"We need more Canadian sex stories"

Tony Clement told an amused crowd in Ottawa.

I've got one for you, Tony.
Well, it's more of a question really.

Why do guys promise they will for sure pull out in time this time?
And why do we continue to believe them?

Also, how come they can talk about it but only if someone else brings it up first?
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"Canada's back on the world stage"

It would seem that such international policies as

1) unstinting support for everything Israel
2) actively undermining the Copenhagen summit climate talks
3) delaying debt relief to Africa to advance the interests of a Canadian mining company
4) flip flopping hostility to China
5) snubbing an International Aids Conference held in Canada
6) cutting funding to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency
7) refusal to sign the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, and
8) blowing off UN talks on nuclear proliferation, global peace and climate change in favour of a photo op at a Tim Hortons

do not ultimately translate into votes for a seat on the Security Council at the UN after all.
Who knew?

In his UN defeat speech, Foreign Affairs Minister Lawrence Cannon graciously blamed the failure on Michael Ignatieff - three separate times. Wanker.
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Wikileaks : Canadian "combat deaths" were friendly fire

One of the Wikileaks war logs released yesterday contained a friendly fire report filed by the 205th RCAG U.S. military unit which states four Canadian soldiers were killed and seven other Canadians and an interpreter were wounded on Sept. 3, 2006, when a fighter jet dropped a guided bomb on a building they occupied during the second day of Operation MEDUSA. [bracketed explanations mine].

At 030414Z Sept 06 received SAF[small arms fire] & RPGS from sawtooth building. returned fire 1x GBU[Guided Bomb Unit] dropped on it.
Sawtooth building is heavily damaged. only 4x sections remain standing. no activity observed. Casualties 4x CDN KIA[Killed in action] 4X CDN WIA[Wounded in action].

This was later updated to 4 dead and 7 wounded Canadians:

At 030419Z Sep received SAF and RPG fire on op, a total of WIA in these hour 7x CDN, and 4x CDN KIA and 1x WIA interpreter
Attack on: FRIEND

Type : Friendly Fire .... Category : Blue-Blue .... Affiliation : FRIEND

At the time the Canadian military reported that the four Canadian soldiers died in battles with Taliban forces.
CBC got official clarification of that tonight from Jay Paxton, spokesman for Defence Minister Peter MacKay :

"The loss of four Canadian soldiers on September 3rd, 2006, was the result of insurgent activity in the Panjwaii district of Afghanistan," Jay Paxton said in an email Monday evening. "The only friendly fire incident from the time period in question occurred on September 4th, 2006."

Anyone think the Americans just casually inflate their friendly fire reports?
And what about the "guided bomb unit" in the US report?
Do the Taliban have fighter jets now?

Also, they took fire from a building, returned fire and dropped a GPU on it : "only 4x sections remain standing. no activity observed" Then they report : 4 Canadian dead, 7 Canadians and 1 civilian wounded. Zeros under enemy killed or wounded. No activity and no enemy kills counted? So where did the enemy who killed the Canadians go?
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PS Gotta love Laura Lynch on CBC's As it Happens tonight.
She asked Julian Assange whether things weren't "better now under Obama" and whether Assange "had broken the law".
Obama - that would be the guy who just ordered up a 30,000 troop surge for a war that is already costing $7-billion a month to retake Kandahar.
Assange called her repeated questions on whether he had broken the law "naive". I thought that was unnecessarily charitable of him.
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Earlier today Taliban Larry said the Wikileaks war logs had "nothing to do with Canada."
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Update :Bombshell claim that friendly fire killed Canadian soldiers unravels
US report discounted by soldiers who were there; "friendly fire" GBU rolled into Canadian troops but did not detonate.
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Lawrence Cannon, unplugged and disconnected

At a "media availability" he called this morning, Taliban Larry was blindsided with questions on the publication of the Wikileaks war logs. Echoing U.S. National Security Adviser James Jones, Cannon said :

"Our government is concerned obviously that operational leaks could endanger the lives of our men and women in Afghanistan."

Cannon then went on to repeat several times that the "leaked American documents" have "nothing to do with Canada."

Ok then.

Asked by the G&M if the leaks indicate the government has "misled the Canadian public", Lawrence replied that they have been very "transparent" and besides, ministers regularly go before the parliamentary Afghanistan committee.

