Snore. This one is actually pretty easy.
In 1996, when Canadian born and raised Omar Khadr was 10, his Egyptian born father took him to Afghanistan and over the next six years indoctrinated him into becoming a child-soldier.
Canada has always argued child-soldiers are victims and should be treated as such and repatriated. It's in the name: CHILD.
Most child-soldiers are too young to know anything but what they're told to do. We've petitioned governments around the world to treat them as minors.
Until 2001 this wasn't a partisan issue. Mulroney signed as many declarations supporting this as anyone Liberal PM's did.
When he was captured by the Americans during a 2002 firefight, where he was defending himself against invading soldiers who were shooting at him, we should've immediately demanded the then 15 year Canadian be returned to Canada. We didn't.
We allowed the Americans to take him, put him in Guantanamo Bay as an enemy combatant and without trial or child services oversight we let them torture him for 8 years.
WE LET THAT HAPPEN TO A CANADIAN CITIZEN. IF NOTHING ELSE THIS WOULD BE BAD.
Civil rights groups, many in AMERICA, argued that convicting the first minor since World War II to war crimes was unjust. The Canadian Supreme Court agreed and long story short Omar was repatriated to Canada for the rest of his sentence.
BECAUSE WE ARE A NATION OF LAWS his case was brought forward by child rights advocates who using Canadian precedent sued the Federal Government. Harper fought them, spending almost $11 Million on delaying tactics. The case was heading for the Supreme Court of Canada.
When Trudeau was elected his Justice Minister - you may know her a Jody Wilson-Raybould, was asked by the PM to seek hypothetical advise from the Supreme Court on the likelihood of a Government win in this case. The Court informally advised the Government of the Doctrine they would view the case under which clearly showed precedent wasn't on the Government's side. Trudeau could've spent a further $10 Million fighting Kadhr's advocates. He very likely would've lost and when he did the court would award Omar damages commensurate with his punishment, the failure of the Government to recover and protect him and then add to it because Omar had been a child. The estimate was likely to be above $20 Million.
CINO argue that it would've been better to waste more than $40 Million than admit we let a Canadian child-soldier down. The world has seen this and we have no credibility on human rights issues with children any more because of Harper.
Wait,what was that?
Yeah, the Canadian government would've lost more than $40 Million in a pointless fight before the Supreme Court of Canada because of Stephen Harper paid $10 Million to Maher Arar, a dual citizen the Americans detained and then shipped to Syria for a year of torture and imprisonment. If dual-citizen adult Arar was owed $10 Million for just a year, why would Harper think his Government wouldn't owe anything to fully Canadian child-soldier and 8 year torturned and imprisoned Kadhr?
Because Arar was paid out by Harper and Kadhr was paid out by the Liberals.
Simple CINO logic.
This link explains further, not only everything Harper did wrong, but why the expense would've continued to climb until a settlement was reached.
https://ipolitics.ca/2017/07/11/whos-to-blame-for-the-khadr-payout-stephen-harper-mostly/?fbclid=IwAR35vfIZawlZnBMlshdY-qXAT3lEgcMdLKU9blWxeiWwYMmYYq7B0f6a9MI
Saturday, October 5, 2019
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