Federal Court orders release of some secret material in Nazi war crimes study

B’nai Brith Canada has fought for years to see more of the report by researcher Alti Rodal, conducted for Canada’s inquiry on war criminals led by Jules Deschenes in the 1980s.

Rodal’s study was released initially under the Access to Information Act in a heavily censored form in 1987. In recent years, fuller versions of the study have been disclosed.

Rodal concluded that in the decade following the war, there was “ample opportunity” for war criminals and Nazi collaborators to enter Canada.

She found that throughout the 1950s, there was a progressive relaxation of security screening guidelines to permit legal entry to Canada for former members of Nazi organizations and for Nazi collaborators — the groups most likely to have included individuals who had been involved in war crimes.

The predominant concern of screening policy and practice in the postwar decade was, in fact, not to identify Nazis but to weed out possible Communist infiltrators and spies, who were seen then as the primary security threat, Rodal wrote.

In February 2024, Library and Archives Canada released some additional portions of Rodal’s study in response to an access request from B’nai Brith.

Library and Archives continued to withhold other elements — including passages that discuss the role of American intelligence agencies in facilitating the settlement of Nazi collaborators in Canada.

The undisclosed material includes the names of foreign intelligence officials, their roles and duties, statistical information and descriptions of historical events, Fothergill’s ruling says.

In oral submissions, government counsel pointed to potential harm to Canada’s relations with the United States from disclosure of the information because the Americans preferred that it remain confidential.

In a written submission, federal lawyers wrote that the “harm to our relationship with that nation is directly tied to the information in question. Tensions exist between these nations and are likely to be exacerbated by disclosing this information.”

In his ruling, Fothergill said the federal government had not met the “heavy onus” of showing that the release of additional information would harm Canada’s international relations.

He wrote that a “bald statement of ongoing ‘tensions’ between Canada and the United States is not a sufficient basis to refuse disclosure of very specific information related to efforts by the United States to resettle suspected Nazis and Nazi collaborators in Canada” after the war.

The court decision is a victory for all Canadians, said Richard Robertson, B’nai Brith’s director of research and advocacy.

“Canadians deserve to learn about our country’s history to enable us to learn from its mistakes and also to heal from the trauma of what was a dark period in Canadian history, specifically for Canada’s Jewish community,” Robertson said Thursday in an interview.

“I hope that the material provides further clarity on who was let into Canada and why.”

A spokesperson for Canadian Identity and Culture Minister Marc Miller, the cabinet member responsible for Library and Archives, did not immediately respond to a question about whether the government will challenge Fothergill’s ruling in the Federal Court of Appeal.

Robertson said if the government appeals, “we will be fighting that in court.”

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 3, 2026.