Ahem. Didn't your government just shut down parliament entirely earlier this year in part to stop that very committee from doing its job, Larry? Is this Afgan committee not the very place from which the word "redacted" assumed its prominant position in the news ?

Meanwhile, over at the Pentagon ...
Pentagon still reviewing records, but so far finds no threat to U.S. security

"An ongoing Pentagon review of the massive flood of secret documents made public by the WikiLeaks website has so far found no evidence that the disclosure harmed U.S. national security or endangered American troops in the field, a Pentagon official told NBC News on Monday."

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Taliban Larry

NaPo : Vindication for Taliban Jack (h/t : Boris)

"So now it’s time to talk to the Taliban.

Canada’s Foreign Affairs Minister Lawrence Cannon told reporters on Tuesday that the Taliban has an important role to play in laying the foundations of a new Afghanistan. “We encourage a reconciliation process that is inclusive of all Afghans, no matter their ethnicity,” he said.

Now cup your hand to your ear and listen for the caterwauling of the uber patriots here on the home front decrying the minister’s capitulation to the enemy. Hmm. Oddly quiet. Could this minster really represent the government that so cravenly branded NDP leader Jack Layton “Taliban Jack” four years ago for suggesting exactly the same thing?

“Is it next going to be tea with Osama Bin Laden?” asked Peter MacKay.

A Globe and Mail columnist [Christie Blatchford] indignantly wrote “Would he pull out the chairs for their representatives? Would he pour tea for those who have killed 23 Canadian soldiers this year?

So almost four years after Layton suggested talking with the Taliban the minister acknowledges this is now official policy. For a guy who was labeled a soldier-hater and a Taliban-lover Jack Layton is remarkably gracious about the turnaround. I asked him recently if he was planning to ask for an apology and he demurred. “As long as the right thing gets done I don’t really care”.

Cannon has actually been making quiet noises about Taliban "reconciliation and re-integration" since January : Canada considering Karzai plan to offer cash to Taliban: Cannon

From John Manley's 2008 Independent Panel on Canada's Future Role in Afghanistan :

"When asked whether President Karzai should enter into negotiations with the Taliban and allow them to participate in the political process, some 60% of Afghans currently believe a negotiated settlement should be pursued."

About the same margin of Canadians, including Conservatives, also favoured negotiation back in May 2007 : CTV : Canadians support talks with Taliban: poll

"Canadians still think it's a good idea to negotiate with Afghanistan's Taliban insurgents as a way to end the violence there, a poll finds.
In The Strategic Counsel poll conducted for CTV and The Globe and Mail, there was almost two-to-one support for the notion:
Net good idea : 63 per cent
Net bad idea : 32 per cent
Donolo said 57 per cent of Conservative Party members supported the idea of negotiations."

Airshow Pete, "Goldie" Hawn, and World Stage Steve will eventually have to find a whole new place to play dress-up.
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Rights and Democracy : "Canada's credibility is at stake"

The International Federation for Human Rights has denounced the Cons "political interference" at Rights & Democracy :

G&M :

"The federation, an umbrella group of 155 human rights organizations operating in more than 100 countries, also slammed the government's choice of Gérard Latulippe as the troubled agency's new president.

It said Mr. Latulippe “does not have the moral authority to lead an organization like Rights & Democracy” given his past statements about the potential for Muslim immigrants to breed homegrown terrorism, his support for capital punishment and his opposition to same-sex marriage."

Naturally this will not cut any ice with Steve or Lawrence Cannon who appointed Latulippe, because the International Federation for Human Rights is on the NGO Monitor's shitlist, NGO Monitor being the Israeli think tank that appears to be currently determining Canada's foreign policy decisions in the Mid East.

NGO Monitor does not care for the federation's use of the terms "occupied Palestinian territories" or "crimes against humanity" when describing Israeli military or government actions, despite the IFHR's accompanying condemnation of the roles played by Syria and Iran.

NGO Monitor probably also doesn't like the fact that B'telem and Al Haq, the two NGOs at the centre of the Cons recent sacking of R&D and the bêtes noires of the organization’s newly-stacked pro-Israel board majority, are distinguished and valued members of IFHR.

"Canada's credibility is at stake," the federation said in a news release, citing support for B'telem and Al Haq and calling for an independent investigation.

