Gov't selective in offering help to Cdns. abroad

BYLINE: The StarPhoenix

BODY:


When ordinary Canadians fork over $85 to the federal government for an adult passport, included in the charge is a $25 fee for "consular services" to assist travellers who become ill, have accidents, are caught in natural disasters or even get arrested.

When Auditor General Sheila Fraser found last month that the consular fee is unfair because it's far in excess of the cost of actual services provided to Canadians, she could well have used Bashir Makhtal as an example of why there's a surplus in the fund.

Mr. Makhtal is a Canadian citizen who has been "rendered" to Ethiopia and is being held without charge, with Canadian government efforts to help him amounting to virtually nothing.

He had the bad luck to be in Somalia on business when the U.S.-backed invasion by the Ethiopian army occurred. On Ottawa's advice he fled to neighbouring Kenya, where authorities arrested him, took his Canadian passport and shipped him off to Ethiopia, whose government won't even admit it has him. His sin is that his grandfather was the leader of a secessionist group in the Ogaden region of Ethiopia, a group to which Mr. Makhtal has no connection, in a country he hadn't set foot in since age 11.

Even though Peter MacKay raised Mr. Makhtal's case once with the Ethiopians when he was minister of Foreign Affairs, his successor, Maxime Bernier did nothing. Of consular visits, he's had none in Somalia, with Canadian officials apparently unable even to say where's he's being held.

While the Stephen Harper government has been vocal in demanding justice for Huseyin Celil, imprisoned in China after farcical court proceedings involving absurd terrorism charges, and spared no expense in repatriating Brenda Martin from a Mexican prison after her loud and repeated public protestations became embarrassing, Canadians in trouble abroad seem to be the least likely to get the kind of help other nationals can expect from their home countries.

Mr. Makhtal's plight is a case in point. Other foreigners arrested along with him, among them Swedes, have long since been shipped home after their governments intervened on their behalf.

The case of Omar Khadr, the lone westerner still held by the Americans in their controversial Guantánamo detention facility in Cuba, is another. Other westerners taken prisoner by the U.S. have long since gone home, while Mr. Khadr faces what even his U.S. military lawyer has described as a kangaroo court trial, which recently saw the removal of the presiding judge who had ordered the defence be provided with pertinent government secret documents.

The Harper government's lickspittle obeisance toward the U.S. administration over Guantánamo has long been evident, but its reaction to a report this week about Mr. Khadr is most revealing.

Two reports from Canadian Foreign Affairs officials who visited Mr. Khadr, whose prisoner status already contravenes Canada's stated policy on child soldiers, identify him as a "likable, funny and intelligent young man."

The officials say he is a "salvageable" and hopeful young man whose desire is to return to Canada, take care of his health problems, get an education, have a family and to find a job in keeping with his commitment to helping those in need. Even though Mr. Khadr is commonly lumped in with his reviled, Taliban-sympathizing family in Canada, U.S. prison officials told the Foreign Affairs officials he seems not keen on staying in contact with them and rarely speaks of them.

The gravest danger, according to the reports, is that "an extended detention in Guantánamo would run the risk of turning (Mr. Khadr) into a radical."

Yet, faced with the assessment from their own officials, the Conservatives in government reject any call to intervene on Mr. Khadr's behalf or to return him to Canada to be tried, as for instance, Britain and Australia did long ago with their nationals who were at Guantánamo.

Deepak Obhrai, parliamentary secretary for foreign affairs, called the new information "all premature (and) speculative," saying the process was ongoing.

Art Hanger, chair of the justice committee investigating the Khadr case, said as long as the man remains under "some sort of charge and trial down there, that's the way it's going to be, as far as I can see."

Of course, such principles didn't apply to Ms. Martin, but then she was a more sympathetic case with public appeal and without the hindrance of a loathsome family.

Selective demands for justice, selective defence of human rights depending on who's in trouble. Canadians who travel abroad surely need to have a better sense of what they can expect for the consular service fees now fattening the government's coffers.

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"Democracy cannot be maintained without its foundation: free public opinion and free discussion throughout the nation of all matters affecting the state within the limits set by the criminal code and the common law. - The Supreme Court of Canada, 1938

LOAD-DATE: June 5, 2008

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