What Evan Solomon should have asked Dimitri Soudas

Evan Solomon did not exactly overwhelm Stephen Harper’s press flak, Dimitri Soudas, on why the government still refuses to demand Omar Khadr’s repatriation from a U.S. military justice system.

On his CBC News show Power & Politics, Solomon asked the right question—why, if Canada’s top court says Khadr’s rights were violated, don’t we ask for him back—but got some gooey bullshit about how Khadr’s charges were serious and that the government will allow the judicial process in the United States to continue and it was all the Liberals’ fault. What Soudas carefully left out was the prickly fact that the aforementioned process was a (once extralegal) military one and a key part of the very questionable jurisprudence the Canadian Supreme Court said victimized one-time child soldier Khadr. And Solomon fumbled, failing to ask the key follow-ups:

1. Does the government recognize that Khadr’s rights were violated, as the Supreme Court does?
2. If the government says it should allow the U.S. military justice process to continue in Khadr’s case—despite the fact that it took years for that process to produce a charge, that the charges are very suspect according to the defense, that the process remains very controversial within the United States, and that the Supreme Court of this country has said Khadr’s constitutional rights were violated by that process—then is the government condoning the Americans’ decision to try Khadr and others in military rather than civilian courts and to violate his habeas corpus rights to protection from indefinite detention?
3. Would the government ever consider trying Canadian terrorism suspects, like the Toronto 18, in military rather than civilian courts? Would it consider indefinite detention as an anti-terrorism tool?

The answer would probably have been "the Liberals did it" but that doesn’t excuse Solomon from not demanding more answers.

I don’t understand why any government should get away with this. If there is a case against Khadr, charge him and try him like anyone else. If not, why is the Canadian citizen still behind bars? Unfortunately, the leader of the opposition has a history of, shall we say, compromised positions on counter-terrorism. So he’s not the go-to guy to go after Harper on this file.

Published 10.02.03 22:18:40 -0500 GMT | Posted by Andrew Garib on 10.02.03 | |

Also On This Topic:

The Guns Of August Peter MacKay’s Generalization Problem THE MEDIA’S IRAQ OFFENSIVE

Be the first to comment on “What Evan Solomon should have asked Dimitri Soudas”