Maher Arar’s mind cannot forget

By Jonathon Gatehouse - Thursday, September 8, 2011 at 9:00 AM - 8 Comments

Blair Gable/Maclean's

It doesn’t take much to carry Maher Arar back to the place he least wants to be. The sight of a mustachioed policeman, any sort of filthy smell, or even the sound of a crying baby has the power to transport him to that tomb-like prison cell. Nine years on, his body has recovered from the beatings the Syrian Mukhabarat inflicted with their fists and thick strips of cable, but the psychological scars of his rendition, imprisonment and torture persist. It is worse when he travels. “When I take the plane, I’m always tense and nervous,” he says. “It just triggers a fear in me that I might be kidnapped again.”

Sept. 26, 2002, was the day U.S. authorities detained him at New York’s J.F.K. airport, as he was heading home to Ottawa from an extended family stay in Tunisia. Oct. 8 was the night he was hustled on to a CIA-leased private jet and flown to Jordan, then driven—shackled and blindfolded—to the border of his native Syria. It was early April 2003, when he next felt daylight, allowed to roam a prison courtyard for a few minutes. Freedom—and a flight back to Canada, his wife and two young children—finally came that Oct. 5.

There’s no doubt, however, of when everything really did change for the 41-year-old telecommunications engineer. On the morning of the Sept. 11 attacks, Arar was in San Diego, Calif., on business for a Boston-based client. The sun wasn’t even up when the phone in his hotel room rang. It was his friend and colleague David Hilf telling him about terrorists hitting the World Trade Center. At first, Arar thought it was a prank—he and Hilf, who is Jewish, spent a lot of their time on the road joking about their odd-couple alliance. When he was finally convinced to turn on the TV, Arar was devastated by what he saw. One of his first thoughts was of the inevitable anti-Muslim backlash. He called his wife, Monia, then pregnant with their second child, in Ottawa and warned her not to leave the house. “She’s visible. She wears a head scarf,” he says. “There might have been some crazy people trying to get revenge.”

Continue…

Kenney vs. Amnesty: And introducing a very special Amnesty critic

By Paul Wells - Friday, August 19, 2011 at 1:57 PM - 18 Comments

Whenever Jason Kenney picks a fight with an organization, it is helpful to ask, among several other questions, this one: “Hey, has the organization in question recently found itself on the wrong side of Israel’s most vocal defenders?” And indeed, in the case of Amnesty International, the answer is yes.

Meet Gerald Steinberg. Longtime readers of this blog will be familiar with him. Steinberg is a professor of political studies at Bar Ilan University and president of NGO monitor, an organization devoted to rebutting international human-rights NGOs when they criticize the Israeli government. When the Harper government decided to stack the Rights and Democracy board with people who would brook no critique of Israel’s security operations in Gaza and the West Bank, Steinberg was an early supporter and, former insiders say, he closely co-operated with the new Rights and Democracy board chairman, Aurel Braun.

Steinberg, it turns out, has been an active and forceful critic of Amnesty International for the positions it’s take in the Middle East. Here’s a blog post and video from a debate he had with an Amnesty official in the U.S. And here’s an op-ed he co-wrote only six weeks before Jason Kenney wrote his letter to Amnesty.

Now, as I spent the entire year of 2010 writing in dozens of instalments, I thought the government’s handling of Rights and Democracy was despicable. But I don’t think its handling of the Section 35 fugitives, and Jason Kenney’s response to Amnesty’s critique of the Section 35 file, is invalidated just because Kenney’s letter often seems to echo Steinberg’s op-ed. But since I’ve spent the day giving context and background, here’s some more.

Kenney vs. Amnesty: The case against Amnesty International

By Paul Wells - Friday, August 19, 2011 at 1:32 PM - 30 Comments

My latest column points out that a lot of people are just generally fed up with Amnesty International and that a lot of them are political conservatives. Here’s what that’s about, since it will be news to many readers.

