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It is estimated that between 2,000 and 5,000 war criminals fled to Canada after the Second World War, but not one Nazi has ever been successfully prosecuted in this country.

“It is to the Canadian government’s great and eternal shame that more was not done,” said Mr. Rambam, the renowned “Nazi hunter” who will be in Toronto on Tuesday for a charity event.

Activists say it’s not too late for Canada to act. A handful of cases are still actionable.

Looking back, a key problem was that for decades Canada did not actively pursue suspected war criminals, and when it did decide to launch proceedings they were done badly and ineffectively, said David Matas, senior legal counsel of B’nai Brith Canada.

“Canada started too late; there were just too many perpetrators; too much evidence had been destroyed or lost. The effort was more an attempt to construct a justice legacy for the victims of the Holocaust,” said Mr. Matas.

The seeds of Canada’s inaction were sown three years after the end of the war. The allied powers decided that prosecuting war criminals would end and the British Commonwealth Relations Office wrote to the dominions explaining the policy.

The punishment of war criminals is more a matter of discouraging future generations, than of meting out retribution

“In our view, the punishment of war criminals is more a matter of discouraging future generations, than of meting out retribution to every guilty individual,” wrote the department, as revealed by Franklin Bialystok in his book Delayed Impact: The Holocaust and the Canadian Jewish Community.