Khadr speaks as outrage over payment mounts
Good standing more valuable than money
The Omar Khadr case has left Canadians deeply divided, said public safety minister Ralph Goodale as he made a statement of apology Friday to the former child soldier.
He might have had a point in 2015, after Khadr’s release from prison — one Angus Reid Institute poll at the time said 55 per cent of Canadians agreed Khadr “remains a potential radicalized threat,” while 52 per cent agreed he had “served his time.”
But voters are likely to be more united by the news that Khadr has received an official apology — and not in the way the government might wish.
The decision to award him a rumoured $10.5 million in compensation has made Conservatives incandescent, and many Liberals uncomfortable. It could have a farreaching impact on the Canadian political landscape.
The coalition that includes “purple” Conservative-toLiberal vote-switchers may start to unravel, in the same fashion that the decision to approve the Trans Mountain pipeline frayed the coalition’s support at the edges among progressives.
This was a clear choice by Justin Trudeau. Stephen Harper would have litigated until Satan was skating to work. Even if it cost millions more, it would have negated the need to apologize.
Khadr was mistreated at the notorious U.S. prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. He was also guilty of, at the very least, supporting terrorism.
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After being incarcerated for 13 years, most fair-minded people would probably have urged him to keep his head down, enjoy his second chance at life in Canada and prove his doubters wrong.
He chose instead to keep the flame of his victimhood burning.
He has been a political pawn for much of the past 15 years but on this occasion, he walked into the spotlight.
Goodale fanned the partisan flames Friday by blaming the Harper government for failing to resolve the case, even though the original transgression by Canadian officials at Guantanamo occurred while the Liberals were in power.
The apology and settlement hand the Conservatives a gift in their argument that the pendulum of justice rewards perpetrators and penalizes the rights of victims.
Justice minister Jody Wilson-Raybould said the takeaway for Canadians should be that rights are not subject to the whims of the government of the day, and that serious costs accompany the violation of the rights of citizens.
But I suspect the impression most people will take with them is of a government quietly striking a deal with a man convicted of killing a U.S. soldier, in an effort to thwart attempts by the soldier’s widow to win her own compensation.
Khadr said in an interview with CBC the apology restores his reputation in Canada.
On the contrary, the reputation he considers restored is now once more being sullied by reference to actions he committed in 2002 at the age of 15, under the malign influence of his al-Qaidasupporting father, Ahmed.
The facts of the case are complex and their nuance will be lost. Still, they bear repeating.
Goodale said the legal settlement resolves Khadr’s civil case on the precise question of whether Canadian government officials contravened his human rights when they interrogated him, knowing he had been subjected to sleep deprivation, and passed on to U.S. authorities what they learned.
The minister said a Supreme Court decision in 2010 found that Canada had acted contrary to the “principles of fundamental justice”.
“This lies at the heart of the civil suit — it’s not about the battlefield in Afghanistan, it’s about the acts and omissions of the Canadian government,” he said.
Goodale is likely to be in a small minority who divorce the actions of the Canadian government from Khadr’s activities in Afghanistan, where U.S. Army Sgt. Christopher Speer died during a firefight.
Post-9/11 the U.S. enacted a new law making it a war crime to kill a soldier in conflict. Khadr was the only captive prosecuted with “murder in the violation of the laws of war.” He was 15 at the time of the incident, which makes it even more curious why he was the only person prosecuted.
In 2010, Khadr accepted a plea deal to get out of Guantanamo, admitting he threw the grenade that killed Speer. He has since questioned whether he could have been the killer, and his Guantanamo guilty plea is being appealed in Washington.
But what is not in doubt is that he supported terrorism — there is video of him converting landmines into improvised explosive devices used to target NATO forces.
Goodale considered these facts irrelevant to the settlement. He said the government had already spent $5 million in legal expenses defending itself against Khadr’s $20-million civil suit and would have spent still more on the case “with virtually no chance of success.”
“Reaching a settlement was the only sensible conclusion,” he said.
That sounds like wishful thinking. The Harper government fought hard against Khadr’s repatriation and his release on bail. “We regret that a convicted terrorist has been allowed back into Canadian society without having served his full sentence,” said Steven Blaney, the then Public Safety Minister. Opinion in Canada has hardened on domestic terror issues and, even when they were trusted on little else, the Harper Conservatives were judged credible on public safety.
Andrew Scheer, the new Conservative leader, said he would not have struck a settlement that compensated Khadr, adding Khadr’s repatriation from the U.S. should have been considered the compensation for any Canadian missteps.
He said if Khadr is truly sorry for the pain he has inflicted, the money should go directly to Sgt. Speer’s widow.
As Khadr discovers that his reputation has been diminished by this legal action, he might come to agree. Good standing is more valuable than money and far from being restored, Khadr’s reputation is now tinged with the grubbiness of what many will consider unjust gain.