Christopher Hitchens, hard to pin down on any left-right spectrum and widely admired for that, is the earliest Amnesty critic I found in a quick search. In 2005 Amnesty called Guantanamo Bay “the gulag of our times.” I think Guantanamo Bay is pretty bad today, was far worse when Dick Cheney was running it, and has never been as bad as the gulag was. Hitchens’ line is pretty close to that, but his overriding argument was that these qualitative judgments should never have been Amnesty’s business:

The founding statutes were quite clear: An Amnesty local was to adopt three “prisoners of conscience,” one from either side of the Cold War and one from a “neutral” state. Letters were to be written to the relevant governments and to newspapers in free countries. Though physical torture and capital punishment were opposed in all cases, no overt political position was to be taken. Continue…

Kenney vs. Amnesty: the downside of neighbourhood watches

By Paul Wells - Friday, August 19, 2011 at 12:47 PM - 10 Comments

Further to my column on Jason Kenney’s exchange with Amnesty International:

I was reminded, while writing the column, of a really disturbing moment in the aftermath of 9/11. Shortly after the horrible day, the FBI released photos of the 19 dead perpetrators of the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. And a day or so later, the Toronto Sun ran a Page 1 story asserting that some of the murderers had recently been kicking around Toronto. Here’s the top of that story, from Sept. 28, 2001:

Living in Fear: Apartment Tenants Recognize Hijackers, Fear Reprisals

As police sifted through evidence, residents of a Toronto apartment complex were stricken with fear over claims at least two of the suspected suicide hijackers had roamed their halls in the months leading up to the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States.

Some tenants in a Jameson Ave. complex suggested they saw at least two men in their building — Mohamed Atta and Marwan Al-Shehhi — who were later accused of hijacking two of the U.S. airliners in the Sept. 11 attacks….

“Many of the residents have been picking out the same man when they looked at the photos of the (suspected) hijackers,” said Donna Dunphy, the superintendent of the Jameson Ave. building — one of four sites raided late Wednesday by police collecting information on a suspected terrorist cell.

“People are petrified,” Dunphy said. “The tenants are scared” there could be reprisals.

There was, of course, not a spot of truth to the story. Continue…

Hey look: Minister Kenney’s letters (UPDATED)

By Paul Wells - Friday, August 19, 2011 at 9:07 AM - 2 Comments

From the print edition, my column revisits the letter exchange between Jason Kenney and Amnesty International.

In part I’m still just marvelling at how little coverage the whole thing received — my friend Tabatha Southey’s Saturday column in the Globe, four days after Kenney’s letter appeared, appears to be the only coverage that paper has given the whole business. Which I find odd.

But in the column I also consider the substance, and give the debate, on balance, to Kenney. Probably a lot of readers will be surprised. He’s a polarizing guy. To them I would say only this: I covered Jean Chrétien for a decade, half of it at the National Post, whose readers were, on the whole, predisposed to think the man an idiot. You should have seen the letters and emails I used to get in those days. I’m thoroughly familiar with what it looks like when people dismiss a politician’s intellect and political instincts, just because they don’t like his politics.

There is more to this Kenney-Amnesty debate that I couldn’t fit in the column. (This week’s double issue also includes new reporting by Michael Friscolanti on precisely what some of the men on Kenney’s wanted list are alleged to have done. I hope we put that story online at some point, and will let you know if we do.)  I hope to add to the story with more blog posts soon.

UDPATE: Those blog posts — three of them! — on different aspects of the Kenney vs. Amnesty story are now up. This one takes Amnesty’s side, to some extent, with a reminder that when you publish suspects’ names and photos, there’s the possiblity you’ll get false-positive identifications. This one explains in further detail why some people are angry at Amnesty, for substantive reasons having to do with the way the organization has changed its focus over the years. And this one comes up with a tenuous link to the Rights and Democracy schmozzle, in case you were feeling nostalgic.

Jason Kenney strikes back

By Paul Wells - Friday, August 19, 2011 at 8:00 AM - 73 Comments

Reuters/Chris Wattie

Some stories are so odd nobody knows how to handle them. I don’t know how else to explain why Immigration Minister Jason Kenney’s extraordinary public feud with Amnesty International has attracted so little coverage.

Here’s a senior Conservative minister departing from the Conservatives’ normal bland talking points and unleashing a written broadside against a critic. And Kenney’s sparring partner wasn’t a predictable target. It was the Canadian branch of Amnesty, one of the most revered human rights organizations in the world. But that didn’t stop the minister from calling Amnesty’s concerns “poppycock,” “sloppy and irresponsible” and “self-congratulatory moral preening.”

