KHADR TALK IN U.S. UNWISE

Conservatives are entitled to object to the Liberal government’s $10.5 million payment to Omar Khadr, even to make as much political hay of it as they can. But taking their quarrel to the United States is a little too close to treason in these sensitive times.

It is hard to know what, exactly, Conservative MPs were trying to achieve by slamming the payout in the U.S. media, as Peter Kent did with an oped last week in the Wall Street Journal titled A Terrorist’s Big Payday, Courtesy of Trudeau; Michelle Rempel on Fox, a favourite platform of U.S. conservative polemicists; and Pierre Poilievre on Newsmax Now.

These came in stark contrast to earlier Conservative co-operation with the government’s policy of multi-partisan solidarity in advancing Canadian interests in the United States. In response to the considerable challenges posed by the Trump presidency, the Trudeau government has wisely adopted the mature and expedient strategy of trying to work as effectively as possible with the leaders Americans have elected. At the same time, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s celebrity is being harnessed to convey this country’s messages to U.S. audiences, while other Canadians have been reaching out to their American counterparts.

Now, Conservatives under new leader Andrew Scheer are busy pushing Americans’ emotional buttons (“al-Qaida terrorist” versus a U.S. army medic’s widow) and undermining our government’s reputation in the United States.

Polls suggest the payment is opposed by a sizable majority of Canadians. In response to critics, the government says it acted to avoid the higher cost of fighting a Khadr lawsuit it was likely to lose. It should be remembered that Khadr’s level of culpability in connection with the killing of one U.S. soldier and wounding of another is not the issue here, though it remains a subject of hot debate. The compensation is because of Canada’s culpability, for its complicity in violations of the rights of the Canadian citizen while he was in U.S. detention in the notorious Guantanamo prison.

In any case, these are arguments that should be made in Canada, among Canadians.

The timing of the Conservatives’ media forays could not have been worse: They came just as we are getting set to enter into NAFTA talks with Washington. That said, these inevitably hardball trade discussions, which will drag on for some time and have innumerable moving parts, are not likely to rise or fall on how Americans feel about the Khadr payment.

Still, given the capricious political climate south of the border, it is smarter not to paint a bull’s-eye on our backs.