Helmut Oberlander

Helmut Oberlander (15 February 1924 – 20 September 2021) was a naturalized Canadian citizen who was a member of the Einsatzgruppen death squads of Nazi Germany in the occupied Soviet Union during World War II.^[1] Oberlander was on the Simon Wiesenthal Center's list of most wanted Nazi war criminals.^[2][3] Beginning in 1994, the Government of Canada made several attempts to revoke Oberlander's citizenship on the basis of his misrepresenting his involvement with Nazi war crimes.^[4]

In 2017, after the fourth attempt by the government to strip him of his citizenship, he lost his appeal, as the Federal Court found this revocation "reasonable",^[5] and in 2019 the Federal Court of Appeal unanimously dismissed his motion to have his case re-opened.^[6] On 5 December 2019, the Supreme Court of Canada declined to hear Oberlander's appeal, clearing the way for his deportation.^[7] In early 2020, however, Oberlander was still in Canada and had filed a new appeal against his planned deportation.^[8][9] He later lost his appeal, which had him face a deportation hearing.^[10] On or about 19 March 2021, the lawyer representing Oberlander filed a motion for a permanent stay of proceedings against his client.^[11][12] The motion was denied by judge Denis Gascon who ruled that a permanent stay of immigration proceedings would be "premature" and called for an administrative review by the Immigration Department of the Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada.^[13]