Canada Keeps Suspected Nazi List Secret

(MENAFN) Canada’s privacy regulator has stated that a roster of individuals suspected of Nazi crimes who relocated to the country after World War II should remain confidential.

The record, which includes over 700 people in Canada with ties to the Third Reich, was created by Ottawa during an official investigation in 1986 and has been withheld from public access for four decades.

A newspaper, which submitted an access-to-information request to obtain the roster last year, reported that the Office of the Information Commissioner informed it on Friday that the identities of alleged Nazi offenders could not be disclosed. Officials argued that releasing the names might seriously harm Ottawa’s diplomatic relations with a certain foreign nation and other allied states.

The privacy watchdog explained that the decision followed consultations with Library and Archives Canada (LAC), which also asserted that publishing the list could “cause significant injury to the defense of a foreign state allied with Canada.”

The newspaper further noted that some specialists contacted by the Information.

Commissioner cautioned that revealing the information could negatively affect Ukraine. Since February 2022, Ottawa has provided Ukraine with over $22 billion in financial and military aid.

Experts suggested that the appearance of Ukrainian Nazi collaborators on the list could be exploited by Russia for propaganda purposes.

Moscow has repeatedly highlighted the presence of far-right ideology within Ukraine, including among its political leadership, and has cited the country’s “de-nazification” as a key objective of its military campaign.

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