I find it interesting how much gyrations this Conservative government is going through in trying to justify why it should remain the only Western nation to not repatriate it’s citizens from Guantanamo Bay - or in this case, citizen, as only 1 by the name of Omar Khadr is there.

First, it was that they had to let the “process” take place at Guantanamo because he was facing very serious charges.

Then, the reason became that Khadr was a litmus test in showing the world how serious Canada was on terror. That was a false argument if there ever was one. Everyone knew that “the world” was code for “the US”, and even this argument fell flat on its face when Britain and Australia repatriated their citizens without any charges of them being “weak” - they faced no such repercussions from the US administration for doing this, and indeed, they faced public pressure to repatriate their citizens from the Guantanamo facility. The only “litmus test” Canada has likely faced is the world wondering how far Canada had slid down the scale in its support of human and constitutional rights, and being a lapdog for George Bush’s view on citizen’s rights when it came to “national security”, and would this nation still stand up for those. On that score, the Conservatives have failed that litmus test miserably.

Then, we’re told by Stephen Harper that Canada had “no real alternative” to trying Khadr in Canada, which was basically Conservative Harper-speak code for “we think Canada’s justice system has too many quaint liberal notions in place, like rule of law, due process, and allowing a defendant to be properly defended - we think Canada’s courts might actually find Khadr innocent”

Finally today, we now are told by the new PMO spokesperson that all they’re doing is following the Liberals lead on the file - regardless of the revelations revealed since then in both Canada’s and the US Supreme Court regarding Khadr’s treatment and the constitutionality of Guantanamo Bay’s tribunals. In short, its the Liberals fault he’s still there, but don’t look to us to fix that.

The public attitude of Canadians is shifting dramatically over this treatment (or lack thereof) of Khadr, and his rights being violated quite openly. The Cons. realize this as well - hence their gyrations of trying to justify to Canadians why they have shown no leadership on this file, and why only Canada is left alone in the world to defend or find no fault with the US position on Guantanamo.

UPDATE: Red Tory shows why the latest argument about “the Liberals did it too” is a rather non-starter for an argument

In brief, I was reading this post by Jeff this AM afternoon, and I have to say along the same lines that for a pro vs con debate on a controversial topic, such as Omar Khadr, CTV can certainly bring on to debate whoever it wants - the choice of US Navy JAG Lawyer  Lieutenant Commander William Kuebler, who is defending Khadr,  is a solid choice, and good on CTV for bringing him on. Everyone knows quite crystal clear where he stands and why his views are what they are.

But, CTV has a duty to the viewers to properly identify the representative of the opposing viewpoint above and beyond the rather vague description of him as a security analyst and former Crown prosecutor.  They should have mentioned, in my view, that he worked in Stockwell Day’s office at one point, and let people know this fact so they could see where his point of view is partially coming from. The fact he has rather extreme views on the Charter of Rights and the judiciary in Canada, as Jeff has pointed out at his blogpiece, also makes one wonder if CTV couldn’t have found a better representative to articulate that side of the argument.

I’m not going to get into a detailed synopsis of Stephen’s blogpiece like Red Tory did - more like a rant - but I’ll say more or less the same thing that RT did:

There’s nothing “emotional” amongst the “left-wing” about calling for due process to be followed and insisting that rules of evidence and constitutional rights to be respected.  I didn’t realize those concepts are alien and foreign to Conservatives, but apparently, thats the case. Quite frankly, it shouldn’t have anything to do with “left vs right”. If Conservatives claim they are for the rule of law, then they too should be calling for Khadr’s return to Canada, as Jonathan Kay just did in the National Post recently. Stephen claims to be a libertarian Conservative; I see no evidence of libertarianism in anything he’s written on the Khadr topic so far.

On a side-note, I also get a chuckle out of his article where he claims that conservatives act on what they know to be true. Right - their inactivity on global warming in the face of all scientific consensus - even to outright denunciation of those scientific facts - plus claiming that statistics showing crime going down isn’t right because they “feel” its a problem, shows real-time evidence on that, eh Stephen? Those are 2 examples I can use - among several others. That claim is laughable; I can only presume he put that line in there in order to make his Blogging Tory readership feel good about themselves.

The bottom line is this: we in Canada are the only Western country left in the world that refuses to repatriate its citizens from Guantanamo and still laughably claim that Khadr is being treated well and that the legal process down there is fair - this is still being claimed by the Conservative government and its supporters even after the US Supreme Court recently ruled otherwise. Harper and his bunch are being shown for what they are - Bush clones for their attempting to ignore constitutional rights and human rights.  I’ve no doubt if he thought he could get away with it, that Harper would be trying to set up military tribunals up here and remove Canadian constitutional protection from people accused of these offences - all in the name of national security. Their attitude with Guantanamo and more or less claiming they believe the tribunals down there could handle things better then the Canadian court system up here (in essence, being afraid Khadr would be found innocent) is direct evidence of that.

The only thing I can say for Stephen’s piece is he’s writing it mainly for his Conservative Kool-Aid crowd’s benefit. It befits a blog article on the Blogging Tory site - it would be insulting the intelligence of Canadians if it were appearing in a mainstream media newspaper article.