Note to Steve : World stage! World stage!
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Abdelrazik sues Ottawa and Lawrence Cannon for $27-mil

After nearly six years of exile, prison and alleged torture in Sudan "at our request", Canadian Abousfian Abdelrazik is suing Ottawa for $24-mil and Foreign Minister Lawrence Cannon personally for $3-mil.


Mr. Justice Russel Zinn of the Federal Court ordered the government to bring him home in June after years of cruel cat-and-mouse games with his constitutional rights under both Cons and Libs.

Zinn :"CSIS was complicit in the detention of Mr. Abdelrazik by the Sudanese authorities in 2003."

Despite having been cleared of any wrongdoing by CSIS, the RCMP, and Sudan, for five years Abdelrazik was repeatedly assured by DFAIT that they would grant him an emergency passport only to have them withdraw the offer again under various pretexts. They had no intention of delivering.

From the excellent Paul Koring :

"CSIS agents interrogated Mr. Abdelrazik in a Khartoum prison, offering him – according to Mr. Abdelrazik – freedom if he would help them and warning him if he didn't he would never return home to his family and Sudan would be his "Guantanamo Bay."

In his lawsuit, Mr. Abdelrazik's lawyer claims: “While in Kober prison, he was deprived of sleep, subjected to verbal assaults, pummelled, kicked and flogged with a rubber hose on his back.” At other times he was hanged by his wrists, he said.

"This does not amount to torture or mistreatment. It is the reality in Sudan and he would not have been targeted for mistreatment any more than other fellow detainees," senior Foreign Affairs official Odette Gaudet-Fee said.
Another suggested Mr. Abdelrazik mutilated himself.

It is presumed that CSIS' original interest in Abdelrazik came via Abu Zubaydah, the schizophrenic halfwit waterboarded 83 times in 2002 in order to elicit a false confession linking Sadaam and al-Qaeda that could be used to justify the US invasion of Iraq.
CSIS has said while it once might have received evidence derived from torture, it no longer does.
Lawrence Cannon really has this one coming.
In July, Abdelrazik asked the federal government to help him get his name removed from a United Nations terror watch list so he could lead a normal life - get a job, healthcare, a bank account. This can only be done with the help of your own government; Cannon suggested Abdelrazik get himself off it.

It seems the only way to get this bunch of crackerbox politicians to obey Canadian law is to take them to court and embarrass them with massive lawsuits.

Had enough of this yet, Canada?
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Iggy and Steve - Standing up for Canadians

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On her way back to Canada over two months ago, 31 year old Toronto single mother Suaad Hagi Mohamud got stopped at the Nairobi airport because they said her four year old Canadian passport picture didn't look enough like her : her lips were thinner. Charged with identity fraud, she went to jail for eight days and has been stranded in a motel awaiting trial ever since.

The High Commission of Canada in Nairobi sent a letter to Kenyan officials on May 28 that stated, "Please be advised that we have carried out conclusive investigations, including an interview, and have confirmed that the person brought to the Canadian High Commission on suspicion of being an impostor is not the rightful holder of the aforementioned Canadian passport."

After she showed a dozen Canadian ID cards, spent weeks persuading Canadian consular officials to take her fingerprints and won a federal court action to have them take her DNA, Foreign Affairs Minister Lawrence Cannon said she wasn't doing enough. "The individual has to be straightforward, has to let us know whether or not she is a Canadian citizen," Cannon told media after the federal court decision.

Nice one, Larry. She has to take the Canadian government to court to be permitted to prove her identity but you say she's not doing enough?

I've got a test you can try, Mr. Cannon. It just requires a webcam.

"Hey, 12 year old kid in Toronto, is this your mom?"

"Hey, ATS, is this the woman who currently works at your company as a supervisor ?"

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Travelling abroad while brown - no longer recommended for Canadians.

And my apologies if I'm wrong, but I don't believe we've heard word one from human rights expert Michael Ignatieff about this.

h/t Dr. Dawg

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Update : Suaad Hagi Mohamud - Vindicated by DNA test.

Will Lawrence Cannon, the Canadian consular services in Kenya, and Foreign Affairs Consular Services and Emergency Management Branch be held to account?

On two occasions, federal officials in Canada appeared to suggest Mohamud had switched identities with a sister. She has four half-sisters by the same father.

Yeah, the closest one to her age being 15 years older and living in Europe.

