The Canadian government has revoked the citizenship of two former Nazi collaborators who misrepresented their wartime pasts when they entered the country more than 50 years ago, Justice Minister Rob Nicholson said yesterday.

Helmut Oberlander, 83, and Jacob Fast, 96, were stripped of their Canadian citizenship by Cabinet order. Both are Ontario residents born in the Ukraine and found by the Federal Court of Canada to have served the Nazi occupation during the Second World War.

"The message should go out that this country is not a safe haven for anyone involved with a war crime, whether it be recent or quite some time ago," Mr. Nicholson said from Munich, where he is attending a gathering of G8 justice and security officials.

It has been more than seven years since Ottawa took away the citizenship of a Canadian for involvement in Nazi atrocities. The last such decision, in March, 2000, concerned Serge Kisluk, who had collaborated with the Germans in Ukraine. He died in 2001.

The Oberlander case has been a longstanding concern of Jewish groups, which have repeatedly urged Ottawa to take action against him. Although the courts have ruled there was no evidence he personally committed war crimes, Mr. Oberlander was a member of a unit that carried out mass executions of Jews.

"Justice is finally being done and I think Holocaust survivors especially will embrace this decision as they are in their twilight years," Bernie Farber of the Canadian Jewish Congress said last night after the National Post first reported the story on its Web site.

He said the decision was about more than redressing past wrongs; it should also serve notice to combatants in current and future conflicts that they cannot commit crimes against humanity and get away with it, he said.

"When you deal with a person like Oberlander, you send a message to those who would today be committing war crimes, and that is that Canada will not rest, Canada will do whatever is necessary and years make no difference. The right thing will be done."

Dozens of war criminals have settled in Canada since the Second World War.

Following unsuccessful attempts to prosecute a Toronto man who had participated in the Holocaust, the government changed tactics and in 1988 began revoking the citizenship of Nazis on the grounds they had misrepresented themselves to immigration authorities.

Since 1977, Canada has revoked citizenship 54 times -- seven of them in relation to the Second World War. Some of those war criminals left Canada voluntarily and others died but none were removed to their countries of origin, officials said yesterday.

Mr. Oberlander and Mr. Fast have 30 days to appeal the decision. Neither could be reached for comment yesterday. Asked if the government intended to deport them, Mr. Nicholson said that was up to the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration, Diane Finley.

"That would be a separate decision," he said. "They would be in the same position as other individuals without status in the country, so there are a number of avenues, but again until the decision is final, I think we should be clear that they have the right to have this reviewed."

Mr. Oberlander immigrated to Canada with his wife in 1954 and they became citizens in 1960. But in 1995, federal officials notified Mr. Oberlander they were taking steps to revoke his citizenship for failing to mention his wartime past when he immigrated.

In 2000, a Federal Court judge found that Mr. Oberlander had been a member of Einsatzkommando 10A, a "mobile mass killing squad" in Ukraine that implemented the Third Reich's Final Solution in the Soviet Union.

The government subsequently ordered the revocation of his citizenship, but the decision was set aside by a court in 2004 and no further action was taken until yesterday. He lives in Waterloo, Ont.

Mr. Fast arrived at Halifax harbour in 1947 and became a Canadian citizen in 1954. The government notified him in 1999 that it was revoking his citizenship.

Federal officials alleged that from 1941 to 1944 he had worked for the Political Police, a unit in Zaporozhye, Ukraine, that enforced the policies of the German occupation forces.

In October 2003, the Federal Court ruled that Mr. Fast had been a Nazi collaborator and that he had concealed his German citizenship when he entered Canada.

The case was sent to the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration for final disposition but no action was taken until yesterday. He lives in St. Catharines, Ont.

"These files have been in the system for some time but we've been very clear in our support of human rights and clear in our commitment that Canada will not be a safe haven for people involved with war crimes or crimes against humanity or genocide," the Minister said.

(Copyright National Post 2007)