The Harper Government and the Colour of Democracy

A CULTURE OF DEFIANCE: History of the Reform-Conservative Party of Canada

In September of 2005, Michael Ignatieff was invited to speak at the U. S. Coast Guard Academy, on leadership, and what that meant. He was originally going to talk about human rights and international politics, but this was in the wake of Katrina, so he changed his lecture to one of current relevance.

I wanted to share with you in a very raw form, a very direct form this civilian’s view of some of the challenges—some of the moral and ethical challenges that arise from the Katrina story, that is still unfolding. This is the largest natural disaster in US history, but it’s not just the loss of life and the scale of devastation that’s shaken the country. The most troubling aspect has been the failure of anticipation and the failure of response by almost all levels of government ... (1)

Using the levee as a metaphor, he suggests that the people in Katrina's path believed that it would protect them in the same way they expected their government to protect them, and just as the levee burst, so too did their faith in the government.

And to go off topic a bit, I think what happened in the U.S. in the wake of this disaster, epitomizes why neoconservative ideology will fail. There is far too much "assumption" and too little fact. But there is also a dismissive attitude toward those who are disadvantaged.

The evacuation plan for New Orleans ... assumed that people would leave by private car. Assumption number one. And assumption number two—that people, when they left, would be basically housed by their family and domestic networks. Both assumptions turned out to be flawed.

The assumptions were correct for seventy percent of the population or eighty percent of the population but not correct for twenty percent of the population, and we know what percentage of the population it wasn’t true for. It was not true for people who can’t drive. It was not true for people without extensive family networks out of state. It was not true for people without the resources to rent cars. It was not true for very large numbers of human beings. (1)

As images were shown from New Orleans and the surrounding area, and sent around the world, what we saw was a side of the United States that they tried very hard to keep hidden. These people were poor before the hurricane. And most of these devastatingly poor people were black.

A duty of care involves social knowledge—social knowledge about the facts of race and class, however unpleasant they may be in our society, and a willingness to create an evacuation plan that deals with a society that actually exists...

... Katrina was one of those moments where we saw the ties that bind the country together put under tremendous strain, the ties that bind were frayed by what happened in Katrina. One of the cries that went up from the people trapped in the convention center in New Orleans was very significant and I’ll never forget seeing the woman who said this: she said, “We are American citizens, we are American citizens, we are not refugees, we are not stateless objects of your charity, we are citizens of this republic, we have rights here and our rights have been denied.”

Ok, for that woman and for thousands of people who went through the experience of the last five or six days, the thing that was so shocking was that their citizenship counted so little.... But these ties of citizenship are legitimate and accepted as binding only if citizenship confers equal rights regardless of race and social class. (1)

"The thing that was so shocking was that their citizenship counted so little."

And sadly we are now living in a country where citizenship for many Canadians means very little indeed.

Sydney Sharpe, former member of the Ottawa Press Gallery, once wrote that: "This way of thinking characterizes the ideology and behaviour of right-wing Supremacist groups such as the Heritage Front. While such groups can, to a certain extent, be ignored because of their small numbers, such thinking is also evident in the doctrines of the Reform Party [those doctrines written by their policy chief Stephen Harper], who won a substantial number of votes in the federal election of 1993 and who hold 52 seats in Parliament." (2)

So should we really be surprised that the Reform Party, that changed it's name to Alliance Party and now call themselves the Conservative Party of Canada, have written a policy of selective citizenship?

We saw this with Suaad Hagi Mohamud, the Canadian woman who visited relatives in Kenya but was not allowed home until she took a DNA test.

If Canadian citizen Suaad Hagi Mohamud were wealthy or politically connected or media savvy, she would never have been stripped of her passport and her rights while travelling through Kenya.

She might have been stopped at the airport in Nairobi. Initially, a Canadian consular official might even have supported her detention. When she presented her identification, the Canadian system would have rallied to her side. Suaad Hagi Mohamud, however, is not rich. She's not a political insider. She's not a media darling. She is a black Somali immigrant who had to live on charity once Canadian authorities sent her passport to Kenyan police and suggested they prosecute her for not really being one of us. She had produced a half-dozen forms of valid identification, but our bureaucrats closed their ears to her desperate pleas for help. By cancelling her passport, they rendered her stateless. (3)

Her "citizenship counted so little."

And we are seeing it with Omar Khadr:

Lawrence Cannon stood up in the House of Commons and pronounced his guilt, before a court of law had determined that he was guilty of anything, and they refuse to bring him home.