As with Arar and Abdelrazik, "rumours" are floated by "officials" in Canada to discredit the person abandoned by their government. It's appalling the government has to be taken to court to do its duty by Canadians. Utterly appalling.

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Aug 15 Update : Iggy speaks!

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Cannon and Van Loan tell Abdelrazik to piss off

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Abdelrazik wants the federal government to help him get his name removed from a United Nations terror watch list so he can lead a normal life again.

You know - get a job, go to a doctor, get on a plane, have a bank account, accept anything from anyone without risk of their being charged with being in violation of the UN's 1267 shunning regulations.

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Above are the responses to Abdelrazik's lawyers from Minister of Public Security Peter Van Loan and Minister of Foreign Affairs Lawrence Cannon telling them to piss off.

Click em to read em, courtesy of The Peoples Commission via the indefatigable Toe at BnR.

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Cannon adds further insult to injury by advising Abdelrazik to go ahead and try to get off the list himself although to date no one has ever been removed from that list without a supporting submission from their government.

Indeed the Chairman of the UN Security Council’s Al-Qaida and Taliban Sanctions Committee noted two weeks ago that although Abdelrazik went on the list in 2006 - some 3 years after Canada had him arrested in Sudan - the committee has not gotten around to an indepth assessment of his case yet.

The list of 513 people currently includes 38 people presumed dead.

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The late great Great Lakes

Bob alerts us to this CBC headline : Canada, U.S. will renegotiate Great Lakes water treaty

"Canada and the United States will renegotiate the Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said Saturday in Niagara Falls, Ont.
Clinton, who was joined by Foreign Minister Lawrence Cannon, crossed the border for celebrations marking 100 years of the Boundary Waters Treaty between the two countries.
"We have to update it to reflect new knowledge, new technologies and, unfortunately, new threats," Clinton said.
"The rivers, the lakes, the streams, the watersheds along our boundary do not belong to one nation, they belong to all of us," she said at celebrations overlooking the falls."

This sort of "all your water is belong to us" chat freaks us right out as we immediately imagine Canadian water being shipped south so that desert communities in the southern US can continue to hose down their driveways twice a day. And so it should.

But the US State Dept transcript, the DFAIT website, and tv news video have Clinton using the rather less alarming term "amend" rather than "renegotiate" to describe the new talks as needed to update bilateral action on "pollution, increased population and urbanization, land use practices, invasive species, new chemicals and the impacts of climate change."

Well it is the Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement after all and certainly attention to these issues is long overdue. Obama has earmarked $475 million for Great Lakes rejuvenation, which is $475 million more than we have.
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But we would have been a lot happier if Lawrence Cannon had not had to stop himself today from referring to Van Loan as the Minister of Homeland Security in a toadying speech that included the comment : "Our country’s prosperity and security are inseparable from those of the United States".

We also would have been happier if both his and Clinton's remarks on water quality did not segue mid-sentence into Canadian complaints about "Buy American" provisions - as if one were dependent on the other, as if "amending" the Great Lakes agreement was being offered up by Canada in exchange for a US rollback on "Buy American".
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WATERLIFE - the NFB interactive site for an amazing film by Kevin McMahon
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Dear Minister Lawrence Cannon :

I write in support of Abousfian Abdelrazik's constitutionally and internationally unchallengeable right to return to Canada.

I write also as a Canadian citizen whose conscience has been shocked by cascading revelations, in the courts and press of the U.S., the UK, and here at home, of the role played by Western governments, among them my own, in clear and extreme violations of international law, many of those violations rising to the level of war crimes.

Anyone with an internet account can discover in minutes that continuing American claims about Mr Abdelrazik rest on testimony from the Saudi Guantanamo detainee Abu Zubaydah, who was waterboarded 83 times in August 2002, whose torture before and since has been attested to by the ICRC and the FBI. The most credible FBI witnesses have also testified before the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee to their doubts about Abu Zubaydah's status with regard to al-Qaeda and about his mental capacity, even before he was tortured.

The UN Security Council's 1267 Committee have said that Mr Abdelrazik is free to fly home to Canada. We know that the only testimony against him is historically, tragically tainted.

