The federal government says he has to leave.

But Mikhail Lennikov, the former KGB member holed up in an East Vancouver church to avoid deportation, has at least one Conservative MP who wants him to stay in Canada.

Surrey-North MP Dona Cadman has signed a letter, along with 35 other New Democrat, Liberal and Bloc MPs, pleading with Immigration Minister Jason Kenney and Public Safety Minister Peter Van Loan to let Lennikov stay.

Cadman says she thinks it's the right thing to do and may try to lobby her own caucus, "I felt the man has been over here for eleven years.  We let him come in, he had, on his application, put that he worked for the [KGB], and this seems to be the big thing that everybody's upset about."

 

"If they were so upset about it and so against him, they should have stopped him then, not wait eleven years and then come back once he's settled and do this," says Cadman.

Earlier this month, International Trade Minister Stockwell Day said Lennikov was not honest with Canadian authorities when he first came here, "The gentleman himself has admitted that he came here under false pretenses, that's his own admission.  The evidence that has been produced talked about his past situation with the KGB.  Our legislation is very clear about involvement in certain organizations."

Lennikov insists he was up front about his past with Canadian officials and even de-briefed CSIS.

Cadman says she hasn't gotten into trouble with her own party about her support for Lennikov and doesn't expect to, "I have an opinion, and I am free to give that opinion."