Beyond The Commons

Aaron Wherry covers all the goings-on in and around Parliament Hill. Follow Aaron on Twitter: @aaronwherry

Categories: Beyond The Commons, Capital Read

The unanswered questions

by Aaron Wherry on Thursday, June 18, 2009 8:46pm - 16 Comments

Awhile after the Justice Minister’s unexpected announcement, Paul Dewar stood and asked if Stockwell Day or Vic Toews had, in their previous portfolios, received a request from the U.S. ambassador or the White House that Abousfian Abdelrazik be prevented from returning to Canada.

This would seem to be what prompted that question.

Tags: Abousfian Abdelrazik, David Wilkins, Stockwell Day, Sudan, terror, terrorism, Vic Toews, War on Terror

More by Aaron Wherry

http://intensedebate.com/people/Nich Nich

Good for Abousfian Abdelrazik! Normally these decisions are announced at 4:59 PM on a Friday…

Sucks to be the spoke in the censorship machine that made this mistake.
C…

So when I tried to post the same link as a comment to your previous post, it was posted for approx. 2 minutes then deleted. Interesting.

http://intensedebate.com/people/Crit_Reasoning Crit_Reasoning

It's a wonky filter, not a conspiracy theory.
http://intensedebate.com/people/Gaunilon Gaunilon

It's like Soviet anti-aircraft fire: you have to put so much lead in the sky that sooner or later something sticks.

http://intensedebate.com/people/Crit_Reasoning Crit_Reasoning

Assuming the wikileak is real, what exactly is the scandal here?

http://intensedebate.com/people/Geiseric Geiseric

Who said its a scandal?
http://www.intensedebate.com/people/Geiseric Geiseric

Who said it's a scandal?
Anon

It's a scandal that the government kow-towed to the Americans in order to keep a citizen in exile. It'll all come out in the commission of inquiry.
Dee

The scandal? Harper's foreign policy is apparently made in the U.S.A. Great.
http://intensedebate.com/people/Nich Nich

A foreign government requesting (successfully) for the Government of Canada to break it's own laws regarding a Canadian citizen who was alleged, without evidence, of crimes and denied returning home.

Sounds like a very serious breach of the responsibilities our government has to it's citizens, as recognized by the Supreme Court and the ONLY reason this man is returning home is because of a spooks error.

If not for that error, this man would be living in an embassy, with his government doing everything in its power to deny him re-entry based on allegations from a foreign government.

Scandal? No, no scandal here… nothing distasteful, illegal, immoral and undemocratic about it either…

http://intensedebate.com/people/M_A_N M_A_N

See, the problem here was that he was away from Canada too long. Once you live somewhere else for a while, you can't be trusted to act in Canada's best interests.

Wait, this is reminding me of something…

http://intensedebate.com/people/Crit_Reasoning Crit_Reasoning

I look forward to it.
http://intensedebate.com/people/Crit_Reasoning Crit_Reasoning

I would love to see Michael Ignatieff (2004 edition) debate Michael Ignatieff (2009 edition) on this very issue.

Dee

Last time I checked, it was the Conservatives (ya know, the current government) keeping Abdelrazik from coming back to Canada.
Anon

"I would love to see Michael Ignatieff (2004 edition) debate Michael Ignatieff (2009 edition) on this very issue."

This is serious, you know. When it happens to you, I hope others won't be as ridiculous.

Mike T.

I guess it's possible that the government's actions were merely reprehensible rather than sinister (ie, Abousfian Abdelrazik should have been repatriated, but the U.S. merely convinced Canada not to bother, rather than browbeat them into not doing it). It wouldn't be so much as the US forcing bad policy on Canada so much as the Canadian Conservative willingly doing the bad things it's always wanted to, with a little encouragement.