I often wonder whether members of my own government or of the departments and agencies that act in the name of the sovereign citizens of Canada, all of us represented by our queen, and thus all of us more permanent than you, superior to you, have noticed the water rising about the ankles of American public servants, former and current, who seem to have grown up ignorant of the jurisprudence we inherited from Nuremberg 1945-46. Rationalizing war crimes itself becomes a crime, and I doubt that Canadians in time to come will judge anyone who committed such crimes in our name in kindly fashion.

Mr Abdelrazik has a paid airline reservation to return to Canada on 12 June, and an appointment with the Hon. Mr Justice Zinn on 7 July. I appeal to you to respect both Canadian and international law, and to end the bizarre melodrama of my government's inexplicably duplicitous dealings with another Canadian citizen.

Please just stand aside, and allow Mr Abdelrazik to fly home.

Yours sincerely,
Skdadl at POGGE
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A superb letter, isn't it?

Send yours to :

Lawrence Cannon
Telephone: (613) 992-5516.. Fax: (613) 992-6802
Email: CannoL@parl.gc.ca

because you can bet the Cons will mount some fetid embarrassing appeal of Justice Zinn's decision on the grounds that you don't give a shit what happens to other Canadian citizens.

First they came for some brown guy based on evidence obtained by waterboarding a schizophrenic half-wit 83 times, but I did not speak out because ...
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Federal Court orders Ottawa to bring Abdelrazik home

Federal Court Judge Russell Zinn found that Abdelrazik is "as much a victim of international terrorism as the innocent persons whose lives have been taken by recent barbaric acts of terrorists" and has ordered the government to facilitate Abdelrazik's return within 30 days.
He also found CSIS "complicit" in Abdelrazik's detention by Sudanese authorities six years ago.

Some quotes from Justice Zinn's decision in Federal Court June 4, 2009

ABOUSFIAN ABDELRAZIK v THE MINISTER OF FOREIGN AFFAIRS
and THE ATTORNEY GENERAL OF CANADA

"Mr. Abdelrazik lives in the Canadian Embassy in Khartoum, Sudan, his country of citizenship by birth, fearing possible detention and torture should he leave this sanctuary, all the while wanting but being unable to return to Canada, his country of citizenship by choice. He lives by himself with strangers while his immediate family, his young children, are in Montreal.
He is as much a victim of international terrorism as the innocent persons whose lives have been taken by recent barbaric acts of terrorists.

I find that Mr. Abdelrazik’s Charter right to enter Canada has been breached by the respondents.

I find that Mr. Abdelrazik is entitled to an appropriate remedy which, in the unique circumstances of his situation, requires that the Canadian government take immediate action so that Mr. Abdelrazik is returned to Canada.
Furthermore, as a consequence of the facts found establishing the breach and the unique circumstances of Mr. Abdelrazik’s circumstances, the remedy requires that this Court retain jurisdiction to ensure that Mr. Abdelrazik is returned to Canada.

One cannot prove that fairies and goblins do not exist any more than Mr. Abdelrazik or any other person can prove that they are not an Al-Qaida associate. It is a fundamental principle of Canadian and international justice that the accused does not have the burden of proving his innocence, the accuser has the burden of proving guilt. In light of these shortcomings, it is disingenuous of the respondents to submit, as they did, that if he is wrongly listed the remedy is for Mr. Abdelrazik to apply to the 1267 [U.N.]Committee for de-listing and not to engage this Court. The 1267 Committee regime is, as I observed at the hearing, a situation for a listed person not unlike that of Josef K. in Kafka’s The Trial, who awakens one morning and, for reasons never revealed to him or the reader, is arrested and prosecuted for an unspecified crime..

Then following a review of correspondence between officials in DFAIT and consular officials in Khartoum :

I find, on the balance of probabilities, on the record before the Court, that CSIS was complicit in the initial detention of Mr. Abdelrazik by the Sudanese.
This finding is based on the record before the Court on this application. The role of CSIS may subsequently be shown to be otherwise if and when full and complete information is provided by that service as to its role.

CSIS has already denied this and asked for a review by SIRC, Security Intelligence Review Committee, the CSIS oversight body with which it has an alarmingly cosy relationship.

Justice Zinn also had a few choice words for DFAIT, with regards to this July 2004 DFAIT email in response to Abdelrazik's wife raising the possibility of chartering a private plane to return her husband to Montreal. Ms. Gaudet-Fee of Foreign Affairs :

"So, should she get a private plane, there is very little we could do to stop him from entering Canada. He would need an EP [i.e. Emergency Passport] and I guess this could be refused but on what ground.
So, stay tuned."