Here’s what the fuss was about: last month, Kenney and Public Safety Minister Vic Toews released the names and photos of 30 fugitives who’d evaded immigration authorities since being found inadmissible because they’re believed to be complicit in genocide, crimes against humanity or war crimes. In short, the ministers were asking the public to help track down fleeing war crimes suspects. The public has stepped up: since the ministers’ announcements, six of the 30 men have been apprehended and three of those six deported.
Continue…

Good news, bad news: August 4-11, 2011

By macleans.ca - Thursday, August 18, 2011 at 8:10 AM - 0 Comments

Good news

Thailand elected its first female prime minister, Yingluck Shinawatra

Clearing the way

The apparent defeat of the Islamist group al-Shabaab in central Mogadishu offers a glimmer of hope to those trying to get food into famine-stricken Somalia. With the country’s wobbly central government in control of key districts of the capital, workers can now fan aid out to other parts of the country. With luck, they can prevent at least some of the hungry from attempting deadly treks into neighbouring Kenya or Ethiopia. The next challenge: keeping the aid out of the hands of insurgents, while persuading the rest of the world to give.

Grade ‘A’ idea

The U.S. grocer Whole Foods introduced a meat-labelling system in its Canadian stores that outlines how various producers treat livestock on a scale of one to five. It is an enlightened approach to animal welfare, both educating consumers and offering them a choice while forgoing preachy attacks on the meat industry or the livelihood of farmers. It also offers a nice rebuttal to a wave of bad press set off by a disgruntled former Toronto employee who claimed the organic-food-focused company didn’t put its money where its mouth was. Other retailers should be so transparent.

Continue…

The eternal power of the written word

By Aaron Wherry - Thursday, August 11, 2011 at 3:40 PM - 83 Comments

Jason Kenney explains the inspiration for his exchange with Amnesty International.

“I’m of the view that if you’re in a political forum making unfounded and unfair criticisms of government policy, expect to be called on it. My model in this is Stéphane Dion’s letter writing campaign against Jacques Parizeau and the PQ. I think it was very instructive to see a minister point out flaws in his adversary’s arguments. I think that’s what democratic discourse is all about . . . If they want to have a debate on these issues, fine. Let’s have one. That means I get my say.”

Mr. Dion’s skills, meanwhile, are being put to use as the Liberals discover the game of modern political fundraising.

‘There is nothing recklessly imprecise about highlighting those obligations’

By Aaron Wherry - Thursday, August 11, 2011 at 10:00 AM - 34 Comments

On Tuesday, Paul noted the exchange of written words between Amnesty International and Jason Kenney. On Wednesday, Amnesty International responded to Mr. Kenney’s open letter.

You begin by chastising Amnesty International for raising these concerns when we should instead be focusing on human rights concerns in countries like Iran and North Korea.  Minister, we most certainly do.  A casual review of our most recent reports, actions and news releases covers such countries as Iran, Syria, Bahrain, China, Afghanistan, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Colombia, Georgia, Saudi Arabia and Nigeria.  We do regularly point to areas where we believe Canada’s own human rights laws, policy and practice are in need of reform.  Universal human rights principles apply as equally to Canada as they do to other countries.  Furthermore, the stronger Canada’s domestic human rights record is; the greater our leadership on the world stage. 

Jason Kenney to Amnesty International: “Poppycock”

By Paul Wells - Tuesday, August 9, 2011 at 4:10 PM - 237 Comments

On an unusually busy August news day, this seems to me the most fascinating thing the Harper government has done today. First, a bit of background.

Jason Kenney and Vic Toews have been asking for Canadians’ help in finding people on the government’s war-crimes “wanted” list.

A week ago Amnesty International sent a letter to Kenney and Toews, expressing “concern about the approach the government has adopted” with these alleged fugitives. The nub of their argument:

“Over the past decade Amnesty International has frequently raised concern about the fact that Canada overwhelmingly resorts to immigration enforcement measures rather than the criminal law, when faced with the attempted entry into or presence in Canada of individuals who are alleged to have committed war crimes, crimes against humanity or torture. We have highlighted that an immigration response is problematic for two key reasons:

• It fails to ensure that such individuals will in fact face justice. An official process of extradition or surrender would ensure that individuals are going to be dealt with under criminal proceedings in another jurisdiction. Deportation does not. All the deportation guarantees is that the person concerned will be removed from Canada. It is entirely possible that the individual, once deported, will not face any further investigation or criminal charges.

