisions protecting confidential information received from governments and information related to international affairs and defence.
The dispute ultimately reached Federal Court.
B’nai Brith Canada welcomed the ruling as an important step toward confronting Canada’s historical record.
The organization has argued that Canadians, particularly the Jewish community and Holocaust survivors and their descendants, have a legitimate interest in knowing how suspected Nazi war criminals and collaborators were able to enter the country.
Canada’s Unresolved Nazi War-Criminal History
The Rodal Report is significant because it goes beyond individual cases and examines the policies and institutional decisions that shaped Canada’s postwar immigration system.
The federal government’s own description of the report says it documents “the historical policies and circumstances that led to the presence of Nazi war criminals in Canada.” In 2024, Ottawa released a less-redacted version while acknowledging that some information remained protected.
The Deschรชnes Commission’s work remains one of the most important official examinations of the issue.
Library and Archives Canada’s Holocaust research guide notes that the commission’s records include a master list of approximately 800 people investigated in connection with war-crimes allegations, an additional list of 38 names and a separate list of 71 German scientists and technicians. Inclusion on those lists did not itself establish guilt.
The historical issue has remained particularly painful for Canada’s Jewish community because the country simultaneously maintained highly restrictive policies toward Jewish refugees before and during the Holocaust.
The Federal Court decision does not resolve that history. It does something more fundamental: it removes much of the remaining government secrecy surrounding records that could help Canadians understand it.
B’nai Brith Canada’s campaign for disclosure reflects a broader argument that Holocaust-era accountability does not end when perpetrators die. It also requires preserving an accurate historical record of how governments responded.
The federal government has 30 days from the judgment to appeal.
Unless Ottawa challenges the ruling successfully, Canadians could soon gain access to material that governments have kept from public view for decades, providing another piece of the still-unfinished historical accounting of how alleged Nazi war criminals and collaborators found refuge in Canada after the Holocaust.
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