Justice Zinn :

I find the comment of the official of Foreign Affairs very troubling.
In my view, it is reasonable to conclude from the July 30, 2004 musings of the foreign Affairs official that Canadian authorities did not want Mr. Abdelrazik to return to Canada and they were prepared to examine avenues that would prevent his return, such as the denial of an emergency passport. That conclusion is further supported by the extraordinary circumstances in which the Minister made the decision on April 3, 2009 to refuse the applicant an emergency passport.

At no time however in the last five years did DFAIT admit to Abdelrazik that they had no intention of allowing him to return to Canada; in fact they repeatedly assured him that they would grant him an emergency passport.

The flight scheduled for April 3, 2009

[130] In March 2009, Mr. Abdelrazik managed to obtain and pay for a flight from Khartoum to Montreal with a stop over in Abu Dhabi. He had been repeatedly assured for years that an emergency passport would be provided in that eventuality. Notwithstanding the numerous assurances given by Canada over a period of almost 5 years, and repeated as recently as December 23, 2008, on April 3, 2009 just two hours before the flight was to leave, the Minister of Foreign Affairs [Lawrence Cannon] refused to issue that emergency passport on the basis that he was of the opinion, pursuant to Section 10.1 of the Canadian Passport Order, "that such action is necessary for the national security of Canada or another country."

I find that the only reason that Mr. Abdelrazik is not in Canada now is because of the actions of the Minister on April 3, 2009. ... the Minister waited until the very last minute before the flight was to depart to deny the emergency passport.

Had it been necessary to determine whether the breach was done in bad faith, I would have had no hesitation making that finding on the basis of the record before me.

[156] I have found that Canada has engaged in a course of conduct and specific acts that constitute a breach of Mr. Abdelrazik’s right to enter Canada. Specifically, I find:
(i) That CSIS was complicit in the detention of Mr. Abdelrazik by the Sudanese authorities in 2003;
(ii) That by mid 2004 Canadian authorities had determined that they would not take any active steps to assist Mr. Abdelrazik to return to Canada and, in spite of its numerous assurances to the contrary, would consider refusing him an emergency passport if that was required in order to ensure that he could not return to Canada;
(iii) That there is no impediment from the UN Resolution to Mr. Abdelrazik being repatriated to Canada – no permission of a foreign government is required to transit through its airspace – and the respondents’ assertion to the contrary is a part of the conduct engaged in to ensure that Mr. Abdelrazik could not return to Canada; and
(iv) That Canada’s denial of an emergency passport on April 3, 2009, after all of the preconditions for the issuance of an emergency passport previously set by Canada had been met, is a breach of his Charter right to enter Canada

[160] Accordingly, at a minimum, the respondents are to be ordered to provide Mr. Abdelrazik with an emergency passport that will permit him to travel to and enter Canada. There is any number of ways available to him to return to Canada. He once secured an airline ticket and may be able to do so again. In the Court’s view that would cure the breach and be the least intrusive on the role of the executive. If such travel is possible, and if funds or sufficient funds to pay for an air ticket are not available to the applicant from his April 3, 2009 unused ticket, then the respondents are to provide the airfare or additional airfare required because, but for the breach, he would not have to incur this expense.

In fulfilment of this judicial process, the applicant [Abdelrazik] is ordered to appear before me at 2:00 o’clock in the afternoon on Tuesday, July 7, 2009, at the Federal Court ...

“Russel W. Zinn”
Judge

Thank you, Justice Zinn.
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UN : Canada free to bring Abdelrazik home

Foreign Minister Lawrence Cannon in the House of Commons on Monday :

"Mr. Abdelrazik is on the list established by the United Nations Security Council as an individual with ties to al-Qaeda. Therefore, he is subject to a travel ban and an asset freeze. Our government is taking its obligations seriously and that is why we are not going to issue him a travel document to return home."

G&M : Richard Barrett, co-ordinator of the UN's Al-Qaeda and Taliban Monitoring Team, which oversees the various United Nations resolutions establishing the blacklist on which Mr. Abdelrazik was placed at the request of Washington in 2006 :

"Canada is free to bring Abousfian Abdelrazik home and doesn't need to ask for permission"

Addressing the Justice Department's argument that "it is geographically impossible for [Mr. Abdelrazik] to travel from Sudan to Canada by air, land or sea without transiting through the sovereign territories (land, airspace or territorial waters) of numerous UN member states which are bound at international law to prevent such transit, " Mr. Barrett stated :

"The overflight states don't come into it and they haven't ever come into it."

