"Nothing … stops the government from picking and choosing…"

August 12th, 2009

It seems like Suaad Hagi Mohamud may still face some undisclosed hurdles to get back to her home.

According to the Toronto Star,

Nothing in Canadian law stops the government from “picking and choosing” which Canadians it will help and who it will abandon, a former senior diplomat warns.

In the case of Suaad Hagi Mohamud, a Toronto woman who was detained in Kenya for 12 weeks, “overzealous” civil servants chose to abandon her, said former consular services chief Gar Pardy.

What’s worse, he said, is that Ottawa could just say, “`Sorry it happened’ and that’s the end of it” unless somebody ensures there is a “protection of Canadians act.”

That’s outrageous, and I believe it’s clearly true that the levels of support offered to Canadian citizens who are in trouble abroad is widely divergent.

Some of the clearest cases in point:

Suaad Hagi Mohamud: facing prison in Kenya or deportation to Somalia after the Canadian High Commission concluded she was an impostor and voided her passport, left hanging for nearly three months, fortunately helped by the level of vocal support she received from the local Somali community, the media, and a committed lawyer. Though she is not yet home, government officials have said that emergency documents are being prepared; it is not clear how long it will take. They have not yet said if she will be forced to pay for her own flight home, and no one from the government has stepped forward to take responsibility and offer an apology.

Abousfian Abdelrazik: imprisoned in Sudan at the request of CSIS, released due to the absence of any evidence that he engaged in terrorist activity; unable to return home for more than five years as successive governments refused him help; constantly moving goal posts for what he would have to do to be allowed to return; finally brought home after a court order forced the current government’s hand. Abdelrazik was also helped by the community support that kept his case in the spotlight, and the admission (by everyone except our government, apparently) that there was no evidence to justify his presence on the no-fly list.

Maher Arar: on 26 September 2002, after he was detained at a stopover in the US on his way home to Canada from Tunisia, he became a victim of “extraordinary rendition” and was sent to Syria, where he was imprisoned and tortured, on the suspicion that he was a member of al Qaeda. Thanks to constant lobbying by his wife Monia Mazigh, Arar was freed and returned to Canada in October of 2003. Fortunately, there was an inquiry into his case and he was offered 10 million dollars in compensation; however, the US still refuses to allow him entry despite the total absence of evidence that he is a threat. (Obsidian Wings is one of the best resources on his case that I know of, aside from Arar’s website itself; it is worth the time to read all of Katherine and hilzoy’s posts.)

Omar Khadr: imprisoned at Guantanamo Bay since 2002. Unlike Arar, Mohamud and Abdelrazik, his case is complicated because he was captured in Afghanistan and was certainly fighting with al Qaeda forces. However, he was captured at fifteen, and was brought to Afghanistan by his family, who are now known as al Qaeda sympathizers who engaged in militant activity. Khadr has no widespread community support. In fact, many Canadians appear to feel that he and his surviving family should be stripped of their citizenship. Because of this, he is the only Western prisoner still held at Guantanamo, and he is denied the help that is normally offered to child soldiers under international law. The Liberals, under Chretien and Martin, and the Conservatives, under Harper, have all refused to request that he be returned to Canada.

Brenda Martin: imprisoned in Mexico for two years after conviction for money-laundering. After her case was raised in the media, a government minister (Jason Kenney) personally intervened to bring her home so that she would not face five years in a Mexican prison – to the point that she was flown back to Canada in a government plane.

The difference is obvious, and it is unacceptable. A Canadian is a Canadian is a Canadian; the government represents all of us, and owes the same level of responsibility to all of us. I’m glad that Brenda Martin received the level of assistance that she did, I wish it had not taken two years, and I want to know why Mohamud, Abdelrazik, Arar, and Khadr all have been treated quite differently.

From the Star article again:

“The buck stops with [bureacrats in Foreign Affairs], and the advice they give to the minister,” said MP Dan McTeague, a former parliamentary secretary responsible for Canadians abroad under former prime minister Paul Martin.

“When these matters become political, it’s entirely the discretion of the minister responsible in the case and they’re often told not to speak.”

Thus we have gems like this one from Lawrence Cannon, referring to Mohamud: “The individual … has to let us know whether or not she is a Canadian citizen…”. Since she had already provided a passport, a citizenship card, an OHIP card, a driver’s license, affidavits from her workplace and family in Canada, and her fingerprints, I would like to know what else Cannon expected her to do.

We do need a “protection of Canadians abroad” act, if ministers like Cannon can pick and choose who will receive assistance from Canadian consulates and who will not, and can invent impossible standards for people to meet before they can receive assistance. The act should stipulate what identification individuals can provide, mechanisms for validating the ID, and a process for obtaining vouches from people in Canada. It should also specify how long this should take (and it should not be three months or more). The government’s obligations in the event that a Canadian citizen is charged with a crime need to be clearly specified, and one of those obligations should be to repatriate citizens who are placed on the no-fly list. There should be no more double standards, and no excuses for bureaucrats or politicians who try to apply them.

However, unless we as a society pull together and demand that our government work for all of us, I don’t think we’ll get it. We will need to lobby our MPs until this legislation is brought forward.

Lawrence Cannon can be contacted here.

Contact information for MPs can be found here.