Why is Canada Building a Detention Centre in Lybia????!!!!

In September of 2009, Libyan dictator Moammar Gadhafi was supposed to visit Canada. But when the media got wind of it, he cancelled his plans and the uproar died down.

With his usual empty rhetoric, Harper denounced the brutal dictator.

"We understand Mr Gadhafi won't be refueling in Canada," a foreign affairs official said this afternoon. Canada had been planning an icy reception for the African dictator. While the stop-over was not deemed an official visit, Prime Minister Stephen Harper had asked Foreign Affairs Minister Lawrence Cannon to deliver a tongue-lashing to the Libyan leader, who for many years was an international pariah for his support of terrorism.

If that's the case, why is a Canadian firm building a detention centre in Libya? A country guilty of some of the worst human rights abuses in the world. And who are they building it for?

SNC-Lavalin has confirmed it has a contract to build a detention centre in Libya, a country currently gripped by violence as pro-democracy protesters clash with hardline government forces. The Montreal-based engineering giant has said the facility will be the "first to be built according to international human rights standards."

"We think this is an important step forward for this country and an opportunity for us as a company to share values that we think are essential to all citizens of the world," Leslie Quinton, the company's vice-president of global communications said in an email Thursday. Quinton denied reports that SNC-Lavalin was concealing the project. "It is one of the thousands of projects we work on yearly, not all of which are announced by press release."

And the Harper government gave this firm a contract, even after they were involved in corruption.

The Canadian unit of General Dynamics Corp., the world's biggest defence contractor, said Monday it will supply a fully digital communications system to the Canadian Army, ensuring troops will continue to have access to critical communications services in combat zones. The contract, awarded by the Department of Public Works and Government Services Canada, is worth $341 million over the five initial years and can be extended for up to five more years, bringing the total tab to $682 million.

And they were given another contract by the Harper government to provide security.

Officials from the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) have told Canwest News Service that work on the Arghandab irrigation project — Canada's biggest foreign aid project in a generation — is only just getting started and will continue well into 2012, long after Canadian troops have left the province. Canadian civilian workers from Montreal-based engineering firm SNC-Lavalin and irrigation consultant Hydrosult Inc. will soon start arriving to begin their work on the project, Canwest was told.

What is Harper getting us mixed up in now?