• It also fails to adequately safeguard against the possibility that in some cases, the individual concerned might be at risk of serious human rights violations. Canada’s international human rights obligations are clear – no person should be deported if he or she faces a serious risk of such grave human rights violations as torture, extrajudicial execution or enforced disappearance. This extends to individuals who may themselves have been responsible for grave human rights violations. There are no exceptions.”

Now Kenney has sent Amnesty an absolutely extraordinary response:  Continue…

Reading the documents: DFAIT 10

By Aaron Wherry - Thursday, June 23, 2011 at 11:45 AM - 0 Comments

The documents tabled today can be viewed in their entirety here. Herein, a series of posts on some of the noteworthy files and disclosures contained therein.

Included in yesterday’s release is a file marked DFAIT 10. Dated from November 2007, it is a memo to the Foreign Affairs Minister (Lawrence Cannon at the time) about the impending release of government documents as part of the legal case brought by Amnesty International and the BC Civil Liberties Association. Specifically, the memo attempts to address what will be disclosed as a result and what “communications considerations” should be undertaken.

The evidence contained in the documents was summarized for the minister as follows (the unredacted portion reprinted here in square brackets).

The material to be released is extensive. Cumulatively the documents leave one with the impression of [flawed Afghan judicial system and of detention facilities that fall well below UN standards]. In addition, the assembled material may seem to suggest that Government of Canada messaging on the detainees issues for the last twelve months has been out of sync with reporting from the field (DND, CSC and DFAIT). This will present significant political and communications challenges.

It doesn't get worse than this

By Michael Barclay - Tuesday, May 17, 2011 at 9:35 AM - 0 Comments

Jeon Heonkyun/EPA/Keystone Press

North Korea is being battered by an outbreak of paratyphoid fever, a disease that is aggravated by malnutrition—a given in a country that has suffered from food shortages for years, whose totalitarian leadership refuses outside aid as a point of pride, and diverts most of its resources to the military. On top of that, the country suffered a terrible winter harvest that yielded half its usual quantity. There are reports of citizens eating grass, leaves and tree bark.

And yet, even North Korea’s sick and hungry can be thankful that they’re not one of the 200,000 people cooped up in prison camps, according to a report released last week by Amnesty International. Satellite images show the camps are much larger than previously believed, and interviews with 30 people who managed to escape tell stories of 16-hour workdays, being forced to witness executions, “ideology education,” and hungry inmates resorting to collecting kernels of corn from animal feces. Sam Zarifi, Amnesty International’s Asia Pacific director, said conditions were “some of the worst circumstances we’ve documented in the last 50 years.”

Amnesty speculates that the camps are expanding as part of a crackdown on dissidents, timed to quell uncertainty as Kim Jong Il is expected to hand power over to his son, Kim Jong Un.

A dictator in the making?

By Julia Belluz - Wednesday, December 8, 2010 at 4:20 PM - 57 Comments

Rajapaksa (left) says he wants to build the economy; ‘75 per cent of the government’ is controlled by his family | Andrew Caballero-Reynolds/Reuters

It was a ceremony fit for a king. Adorned in white dress, surrounded by powerful family members and military officials, Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa was sworn in for his second term on Nov. 19. The lavish procession incorporated some of the country’s dominant institutions: Buddhist monks gave their blessing, and the sound of a 21-gun salute rounded off the event. In his speech, Rajapaksa made grand promises. This would be a new era for Sri Lanka after the island nation’s brutal 26-year civil war, which he helped to end in 2009, during his first six-year term, by defeating the Tamil Tiger insurgency. He promised to employ that same leadership to maintain peace, rebuild democratic institutions, and accelerate the economy.

But leaders who win wars are not always the best governors in peace. A string of increasingly repressive and undemocratic moves by the Rajapaksa administration has caused opponents to worry that Sri Lanka’s economic growth and development are camouflaging human rights transgressions and a tilt toward authoritarianism. For one, there are the changes he’s made to the constitution since being re-elected. Though he pulled in nearly 60 per cent of the vote in the election held last January, he recently rallied a majority in parliament to pass an amendment that removed constitutionally set term limits, ensuring he can remain in power indefinitely.

