Another Triumph for Canada's Enemies of Free Speech

Ottawa thwarts Judge's Order that David Irving return to Canada
as an Expert Witness on December 7

On October 6, 1998 David Irving was served with a subpoena issued by a Canadian judge requiring him to testify as an expert witness before the Human Rights Tribunal in Toronto on December 7, 1998. He applied to the Canadian government for special permission to enter the country, having been illegally excluded from Canada ever since 1992 after an extended secret campaign by the League of Human Rights of the B’nai Brith Canada. After several reminders, the Canadian High Commission in London replied on December 3:

3.DEC.1998 14:54 CHC IMMAGRATION [sic] NO.594 P. 1/2

Canadian High Commission		Haut Commissariat du Canada
Immigration Section Macdonald House 38 Grosvenor Street London W1 X OAA		Service d'immigration Fax: (0171)258 6506 Internet: http://www.canada.org.uk/visa-info/ December 3, 1998

Our M97-0089

Mr David Irving
81 Duke Street
Grosvenor Square
London
W1M 5DJ

Dear Mr Irving:

This refers to your application for special permission to enter Canada as a visitor.

I have now completed the assessment of your application and regret to inform you that I have determined that you do not meet the requirements for entry into Canada in that you come within the inadmissible class of persons described in paragraph 19(1)(i) of the Immigration Act. You were the subject of a deportation order dated 13 November 1992 at the Canada Immigration Centre in Niagara Falls (Hearings Unit) and you have not subsequently obtained the written consent of the Minister to come into Canada as required under paragraph 55(1) of the said Act.

As you have been advised previously, you also come within the inadmissible class of persons described in paragraph 19(2)(a.1) of the Act. You have been convicted in the Federal Republic of Germany. It has been determined that this is equivalent to the offence 'Public Incitement to Hatred' pursuant to subsection 319(2) of the Criminal Code of Canada which, if committed in Canada would constitute an offence for which the maximum, term of imprisonment of less than ten years may be imposed.

Finally, you have also been previously advised that you are deemed inadmissible to Canada under Section (19)(2)(d)(i) of the Act in that there are reasonable grounds to believe that you will commit one or more offences in Canada.

Before rendering a decision, your case was brought to the attention of the Director General of the Case Management Branch of the Department of Citizenship and Immigration. He concurred with the decision that you are inadmissible and, acting on behalf of the Minister of Immigration, he deemed that there exist no special considerations for the Consent of the Minister to be granted for your entry into Canada and that there were no grounds for the issuance of a Minister's Permit to override the requirements of the Act and the Immigration Regulations.

In these circumstances, you would be denied permission to enter Canada should you appear at a Canadian Port-of-Entry.

Yours sincerely,

David De Rose
First Secretary

Mr Irving replies as follows:

Your letter of December 3 states two grounds for the minister's continued refusal of my application for entry, even though subject to a witness subpoena issued by a Canadian court. Neither ground is adequate for the following reasons:

1. You state that the German offence under which I was convicted, of Verunglimpfung etc., "has been determined" to be "equivalent to the offence of Public Incitement to Hatred." This is not so, and you are aware of the very high standards required by the Immigration Act which require that the conviction shall be for an offence which has an exact equivalent under Canadian criminal code.
2. You state that there are reasonable grounds to believe I would commit an offence. No properly constituted court will accept this, given that (a) I have never been charged with any offence on my previous fifty or so visits to Canada, and (b) no requests for me to be so charged are evident in the files of the Attorney-General, which we obtained under your Access to Information Act.

Your decision is purely political, a violation of the Canadian charter of human rights, and an affront to freedom of speech. The court will note that you waited until the very eve of my scheduled departure to inform me of the decision, although the application was made five weeks or more ago; I am entitled to construe this delay as being designed to ensure that no Canadian court could be called upon to review the decision in good time.

Please inform me of the procedures open to me to appeal this decision.

Yours etc

David Irving

It is of course absurd to suggest that anybody would be convicted, in Canada, for stating that "the gas chamber shown to tourists at Auschwitz is a post-war fake." This, and only this, is what the Munich court fined Mr Irving US$22,000 for saying in 1990. The Polish authorities have now admitted that it is true.

For more information on the global campaign to silence and persecute David Irving, read the draft publication: