Ottawa (5 October 2012) - For Immediate Release
Canada's Ukrainian community has expressed disappointment with NDP MPs Peter Julian and Don Davies for hosting a "potluck" Thanksgiving dinner in East Vancouver with a veteran officer of the notorious Soviet secret police, the KGB.
Speaking on behalf of the Ukrainian Canadian Civil Liberties Association, Dr Lubomyr Luciuk, said: "Millions of Ukrainians and other east Europeans now living in Canada were victims of the KGB. Mikhail Lennikov was a KGB captain. He entered Canada illegally, has no right to remain here, had his bogus claim to being a refugee rejected by the Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada, and was ordered deported in June 2009. His appeal of that decision was subsequently dismissed by the Honourable Mr Justice R Zinn of the Federal Court of Canada. Instead of obeying our laws, Lennikov went into a pre-prepared bolt hole in the basement of a Lutheran Church, where he remains to this day, claiming a non-existent 'right of sanctuary'. We find it reprehensible that Mr Julian and Mr Davies would sup with a fugitive who is openly flaunting the rule of law in this country. My late mother was a genuine refugee, one of the many millions of victims of Communism. Thanksgiving was always a day with cultural and religious significance for her and millions like her, a unique North American feast-day on which she thanked the good Lord above for having gotten away from the KGB's butchers. The NDP MPs hosting an ex-KGB man to Thanksgiving should be ashamed of themselves. We have called upon the leader of the New Democratic Party, the Honourable Thomas Mulcair, to distance himself from their unconscionable behaviour."