Continue…

48 hours of hindsight

By Aaron Wherry - Wednesday, June 30, 2010 at 9:00 AM - 86 Comments

With more than 1,000 people arrested, the G20 is seemingly the largest mass arrest in Canadian history. The Toronto police are happy to showcase the seized weapons and condiments, but now concede the “secret” “new” “law” never really existed. The mayor is displeased. The Star gets a look at the infamous detention facility. Two Post photographers talk about their time there. A Globe reporter writes about her experience at Queen & Spadina. The Canadian Civil Liberties Association says police action was, at times, “disproportionate, arbitrary and excessive.” Amnesty International wants an independent review. Mark Holland demands answers. The NDP has questions too.

Roland Paris weighs the cost. Tim Powers justifies the trouble. Brian Topp condemns the riot. James Morton defends the police. The Economist considers. Jon Stewart mocks. Steve Paikin laments.

The Board of Inquiry report (IV)

By Aaron Wherry - Friday, May 14, 2010 at 1:47 PM - 4 Comments

Earlier this week, I posted the thoughts of Sebastien Jodoin of Amnesty International in response to the recent Board of Inquiry report. I then wrote to the offices of General Walter Natynczyk and Defence Minister Peter MacKay and offered to post any response to Mr. Jodoin’s comments. Today, a letter arrived from Rear-Admiral Davidson.

Here is that letter in its entirety.

Continue…

National security v. Public interest

By Aaron Wherry - Thursday, March 4, 2010 at 1:16 AM - 26 Comments

Last week, after receiving this response, I asked the Justice Department if it might provide specific answers to questions asked about the redaction of a 2006 field report that referenced abuse of a detainee in Afghanistan. Yesterday afternoon, after further prodding, an e-mail arrived.

The response provided last week stands.

So it seems that, given two months to explain itself, the best the government can offer is a general statement of its policy in this regard.

That would seem to invite, perhaps even encourage, us to imagine for ourselves how the government has applied its policy. So here goes. Continue…

Cameramen not apparently entitled to enjoy holiday season with friends, family

By Aaron Wherry - Wednesday, December 23, 2009 at 12:06 AM - 36 Comments

The Canadian Press, Sun, Star, CBC and Canwest report from today’s unofficial meeting of the Afghanistan committee. In photos, the Sun documents the exit of a cameraman apparently sent by the Conservative side to observe the proceedings on behalf of those government MPs who couldn’t be there.

The pivotal paperwork

By Aaron Wherry - Thursday, December 10, 2009 at 10:04 AM - 66 Comments

Here, again, is the report that apparently precipitated General Walter Natynczyk’s correction yesterday morning. And here is the same report included among the 1,185 pages of documents provided to the British Columbia Civil Liberties Association and Amnesty International—collected here—by the government on Nov. 14, 2007 during the course of a federal court case.

As noted, when the report was cited yesterday, it included a reference to abuse. In the version released in Nov. 2007, that portion of the report appears to have been redacted. The offices of Gen. Walter Natynczyk and Defence Minister Peter MacKay have been asked to explain that difference and a response is said to be forthcoming. It will be posted here as soon as it arrives.

(For anyone who has downloaded the entire 1,185 page file, the above document appears at page 879.)

The Colvin encyclopedia

By Aaron Wherry - Sunday, December 6, 2009 at 1:31 PM - 25 Comments

A collection of documents, testimony and news reports related to Richard Colvin and Canada’s handling of Afghan detainees. The Colvin encyclopedia is updated as events warrant.

Continue…

The redacted Colvin memos

By Aaron Wherry - Wednesday, December 2, 2009 at 1:50 PM - 14 Comments

The BC Civil Liberties Association and Amnesty International have released a collection of documents that appears to include, though heavily redacted, all of the numbered memos cited in Richard Colvin’s affidavit.

By my count, those memos are KANDH-0029, KANDH-0032, KBGR-0118, KBGR-0121, KBGR-0160, KBGR-0258, KBGR-0261, KBGR-0263, KBGR-0265, KBGR-0266, KBGR-0267, KBGR-0274, KBGR-0275, KBGR-0291, KBGR-0292, KBGR-0302 and KBGR-0321.

A little light reading

By Aaron Wherry - Wednesday, December 2, 2009 at 1:41 AM - 2 Comments

In 2007, the British Columbia Civil Liberties Association and Amnesty International attempted to bring a halt to detainee transfers. The documents related to the resulting federal court case are here and the last link there is a massive file—nearly 1,200 pages at 227 MB—of documents turned over by the government.