UPDATE@6:10 pm: Red Tory in a new blogpost goes after the specific arguments of Taylor against repatriating Omar Khadr.

So Steven Harper is now on public record as saying he has no intention of asking for the repatriation of Omar Khadr - this despite the growing evidence Khadr’s rights were violated, and it was done so with Canada knowing about it (and it started lamentably with the Paul Martin-led Liberal government), and despite growing pressure internationally and domestically on the Canadian government to do so.

This is not a surprise, but what Harper said yesterday about why the US should continue to deal with Khadr seems to me to show his utter contempt in the Canadian justice system:

He argued that the special U.S. military trial that Mr. Khadr faces – in which he does not have the same standard of legal representation and rights he would in an ordinary criminal trial – is the only way he could be brought to answer the charges against him…”frankly, we do not have a real alternative to that process now to get to the truth about those accusations”

You get that? Harper would rather have Omar Khadr be tried in a quasi-military court setting that the US Supreme Court has just ruled is unconstitutional in denying habeas corpus rights to the detainees then in Canada where he would be given his due process and proper legal representation before a Canadian court. That’s not good enough for Harper apparently.  It’s quite a slam on the Canadian Justice system, but then, Harper and the Conservatives have always made their disdain known for the judiciary in Canada. This is just one of the more extreme examples of it.

I’m going to leave aside the habeaus corpus argument here and/or the fact Canada has signed on to the Convention of the Rights of the Child and should have been insisting from the start that this applied to Khadr;  the fact of the matter is that Harper has just bluntly stated that the Canadian justice system is not an alternative to  determine whether a young man was guilty or not of the crime he was accused of committing.

According to Harper, the truth can only be found out in a setting where his legal counsel is denied access to the documents to allow a proper defence of him, where the US has refused to bring him to trial for several years despite claiming all this time he has committed terrorist acts (and which spurred even the conservative-tinged US Supreme Court to overrule this denial of habeas corpus rights), and where he is subjected to interrogation acts that cross the line at the very least, and which could be described as torture.

Yet Harper says we have “no real alternative” to trying Khadr in a traditional Canadian court over a quasi-judicial kangaroo court setting that the Supreme Court of the US has said has violated the Constitution? We can only find out the truth of Omar thru very questionable methods and very questionable tribunals where Khadr isn’t allowed to properly defend himself? And it doesn’t matter that other Western Countries repatriated their citizens held at Guantanamo and were able to use their process at home to deal with them?

Unbelievable.  This toadying by Harper to the Bush Administration and the similar disdain that Harper holds for the country’s legal system as Bush did for his (which is why Guantanamo was set up in the first place - to try and avoid those detainees being charged in traditional US courts so the supposed evidence against them couldn’t be properly scrutinized by a judge and defence lawyers) is appalling to anyone who believes in the rule of law, and rather scary.

You can read between the lines here, can’t you? If Omar were brought back here and the Canadian courts ordered his release, it wouldn’t be because he was innocent of the charges, or there were mitigating circumstances (being a child soldier); it would be because in Harper’s view, Canadian courts are too concerned with proper legal process and too concerned with following international law - “too liberal” in otherwards.

The self-proclaimed Party of Law and Order indeed. They seem to have forgotten the “law” part of the equation.

UPDATE: I’m not the only Progressive Blogger who’s enraged by Harper’s attitude about this. The story of Harper’s blatant disregard for proper judicial process has struck a chord of condemnation with those of us who believe in a liberal democracy and the right of the accused to face his accusers in a proper court of law, and its reflected at the Prog Blog aggergate this AM. I expect to see more as the day goes on.

They’re being George W. Bush-Republican shills, or at least parroting what they say:

“Mr. Khadr could become a litmus test on Canada’s commitment to impeding global terrorism and the results of our actions today could result in consequences that are not in the long-term interest of the country,”

This was the reason given by the Conservatives in their minority dissenting opinion on a subcommittee report that calls for the Government of Canada to demand to the US that the military commission’s proceedings be halted, that Omar Khadr be repatriated, and that an investigation be commenced and if warranted, Khadr charged and prosecuted under Canadian law.

They couldn’t exactly give the standard line from this government that “Omar Khadr faces serious charges, and we are confident he is being treated humanely and being given due process”. The US Supreme Court ruling last week that habeas corpus applied to Guantanamo Bay detainees and that the Military Commissions were inadequate blew apart the 2nd part of that argument, so they had to give the real reason, which is apparently the global war on terror will collapse if Canada does this. Funny, it wasn’t a litmus test for all the rest of the Western countries that demanded repatriation for their citizens from Guantanamo. I also didn’t notice any collapse on the War on Terror either when those repatriations occurred.

I am fairly confident in saying that if the Conservatives had been in power when Maher Arar was illegally renditioned to Syria, he’d probably still be in detention over there, because if you look up Hansard from back then, he was getting called a terrorist by Stockwell Day and Harper amongst others over in that caucus before the facts of the case had even been heard, when they were slamming the Canadian government for trying to help Arar get released and get home. The only difference with him was he didn’t have a family that raised the ire of Canadians, thus causing the son to be punished for the sins of the family. What IS the same is that the C-CRAP party (an appropriate moniker, if there ever was one) was parroting and believing the George W Bush-Republican cool-aid.. er.. philosophy on this way back then, and has continued to parrot it in its current reincarnation as the Conservative Party.

