Liberals over the years all over map on Khadr

While the reported deal between the Trudeau government and Omar Khadr, awarding him over $10 million and an official apology from Canada is shocking, it isn’t surprising.

The die was cast in 2010 when the Supreme Court of Canada unanimously ruled the federal government violated Khadr’s constitutional rights as a citizen (he was born in Canada) to “life, liberty and security of the person.” This when CSIS and foreign affairs officials interviewed Khadr in Cuba’s Guantanamo Bay prison in 20032004, and relayed the information to the Americans, knowing Khadr had been subjected to sleep deprivation by prison authorities.

Given that, it was only a matter of time before the government was going to have to go to court to defend itself in Khadr’s civil suit against it, or settle.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s government has apparently settled.

If Stephen Harper and the Conservatives were still in power, they might well have defended the lawsuit.

This despite knowing Khadr would probably win because of the 2010 court ruling, and that the courtordered award might be higher than the $10 million the Liberals apparently agreed to.

As for Canada apologizing to Khadr, it’s possible his lawyers demanded it as a condition of settlement.

Ironies, strange twists and hypocrisy, by the Liberals, abound in Khadr’s case.

For example, it might never have happened had not then Liberal prime minister Jean Chretien asked Pakistan prime minister Benazair Bhutto in 1996 for guarantees that Khadr’s father, Ahmed Said Khadr, would be treated fairly. The father was released from prison shortly after Chretien’s intervention.

At the time, the elder Khadr, later identified as a key lieutenant of Osama bin Laden, who would die in a firefight with Pakistani security officers in 2003, was under arrest in Pakistan in connection with the bombing of the Egyptian embassy in Islamabad.

After being freed, the elder Khadr briefly came back to Canada, then returned to Pakistan with his family, where his sons received weapons training with the Taliban and bin Laden.

That started Omar Khadr down the path towards his 2002 confrontation with U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan, where he was accused of throwing the grenade that killed medic Sgt. 1st Class Christopher James Speer, leading to his subsequent confinement at Guantanamo Bay.

A great irony of the Khadr case is that in 2010, the Harper government, which came to power in 2006, was defending actions taken by the Jean Chretien/Paul Martin Liberal government, which was in charge when CSIS and foreign affairs officials interrogated Khadr at Guantanamo.

Often forgotten is the fact that in the same 2010 judgmen, the Supreme Court overturned two lower court rulings requiring the Harper government to seek Khadr’s repatriation from Guantanamo Bay, saying this would have interfered with its right to set foreign policy.

In criticizing the reported settlement between Khadr and the Trudeau government, the federal Conservatives are being consistent with the position the Harper government took toward the Khadr case during its years in power The Liberals, on the other hand, have gone from intervening on behalf of Khadr’s father, to shunning the Khadr family because of their embarrassment when it was later revealed the elder Khadr was a terrorist, to criticizing the Harper government for defending the Liberal government’s actions in its 20032004 questioning of Omar Khadr in Guantanamo.

Proof that politics makes strange bedfellows.