The NY Times praises Canada for its Supreme Court Decision to restore rights:
The United States was not the only country to respond to the horror of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks with policies that went much too far in curtailing basic rights and civil liberties in the name of public safety. Now we see that a nation can regain its senses after calm reflection and begin to rein back such excesses, but that heartening news comes from Canada and not the United States…. The Canadian justices rejected their government’s specious national security claim with a forceful 9-to-0 ruling that upheld every person’s right to fair treatment. “The overarching principle of fundamental justice that applies here is this: before the state can detain people for significant periods of time, it must accord them a fair judicial process,” Chief Justice Beverley McLachlin wrote…Lawmakers have only to look to the Canadian court for easy-to-follow directions back to the high ground on basic human rights and civil liberties.
Those same lawmakers can also look to Dion and Layton and Duceppe and their MP’s who combined against the Conservative government’s fear and smear tactics and were not intimidated from voting to make sure that human rights and civil liberties are not trampled. They, along with the Canadian Supreme Court, have begun to swing the pendulum back toward what a free democratic society should be… and still maintain security legislation that can protect us.
The progressive politicians did their job last night, for ALL Canadians - even those who would throw away our rights without a moment’s hesitation and engage in the same contemptible smearing and mudslinging the Conservatives have attempted to use in order to politicize this issue.
It is not Dion or the Liberal Party or the BQ/Duceppe/NDP/Layton that are beholden to extremist factions - the accusers need only look in the mirror to find them.
All Canadians should feel a little prouder today.