"There's never been any allegation that Omar conspired to injure Canadians," said Nate Whitling, one of Mr. Khadr's Canadian lawyers .... it seems to me a terrible abuse of power that government ministers (or even little spokespersons) should be able to make insinuations about the criminal guilt of individual Canadian citizens, especially when no legitimate prosecutor has ever raised such charges and when Omar Khadr is still, under any legal process, however suspect, as the U.S. military commissions are universally considered to be entitled to the presumption of innocence. (4)

His "citizenship counted so little."

Or Brenda Martin, the Canadian woman languishing in a Mexican jail. Helena Guergis said that her government was doing everything possible to help her. Guergis even flew to Mexico herself, but never visited Martin or anyone involved. Instead she went partying and later said that she spoke to someone at the party about her.

Supporters of a Canadian woman imprisoned without trial in Mexico for nearly two years were astonished when they learned that a federal cabinet member is publicly claiming she and her government have worked hard behind the scenes to expedite Brenda Martin's case and to ensure her legal and human rights have been respected. Incredulity turned to anger when Helena Guergis, the secretary of state for foreign affairs and international trade, warned in a letter to the editor published in the Edmonton Journal that "those who are playing politics with Ms Martin's regrettable situation . . . are not helping to advance her case or get her home any faster."

... In her letter to the editor, Guergis, who is engaged to Edmonton MP Rahim Jaffer, said the federal government has "strongly and repeatedly pressed senior Mexican officials" to expedite Martin's case. But Dan McTeague, the Liberal foreign affairs critic for consular services, said he met with the Mexican ambassador to Canada, Emilio Goicoechea Luna, earlier this month and the ambassador told him no one from foreign affairs had ever contacted him about Martin's case. (5)

Martin wasn't black but was not wealthy. She didn't move in their circles.

Her "citizenship counted so little."

Or Jason Kenney removing gay rights from the citizenship guide.

Their "citizenship counted so little."

Or Stephen Harper removing the word "equality" from the Status for Women.

As for Canadian women, it is doubtful that Harper’s sudden interest in championing women in the developing world will wash. They have heard those words before. Shortly after taking power, Harper broke his pre-election promise to “take concrete and immediate measures…to ensure Canada upholds its commitments to women.” He removed the words “equality” out of the Status of Women’s mandate, closed 12 out of 16 SWC offices, abandoned a Universal childcare program and killed off the Courts Challenges Program. The program subsidized Constitutional test cases for finally disadvantaged groups including women. A major beneficiary of the program was the Women’s Legal Education and Action Fund (LEAF) that intervened in over 150 constitutional equality cases including violence against women, sexual assault and pay equity issues. (6)

Our "citizenship counted so little."

Which brings us to Abousfian Abdelrazik.

The Harper government was warned shortly after it came to office in 2006 that Sudan’s notorious military intelligence agency was ready to “disappear” Abousfian Abdelrazik, a Canadian citizen, unless Ottawa allowed him to go home, The Globe and Mail has learned. Sudan wanted to “deal with this case for once and for all: we judge as significant their verbal reference to a ‘permanent solution,’” Ottawa was bluntly told by Canadian diplomats in the Sudanese capital, according to documents now in possession of The Globe.

Instead of protesting the threat or warning Sudan – a regime notorious for its human rights abuses – that Ottawa would hold it responsible if harm came to a Canadian citizen held in one of its prisons, diplomats in Khartoum were ordered by a senior Canadian intelligence official to deliver a non-committal response “notwithstanding the expected displeasure of the Sudanese.” (7)

And rather than deal with it, Lawrence Cannon simply lied to the Canadian people and to Mr. Abdelrazik.

The lobby of the Canadian embassy in one of the world’s leading basketcase nations is an odd place for our government to house a man posing a serious threat to national security, wouldn’t you say? And yet, this is what Foreign Affairs Minister Lawrence Cannon would have us believe he and his predecessor have been doing with Abousfian Abdelrazik for over a year. Yesterday, the latest chapter in the Sudanese-Canadian’s mind-boggling six-year struggle to return home unfolded as many had ruefully predicted. Having booked and paid for a flight to Canada, thus fulfilling the conditions under which the government had promised, in writing, to issue an emergency passport, the apparently destitute Abdelrazik was instead told he needed somehow to get himself removed from the United Nations’ no-fly list before the papers would be issued. (8)

So I am pleased to learn that Abousfian Abdelrazik has won the right to sue not only the Harper government, but Lawrence Cannon personally.

