Apartment buildings damaged by a Russian military strike in the front-line town of Dobropillia in Donetsk region, Ukraine, earlier this month.Anatolii Stepanov/Reuters
Mark Kersten is an assistant professor in criminal justice at the University of the Fraser Valley and a senior consultant at the Wayamo Foundation.
Atrocities in Sudan, Gaza and Ukraine raise a question: do Canadians have a role in addressing the suffering of others?
While these wars can appear to affect only distant strangers, their horrors increase the chances that victims – and perpetrators – will seek to enter Canada. It’s unsurprising, then, that Canadian authorities are busier than ever in identifying suspected perpetrators of war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide. Yet Canada continues to deport perpetrators without any guarantee they’ll be subsequently held accountable.
Ottawa needs to put its money where its mouth is and use its courts to prosecute alleged war criminals.
The last report of Canada’s Crimes Against Humanity and War Crimes Program was released a decade ago. Back then, authorities suspected that some 200 perpetrators of international crimes resided in Canada. Ottawa’s goal was to deport or prevent the entry of suspects without any guarantee that they’d be prosecuted for their alleged crimes. Believing that trials were too expensive, the government was explicit: Prosecuting perpetrators in Canadian courts under the Crimes Against Humanity and War Crimes Act was a last resort.
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For the first time since that report, we have a glimpse into what the War Crimes Program is doing, thanks to written questions submitted to the government by Conservative MP Pierre Paul-Hus. The answers tell an important story.
Between 2016 and October, 2025, the program processed and analyzed 56 allegations that suspects present in Canada had been involved in international crimes abroad. A major uptick came in 2024-25, with 35 allegations assessed during that period – seven times more than any preceding year.
What might have caused this increase in allegations? Earlier this year, it was revealed that a structural investigation had been launched into international crimes committed in the “Israel-Hamas conflict.” The probe was opened in 2024 but only revealed in 2025. Canada has two other structural investigations, one into Ukraine and another into atrocities committed against the Yazidi people by the Islamic State. Rather than focus on individual perpetrators, structural investigations examine contexts, and collect evidence of international crimes via the testimony of refugees and open-source evidence like social-media posts.
As of October, the RCMP has 18 active criminal investigations against suspected perpetrators of war crimes, crimes against humanity or genocide. Who these individuals are or where they committed their alleged crimes is unclear. As for convictions in Canada for atrocity crimes? Zero: “There were no criminal convictions under the Crimes Against Humanity and War Crimes Act during the reporting period.”
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That could soon change. Last year, for the first time in more than a decade, Canada charged someone with war crimes. As an alleged ISIS member, Ahmed Eldidi faces charges of torture, mutilation and murder. His trial is set for 2026. Mr. Eldidi cannot be deported because he is a Canadian citizen.
The information shared by the government also reaffirms a reluctance to prosecute perpetrators in Canadian courts and a preference for immigration-related approaches to dealing with suspects. From 2016 to 2025, more than 400 people were rendered inadmissible to Canada. A total of 84 removal orders were issued and 111 people were denied refugee protection. More than 420 people suspected of involvement in international crimes were denied entry into Canada, and 63 were deported. A further nine were subjected to proceedings to revoke their citizenship due to their suspected involvement in atrocity crimes; four revocations were successful.
The government will not share where the suspects were deported to due to “privacy considerations.” But it added that “no individuals involved in atrocity crimes “were surrendered to a foreign state or international tribunal,” suggesting that where Canada has deported perpetrators, they have not been subsequently prosecuted. It is entirely possible that they were returned to live among their victims. That isn’t justice; it’s a hand-washing exercise.
Of course, money speaks louder than words, and the War Crimes Program’s budget has remained stagnant since 1998; the Carney government offered no additional funds in its recent budget. Given the growing case load and demand for accountability for atrocities in Canada, this is troubling. A budget is a moral document – so goes the quote often attributed to Martin Luther King, Jr. – and if the program’s funding stagnates, Canada’s moral commitment to international justice risks stagnating, too.
While efforts to prevent perpetrators from entering Canada are laudable, suspects who do enter must not get away with their crimes. Canada shouldn’t be exporting war criminals. It should hold them to account. Doing so means using Canadian courts to address the suffering of others – not as a concession to strangers, but as an act of solidarity with those who flee atrocity for the safety and promise of Canada.