PM: KHADR PAYOUT A ‘DOMESTIC SQUABBLE’

Tories criticized for raising rift in U.S.

SHELBURNE, N.S. •Prime Minister Justin Trudeau labelled the Omar Khadr affair a “domestic squabble” Friday as he hit out at the Conservatives for raising the matter in the U.S.

Trudeau took aim at a cross-border Conservative campaign lambasting him for a generous federal payout — reportedly $10.5 million — to Khadr.

“When I deal with the United States, I leave the domestic squabbles at home. Other parties don’t seem to have that rule, but I think it’s one Canadians appreciate,” the prime minister said, speaking at a summer camp in southwestern Nova Scotia.

Several Conservative MPs have taken to the airwaves and newspapers in the U.S. to denounce the payment, starting Monday with a scathing column by Peter Kent in the Wall Street Journal entitled “A Terrorist’s Big Payday, Courtesy of Trudeau.”

Kent has called the payout an “affront” to the two American soldiers Khadr was accused of injuring, one of them fatally, in a grenade attack in Afghanistan.

Senior Liberals have accused Conservatives of fanning anti-Trudeau sentiment in the U.S. ahead of NAFTA negotiations, but Tory Leader Andrew Scheer has argued that the Grits are to blame for any American backlash over the Khadr payment.

“It’s no surprise that they’re desperately trying to latch onto another angle of the story to deflect attention from the core of the matter which is that this (Khadr payment) was a personal decision by Justin Trudeau to go above and beyond what any court order ever indicated was the responsibility of the government,” Scheer told a news conference Thursday.

Trudeau said Friday he will continue to work with opposition parties ahead of talks to rejig the North American Free Trade Agreement next month, but that Canadians expect domestic disputes won't derail those discussions.

Trudeau said he understands if people are frustrated by the settlement, but that the decision was taken to save the country money and to defend the basic rights and freedoms of all Canadians.

“Omar Khadr was going to show up in court ... with a note from the Supreme Court with his name on it saying that his rights had been violated,” he said.

“There is no question we were going to lose this case because governments of different stripes violated his fundamental rights and freedoms.”

Trudeau said Canadian leaders can't only stand up for those rights when it's easy and popular.

“Ultimately, you have to decide what kind of government you are. Are you a government that stands for what is right, or are you a government that stands for what is easy?” he said.

“Are you willing to play the politics of division, of fear, of looking for partisan gain any time there is a tough decision to make, or are you going to stand there and make those tough decisions?”

He said the U.S. administration is focused on growing the economy and helping the middle class, not on political controversies in Canada.

Trudeau's principal secretary, Gerald Butts, has also attacked the Conservatives' actions.

“Conservatives mount aggressive anti-PM campaign in the US on the eve of NAFTA renegotiation,” he tweeted at one point.

His tweets Thursday suggested Tories should confine their criticism of the Khadr payment to Canadian soil, advising one Tory MP that even when Liberals “disagreed with your government's approach to the U.S., we supported you while in the U.S.”

But Scheer dismissed that argument, saying:

“It's not credible to think that somehow the news and commentary somehow stops at the border.”