The Canadian public however is starting to see that for whatever distaste they might have for the Khadr family, the Khadr son’s treatment is neither morally right nor legally right - something the Conservatives on the Committee recognize because of their whining about the opposition and specifically the Liberals just reacting to a “sway in public opinion” - meaning they recognize they’re starting to lose the argument with the public over why Khadr should be kept at an illegal site with little rights being afforded him.

The process in Guantanamo is illegal. Khadr was a child soldier who was probably brainwashed by his father into going to Afghanistan. His US captors and Canadian officials are on record as saying he can be rehabilitated with proper treatment. He has been held without habeas corpus rights for 6 years since his capture and held without charge - something the US Supreme Court has just deemed in violation of the US Constitution. Bring him home and if you have evidence, charge him with something and give him a fair trial in a proper court with the rule of law. And, whether he’s found guilty or not, make sure he gets treatment and rehabilitation as international protocols on child solders demand (which Canada is a signatory to).

H/T Impolitical

Somehow,  I doubt it:

A United Nations committee has reprimanded the U.S. for trying Omar Khadr for war crimes and detaining hundreds of children in Iraq and Afghanistan, when international law requires that they be rehabilitated..“The Committee is seriously concerned that children who were recruited or used in armed conflict, rather than being considered primarily as victims, are classified as ‘unlawful enemy combatants,’ and have been charged with war crimes and subjected to prosecution by military tribunals,” the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child stated in a report released Friday.

It is more likely the Conservative government will either mumble again about US assurances of a “fair trial” and “Khadr is being treated humanely” at Guantanamo, or else they’ll trash the UN through “anonymous Conservative officials”.

Like the Republicans, The Harperite Conservatives  aren’t exactly that keen to follow international law either, or think much of international institutions - even belittling them.  If it’s not ok with Bush and the Repubs, it’s not ok with the Harperite Neo-Cons either.

Pierre Poilivere (who else?) decided to come out today and issue a statement in the House on Senator Romeo Dallaire’s testimony yesterday (actually, let me amend that - no doubt the PMO sent out Pierre today and asked him to say this and no doubt pre-approved the statement he read) which was worse, if possible  then Jason Kenney’s blathering yesterday on the topic) which more or less equated Dallaire, “a retired general, author, speaker and respected parliamentarian to “a member of the Khadr family”

Dallaire responded in an appropriate manner as shown by Kady here. (Note: this was a response to Jason Kenney’s twisted logic from yesterday’s hearing, but the reply can apply to Pierre’s blurtings today as well)

All I will say further to this is that Pierre Poiliviere couldn’t lick Senator Dallaire’s army boots. Also, while Dallaire may have been very strong and harsh in his criticism of Canada and the US, and while some may disagree with his wording, I don’t feel he should be disciplined for it. Rather, we (as in we, the Liberal Party) should be taking Jason Kenney and Pierre Poiliviere to task for their twisting and distortions of the good Senator’s remarks.

Another shining example of our judiciary refusing to be intimidated by the government and showing both its independence and its belief that human rights are very important and should not be so easily quashed as a government (particularly this Con. government) would like. A lawsuit launched by Amnesty International and the BC Civil Liberties Union arguing that the Charter of Rights and Freedoms is being violated when handing over prisoners to Afghanistan is being allowed to proceed to a full hearing:

In a decision released Monday, Justice Anne Mactavish of Federal Court rejected a motion by government lawyers to quash the suit and ruled that Amnesty International and the British Columbia Civil Liberties Association deserve their day in court. The government had argued that the issues involved were political rather than judicial, that human rights advocates lacked any legal standing to mount a challenge, and that the case should be thrown out because it has no chance of succeeding. Mactavish rejected all those claims, saying it’s in the public interest to grant Amnesty and the B.C. group standing to carry the case on behalf of the detainees.

All this comes about as new allegations of abuse and torture of prisoners is received. The government is denying this and claiming this is all Taliban propaganda, but unsurprisingly, they’ve been refusing to allow the human rights groups access to these documents that detail these allegations (supposedly on claims it will compromise national security) but the courts have also issued a deadline to end this foot-dragging as well.

The Conservatives have brushed off these troubling allegations in Question Period by smearing the opposition as Taliban lovers and Canadian troop haters, but such rhetoric will not be allowed or permitted in the courts. They will now have to provide answers and justifications as to why this practice is acceptable and legal.

One other thing; our human rights organizations in Canada are a fine example of how an organization stands up and protects/advocates the the rights of human beings when they aren’t even Canadian citizens, but they are under our jurisdiction. Juxtapose that against the Conservatives deciding to pick and choose according to their morals which of our own citizens they will decide to defend. What a pathetic holier-then-thou bunch.

Back to the original story; thank goodness our courts don’t weakly defer to the executive as they have meekly done south of the border.