Charter applies to all Canadians, even Omar Khadr

Editor: After listening to the phoney outrage spouted by Central Okanagan-Similkameen-Nicola Conservative MP Dan Albas, I feel compelled to offer some facts on the Omar Khadr case:

The Charter of Rights and Freedoms applies to all Canadians, even those Albas and his Conservative colleagues detest.

Khadr was and is a Canadian citizen. Khadr was locked up in an illegal American prison in Cuba (a location chosen to keep it outside the reach of the American courts).

He was 15 years old. Khadr was subjected to sleep deprivation, a form of torture Canadian soldiers are expressly forbidden to use on prisoners.

Agents of the Canadian government knew this when they questioned Khadr in 2004. Khadr had no access to a lawyer and no way to challenge the legality of his detention.

The Supreme Court of Canada in 2008 and again in 2010 found that Khadr’s treatment at Guantanamo was a violation of his rights and the Canadian government was complicit in that violation. Khadr was suing the government for $20 million.

Public Safety Minister Ralph Goodale says the government had already spent $5 million in legal fees unsuccessfully fighting previous Khadr cases all the way to the Supreme Court.

Albas (who always refers to Canadians as “taxpayers,” never as citizens) complains the Canadian government impeded the work of the courts by settling the Khadr lawsuit. Furthermore, he claims it was a political decision, made in secret.

But, of course, that was no problem when his old boss, Steven Harper, settled the Maher Arar case for $10.5 million, in which another Canadian citizen was tortured by a foreign regime with the co-operation of Canadian government officials.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau reminds us that the Charter applies even when it’s uncomfortable.

I say Albas and his fellow complainers know the price of everything and the value of nothing. Bob Nicholson, Penticton