A Montreal man who claims he was abandoned by Canada and subjected to torture in Sudan has the green light to pursue his lawsuit against the federal government. The Federal Court this week rejected a government motion to strike significant parts of Abousfian Abdelrazik's suit for $27 million. The government argued it couldn't be sued by individuals for torture, that the government isn't duty-bound to protect Canadians detained abroad and that
Foreign Affairs Minister Lawrence Cannon couldn't be named personally in the
lawsuit.

In his statement of claim, Abdelrazik alleges the government arranged for him to be detained, encouraged or condoned his torture and actively obstructed his repatriation to Canada. In it, he singles out Cannon, seeking $3 million in damages for allegedly blocking his attempts to return. (9)

We need to let this government, and any future government, know that this kind of behaviour reflects badly on Canadians. It's not who we are and it's not who we want to be. Because despite the Reform Party mindset, our equal citizenship counts for everything!

Sources:

1. U.S. Coast Guard Academy Institute for Leadership presents the 2nd event in the 2005-2006 academic year’s Leadership Speaker Series: Dr. Michael Ignatieff, September 8th, 2005

2. The Colour of Democracy, Racism in Canadian Society, By Frances Henry, Carol Tator, Winston Mattis, and Tim Rees, Harcourt Brace & Company, 1995, ISBN: 0-7747-3255-5, Pg. 24

3. A country that abandons its own, Toronto Star, August 29, 2009

4. Lawrence Cannon aspires to be ... Richard Nixon?!? By skdadl, Peace, Order and Good Government, eh?, April 25, 2009

5. Guergis warns against 'playing politics', By The Vancouver Province, December 26, 2007

6. STOP PLAYING WITH WOMEN’S LIVES, Ad Hoc Coalition for Women's Equality and Human Rights Media Release, February 22, 2010

7. Canada 'indifferent' to Sudan's threat to kill Abdelrazik, files show, By Paul Koring, Globe and Mail, July 31, 2009

8. "The Trial," by Lawrence Cannon, By Chris Selley, National Post, April 04, 2009

9. Feds fail in attempt to avoid Sudan torture lawsuit, By Tobi Cohen, Postmedia News, September 1, 2010

Lawrence Cannon in Running to be Conservative Party's Biggest Idiot

I get so damned mad when I think about the poor Canadian woman who suffered a horrendous ordeal in Kenya, simply because she was not white.

Now our moronic Foreign Affairs Minister Lawrence Cannon, is implying that it was her fault for not trying hard enough to prove her identity.

This idiot needs to be not only fired, but tarred and feathered. Or maybe we'll send him to some third world country and not allow him back in until he proves that he deserves to be called a Canadian.

Dereliction of duty
By Janet Bagnall,
The Montreal Gazette
September 7, 2009

The zeal and speed with which Canadian consular officials declared Suaad Hagi Mohamud an impostor, fraudulently claiming Canadian citizenship, should not have come as a surprise.

There have been plenty of other recent cases suggesting that our Foreign Affairs Department thinks that if Canadians get in trouble abroad, it's because they did something wrong, were conspiring to do something wrong, or another country rightly thinks they knew someone who had done something wrong.

The list includes William Sampson, tortured in a Saudi prison and sentenced to death on trumped-up charges of smuggling alcohol; Omar Khadr, who is still, despite Canadian court orders demanding the federal government request his return, facing murder charges in Guantanamo Bay; Maher Arar, tortured in a Syrian jail following his rendition from the U.S. at the suggestion of Canadian agents; and Abousfian Abdelrazik, for whom it took a Federal Court order to win the right to return to Canada after six years in Sudan.

It would be easy to conclude there is an anti-Muslim bias within Canada's consular ranks or the federal Conservative government, but the horrifying example of William Sampson, who is not Muslim, stands in the way of that theory.

Where other countries come to the aid of their citizens, law-abiding or not, Canada either leaves its citizens at the mercy of whatever regime is holding them or, worse, throws them to the wolf itself.

When these citizens come home, angry, ill, or psychologically broken, it is virtually unheard of for anyone to be held accountable for failing to help them. Arar, an exception, was given compensation and an apology following a public inquiry.

If Canadians hoped the federal government and the Foreign Affairs Department had taken needed lessons from the Arar case, what happened to Mohamud should set them straight. A Toronto resident, she was in Kenya on her way home from visiting her ailing mother in Nairobi. At the airport, the single mother was detained by a Kenyan official who said her lips did not look the same as in her four-year-old passport photo. Mohamud, 31, believed the official wanted a bribe.

After "conclusive investigations including an interview," Canadian officials sent her cancelled passport to Kenyan officials, urging them to prosecute her.

