Diplomats are in direct contact with the Canadians held in Haitian jails. Officially, visits are scheduled every three months. This didn’t happen in the summer of 2007, according to one memo, because of staff shortages and preparations for Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s visit. The embassy also corresponds with relatives, friends, and employers on prisoners’ behalf. On occasion, the embassy pays for prisoners’ food and basic medical supplies—although a July 2006 memo said this could only be done if the inmate has exhausted all other options and promised to reimburse the money. Many inmates cited in the embassy memos felt Canada wasn’t doing enough to help them.
“I then met with . . . who alternated between speaking calmly and bursting into tears throughout the visit,” reads one memo from January 2006, referring to an incarcerated Canadian whose name is deleted. “Health-wise he said that he was fine but that he was now in his fourth day of detention and did not have enough to eat . . . He further expressed that he wants to return to Canada and do prison there. I explained that there is no transfer-of-prisoners treaty between the two countries and told him that it would be up to his lawyer to work for his freedom or deportation.”
But competent lawyers are often not available. A memo from December 2007 describes a jailed Canadian as “extremely depressed” because he had no money to hire one: “He doesn’t understand why the embassy cannot hire a lawyer on his behalf. It was explained that this is not a service that is provided by the Canadian government for any Canadian citizen whether in Canada or abroad. He grudgingly accepted that we contact legal aid and it was carefully explained that this lawyer has little or no experience. However, with no funds this is all he’s entitled to receive.” Other reports describe despondent prisoners, without money to buy food or clothing, sick from prison food and lonely because their family and friends in Haiti won’t come to see them. One alleges abuse by Haitian police.
It appears that Liberal MP Mauril Bélanger called the embassy in November 2006 to inquire about a detained Canadian, and the office of Liberal MP Ujjal Dosanjh was also in touch. Jason Kenney made numerous inquiries, and he had planned a meeting with Haiti’s ambassador to Canada to discuss a particular detainee. Maxime Bernier, when he was foreign minister, raised the issue of Canadian detainees with Haiti’s minister of foreign affairs during a trip to Haiti in February. But there is no evidence that a politician actually visited a prisoner in a Haitian jail. And not once did Canada charter a jet to fly a released prisoner home.
It is difficult to consider why Canadian politicians were so eager to help Brenda Martin, but comparatively less so to aid Canadians jailed in Haiti, without concluding that political grandstanding played a role. Canadians detained in Haiti are arguably more deserving of government intervention than are those in Mexico. Conditions are as bad or worse, and the judicial process that got them there is weaker.
But Brenda Martin, a white woman, had friends who publicized her plight, and journalists put her story on the evening news. After that, public attention from politicians was inevitable. Canadians jailed in Haiti are mostly black and, judging by their lack of funds for lawyers, food, and clothing, poor. Canadian politicians can safely ignore them. Most do.
Pages: 1 2
