By Arthur Weinreb
Monday, February 5, 2007
There is a common misconception that communism died in 1990. The truth is that it didn't; it simply moved to Ontario for five years when Bob Rae and the NDP came to power in the province.
There is no doubt that members on the left do wax nostalgia for the old Soviet Union. It was not a member of the NDP but a Liberal that put it best. Former cabinet minister David Collenette once bemoaned the collapse of the Soviet Union that left the evil United States as the only remaining superpower. According to that rationale it would be so much better if the Soviet Union, with its gulags and food shortages would make a comeback to counter George W. Bush. Nonetheless, the NDP certainly has sympathy for the days of old when communism reigned supreme in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe.
Last month, the Federal Court of Canada dismissed an application for judicial review brought by Mikhail Lennikov and his family from a decision by the Immigration and Refugee Board to their application for permanent residency in Canada. Landing the family was refused on security grounds under s.34 (1) (f) of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act. Lennikov was found to be a person who was a member of an organization that there are reasonable grounds to believe engages or has engaged in espionage or an act of subversion against a democratic government, institution or process as they are understood in Canada.
Lennikov, a Russian national, had worked for the KGB between 1982 and 1988 when he was dismissed for being incapable of service. Despite evidence that his leaving the organization would make him a traitor in the eyes of the state, he suffered no untoward consequences and in fact was able to later obtain state employment. After leaving the KGB, he kept in contact with members of that organization. In 1995 he left Russia for Japan where he worked as a researcher until 1997. At that time he was accepted as a student at the University of British Columbia and received authorization to come to Canada to study. He and his family subsequently applied for permanent residence and that application was refused and became the subject of the further legal proceedings.
The evidence suggested that while he was someone reluctant to join and be a part of the KGB, he did so because it benefited his status and his life in the Soviet Union.
NDP MP and former party leader, Alexa McDonough, has gone to bat for Lennikov, calling his removal "overly zealous" and the court decision "heavy handed". It is simply amazing how lefties can jump for joy when activist courts legislate something that they want, but criticize these same courts for simply interpreting the law concerning threats to Canada's security. If McDonough has specific knowledge of legal errors that the tribunal or the court has made, she hasn't enunciated them. The Nova Scotia MP has called on Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day to allow the Lennikovs to remain in Canada, something that is very unlikely to happen.
McDonough seems to think that Lennikov should be allowed to remain because he was "honest" about his past. Perhaps had he concocted a pack of lies, he could have put one over on the authorities and been allowed to remain. But telling the truth doesn't detract from the fact that he has been found to pose a threat to Canada's security; something that McDonough doesn't really dispute. The reality is that if he did in fact join the KGB to better his life in the former Soviet Union, he could easily be co-opted again by the KGB successors. But the country's security is not something that the NDP are ever too concerned with.
Like a true member of the party that can't seem to ever get higher than the teens in support, McDonough purports to speak for all Canadians when she said, "Unless there are facts that would indicate otherwise which I'm unaware, it seems the decent Canadian, fair-minded decision to take in the interests of the family is to say yes, absolutely they should be able to get on with their lives in Canada".
No, the decent Canadian fair-minded thing to do is to protect our country by removing someone who there are reasonable grounds to believe poses a threat to Canada's security. One wonders that if Lennikov been from a country that the NDP doesn't particularly sympathize with; Israel comes to mind, would Alexa be making a pitch for these people to stay? We all know what the answer to that is.
The world was just so much better when the Soviet Union was around.
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