Mohamud's identification papers -- ranging from an Ontario's driver's licence to a dry-cleaning receipt -- were rejected by Canada. Foreign Affairs finally agreed to a DNA test, which showed Mohamud is the mother of her 12-year-old son in Toronto.

Of course, if her son had been with her in Kenya, one supposes both of them would be on the streets of Nairobi today.

No one has had to answer for what happened to Mohamud. The consular official who claimed to have conducted the conclusive investigations has returned to Ottawa because she has "concluded" her tour of duty, the Canadian High Commission in Nairobi told the Toronto Star.

Probes are said to be under way into the case by Foreign Affairs and the Canada Border Services Agency. There is no assurance that the probes include procedural standards.

Foreign Affairs Minister Lawrence Cannon has said it will take up to a month for the federal government to determine what happened to Mohamud. He refuses to say whether the results will be made public.

This is unacceptable. The minister responsible for safeguarding Canadians abroad failed utterly in his duty toward Mohamud -- as well, it now appears, as toward a second Canadian citizen in Kenya, a young man suffering from autism who has also been labelled an impostor.

Preposterously, Cannon accused Mohamud of not trying hard enough to prove her identity -- at the same time as his department refused her offer of a DNA test. He now seems to be standing by while his department apparently spreads rumours that the full truth is not known about her. This same ugly tactic was used against Maher Arar.

Cannon should make public the facts of Mohamud's case, apologize to her and then resign.

Canadians are not safe under this minister.

Back to: The Lawrence Cannon Story: Intelligent Incompetence

Lawrence Cannon Says You're Only a Citizen if I Tell You You're a Citizen

Once again this government has shown us that unless you're a white wealthy Christian, you're not welcome in this country called Canada. In fact, if you don't meet their criteria, you may not get back in if you leave, even if you are a Canadian citizen.

Suaad Hagi Mohamud learned this the hard way, when she was not only abandoned by Lawrence Cannon and his crew of rednecks, but was actually denounced by them as an 'impostor'. As a result she was separated from her son for months and only DNA proved that she was telling the truth.

This should never have happened and would never have happened under Michael Ignatiff's watch.

A country that abandons its own
Toronto Star
Aug 13, 2009

If Canadian citizen Suaad Hagi Mohamud were wealthy or politically connected or media savvy, she would never have been stripped of her passport and her rights while travelling through Kenya.

She might have been stopped at the airport in Nairobi. Initially, a Canadian consular official might even have supported her detention. When she presented her identification, the Canadian system would have rallied to her side.

Suaad Hagi Mohamud, however, is not rich. She's not a political insider. She's not a media darling.

She is a black Somali immigrant who had to live on charity once Canadian authorities sent her passport to Kenyan police and suggested they prosecute her for not really being one of us. (Just visitng?) She had produced a half-dozen forms of valid identification, but our bureaucrats closed their ears to her desperate pleas for help.

By cancelling her passport, they rendered her stateless. And rendered her to the Kenyans – the same Kenyans who had rendered another Canadian citizen, Bashir Makhtal, to an Ethiopian prison.

The default position of a powerful bureaucracy is control. But when its political protectors are unresponsive to principles or the people, bureaucratic control unconsciously, and without any obvious will, can become sadism.

Remarkably, the Canadian politician elected by the people to oversee the bureaucracy – and to help fellow Canadians in distress – failed in his highest obligation. Foreign Minister Lawrence Cannon crushed her hope for quick justice with mistruths and irrelevancies. In demeaning and damaging language, he said she hadn't tried hard enough to prove she was a citizen.

What chance does a poor immigrant woman living on handouts away from her family have against that kind of power?

Back channels out of Ottawa are now whispering that we don't have the whole story, that things aren't what they seem in this case. But they have yet to come clean. We heard the same thing from back channels in the cases of Donald Marshall and David Milgaard, terrible examples of abuses of citizens by their government.

But what crime strips a Canadian of all their civil rights and even their human right to their identity?

None. These are excuses for failures of justice and humanity in our bureaucracy and at the highest levels of our government.

And as yesterday's Toronto Star pointed out, this is not an isolated incident. What do we learn from an examination of other cases?

Overwhelmingly, the victims are people of colour, they are immigrants, they are out of the political mainstream. Our government treats them as less than real citizens.

This incident demonstrates this government's flawed understanding of the true nature of today's Canada, and how through ignorance or malice it is frustrating Canadians' hopes for real justice.

This is inexcusable. I hope she sues

Back to: The Lawrence Cannon Story: Intelligent Incompetence