Some of the memos and e-mails have been cited in recent media reports. Various portions are redacted. Richard Colvin’s name appears at various points, but it doesn’t appear that any of his 2006 memos are included.

Should you be so interested in such stuff though, there is plenty there to review.

Where the talk of torture could lead

By John Geddes - Sunday, November 29, 2009 at 1:30 PM - 16 Comments

Richard Colvin had barely finished delivering his incendiary testimony about torture in Afghanistan to a House committee last week before fierce debate broke out. For politicians and the public, the issue was whether the diplomat is a courageous whistleblower or an unreliable rogue. But among international law experts, the argument is about the ultimate outcome if his allegations—about federal officials ignoring clear warnings that detainees transferred by Canadian troops to Afghan authorities were being tortured—hold up. Is there a serious prospect of Canadian military or civilian officials being investigated and even charged as war criminals?

A few outspoken law professors quickly concluded that Colvin’s revelations formed a solid basis for a war crimes case. But others told Maclean’s that dramatic outcome is extremely unlikely. The experts are sparring over a relatively untested federal law. International law on war crimes went through a period of rapid reform in the 1990s, largely in the wake of atrocities committed in the violent breakup of the former Yugoslavia. Prompted by the creation of the International Criminal Court, Canada passed a new Crimes Against Humanity and War Crimes Act on Oct. 23, 2000. The first person convicted under the act, Désiré Munyaneza, a Rwandan who led a band of murderers in that country’s 1994 genocide, was sentenced last month in a Montreal court to life in prison.

The possibility that the same law meant to bring the likes of Munyaneza to justice could be applied to Canadians involved in Afghan detainee transfers is sobering. Recognizing that even raising the possibility is controversial, some lawyers who have been hashing over the issue in private declined to be interviewed on the record. Yet several prominent academic experts said it could and should happen. “We must hope that the will to investigate and prosecute is present,” said Michael Byers, a University of British Columbia law professor and former federal NDP candidate in Vancouver. Continue…

The burden of proof (II)

By Aaron Wherry - Wednesday, November 25, 2009 at 11:04 AM - 10 Comments

Sébastien Jodoin, a public interest law fellow with Amnesty International in Ottawa, sends along a response to these questions.

To answer your question, under international law, the question is not whether the Canadian officials were presented with incontrovertible evidence of torture, the question is whether they were presented with evidence of the real risk of torture and what steps they took in response to this risk to preempt the perpetration of torture.

The U.N. Committee Against Torture, which has responsibility for ensuring state party compliance with the Torture Convention, has stated that the protections under the Torture Convention extend to detainees held by the military forces of a contracting party, regardless of where those forces are situated. The Committee considered this same armed conflict in Afghanistan and found that Denmark violated its non-refoulement obligation when it transferred detainees to the jurisdiction of another state.

He cites this report of the UN Committee Against Torture. The relevant paragraphs therein are as follows. Continue…

An interesting choice of words

By Aaron Wherry - Friday, November 21, 2008 at 5:07 PM - 3 Comments

“It looks like Stephen Harper is going to be the last defender of Guantanamo Bay.”

That’s Omar Khadr’s lawyer, Bill Kuebler, commenting on the Conservative government’s latest refusal to ask that Khadr be returned to Canada.

It’s a not entirely facetious statement. The Obama administration is talking hopefully of closing the infamous facility (even if it’s not yet clear how). A federal judge in Washington ruled this week that five Algerians, held at Guantanamo for the past seven years, must be set free. Britain and Australia have long since succeeded in having their citizens released or repatriated. The Law Society of Upper Canada recently joined the likes of Amnesty International, the United Church, and Human Rights Watch in opposing Khadr’s American prosecution. And according to one poll, only 30% of Canadians approve of Khadr’s standing trial in Cuba.

Still here was what Lawrence Cannon said this week when pressed: “Mr. Khadr faces very serious charges. He is being held and it’s our government’s intention to follow and respect the process that’s in place and, of course, to respect American sovereignty on this issue.”

That’s in keeping with the rote statement delivered each time the government has been pressed in the House to account for their position on Khadr.

But the Bloc’s Serge Menard gave it another try today. And here was Deepak Obhrai’s response.

“Mr. Speaker, our position remains unchanged, because unlike many prisoners held in Guantanamo Bay, Omar Khadr has actually been charged with serious crimes and is in a judicial legal process to determine his guilt or innocence, and we support this process continuing.” Continue…