The Nizkor Project: Remembering the Holocaust (Shoah)

David Irving: 1992 Canadian Immigration
Adjudication Tribunal Report


Analysis:

As for the issue of what you understood your obligation to be with respect to the procedure for confirming your departure from Canada, you were, I would suggest, in somewhat of a different position than a tourist for example. You were a person who had been found at a quasi-judicial proceeding to be in violation of the Immigration Act for the manner in which you had originally gained entry.

Even prior to this you had been informed in writing by Canadian Immigration authorities that you were probably inadmissible. Given this situation, you could have become the subject of a deportation order following your original inquiry but were granted a departure notice, presumably upon your commitment to the adjudicator to leave Canada by a certain date.

Thus the state had an interest in knowing that you had departed Canada and to that end you were provided with instructions as to the procedures to be followed. In that regard it should be noted that a departure notice holder who fails to confirm departure is, administratively at least, presumed to have remained in Canada and may become the subject of a warrant of arrest. Thus you were not free to simply slip across the border into the United States and return as an ordinary tourist while ignoring the departure notice.

You have made much to do out of the stamp which appears on the manila envelope which has been marked as exhibit P-6 and reads as follows:

"IMPORTANT"

"Please hand this document into Canadian Authorities at the time of your departure from Canada. Your departure will be verified by return of this document to the issuing office"

Contained inside this envelope was exhibit C-4, Confirmation of Departure Form, IMM56. This form has been established by the .Minister of Employment and Immigration to confirm a persons departure from Canada. It is the same form issued to persons under a removal order.

You testified that you did not hand this document into immigration authorities when you departed at Blaine on October 30, 1992 because you had agreed with immigration officials in Vancouver to hand the document to officials at the Rainbow Bridge in Niagara Falls where you had announced you would be leaving Canada.

You claim that because the stamp on the manila envelope says "please hand this document into Canadian immigration authorities" instead of "you must hand this into immigration authorities" you did not feel obliged to confirm your departure from Canada at Blaine, Washington on October 30, 1992.

I have a great deal of difficulty accepting this explanation of your conduct. Your case has generated alot of interest and given its high profile at the time is it not reasonable that immigration officials would go to great lengths to ensure that you were fully aware of your obligations of complying with the departure notice and the importance of confirming your departure.

Mr. Murray Wilkinson, the Case Presenting Officer at your Vancouver inquiry made a statutory declaration (exhibit C-5) wherein he declares that at the conclusion of your inquiry he spoke to you about the procedures necessary to confirm your departure from Canada at the Place where you left Canada. There is no mention of a deal to have you confirm your departure in Niagara Falls.

Why would immigration officials care where you left Canada as long as you complied with the departure notice and confirmed your departure? It was your decision and yours alone to depart through the Niagara area just minutes before your departure notice was due to expire. You had to have realized that the adjudicator did not include or intend an interim departure/reentry provision as a term of your departure notice and that you had to confirm your departure immediately upon leaving Canada.

The evidence with respect to an October 30, 1992 trip to the state of Washington consists of the testimony of yourself and Brian Fisher as well as the telephone record from Mr. Fisher's residence (exhibit P-9). Consequently we are talking here of an event that would have taken place less than two weeks ago.


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