Well there goes legal bullshit argument#1 of the Government of Canada vs Abdelrazik, being argued today in the Supreme Court of Canada.

This just leaves Justice Department bullshit legal argument #2 : that Abdelrazik is :

"close to Abu Zubaydah, a former lieutenant of Osama bin Laden, involved in al-Qaeda training and recruitment."

That would be Abu Zubaydah, the half-wit waterboarded 83 times to coerce a false confession linking Saddam Hussein to al-Qaeda in order to justify the invasion of Iraq.

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For those able to attend, the hearing today is at Supreme Court, West courtroom, 301 Wellington Street, Ottawa at 9:30am.

Wear a suit, bring pitchforks.

Harper's quest to turn Canada into an outpost of apology for the worst crimes of the Bush era shames us all.

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And thank you, Paul Koring at the G&M, for your ongoing excellent coverage of Abdelrazik's plight.

Update : Dr. Dawg attended Thursday and will update again when he returns from Friday's hearing.

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The continuing trials of Abdelrazik as Josef K

The Canadian government's latest new reason for barring Abdelrazik's passage home :

"In a federal-court filing, the government says its hands are tied and that neither Mr. Abdelrazik's Charter right as a citizen to enter Canada nor the UN's specific travel-ban exemption permitting those on its terrorist blacklist to return home requires it let him fly back to his family in Montreal.

It says the UN travel ban "prohibits other states" from allowing Mr. Abdelrazik or anyone else on what's called the 1267 list of al-Qaeda suspects "to enter into and travel through their territories which includes land, airspace and territorial waters."

However :

"Only two days before Foreign Minister Lawrence Cannon rescinded the government's written promise to issue Mr. Abdelrazik a travel document to fly home, another person on the 1267 blacklist flew from London to Nairobi after the British government received a routine exemption from the UN Security Council 1267 Committee.

Mr. Ciise's flight across Europe and Africa would have transited the airspace of as many as a dozen countries, depending on the weather and the routing. None of them was required to approve his travel plans.

The Harper government has never applied for a travel-ban exemption for Mr. Abdelrazik."

Four days ago CBC's The Current did a very good short history of Abdelrazik's plight, comparing his situation to that of Josef K in Kafka's The Trial. Listen to it here, starting at the two minute mark : Abdelrazik/Kafka Doc.

H/T POGGE
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Since when did Canada become bff with the Center for Strategic and International Studies?

They're the other "CSIS" - the Washington neocon thinktank most famous up here for a 2007 meeting in Calgary on their North American Future 2025 Project to implement the SPP, and more specifically this quote from project director Armand Peschard-Sverdrup :

"It's no secret that the U.S. is going to need water. ...
It's no secret that Canada is going to have an overabundance of water.
At the end of the day, there may have to be arrangements."

Two days ago Foreign Affairs Minister Lawrence Cannon gave a speech at the CSIS Washington headquarters on "enhanced co-operation" in "our shared Arctic interests", noting that "20% of the world's oil is estimated to be in the Arctic".
Last week Alberta Energy Minister Rob Renner was there to tout Alberta's tar sands :

"The world is looking for leadership on climate change and Alberta is taking that opportunity."

Heh. That's pretty funny, Rob.

From their website :

"The CSIS Canada Project is dedicated to the study of Canada and the Canada-United States relationship, and to analyzing the process of deepening North American integration that is transforming them both and establishing the new dynamics of a continental economy."

"bff "
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Afghan marital rape law being ... revised

CBC : "Foreign Affairs Minister Lawrence Cannon said he was informed Sunday by his counterpart in Afghanistan that a new family law, which critics say legalizes marital rape, has been halted and will be revised."

You can just imagine how that conversation went ...
~Look, what you people do behind closed doors is your business but we've got an occupation to run here and it's based on our soldiers dying so your grateful little girls can go to school. It's bad enough 75% of them get forced into marriage between 5 and 15 to old geezers to pay off family debts but you can't be passing laws saying it's ok to rape 'em as well ...
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Canada denies passport to Abdelrazik

April 3, 2009
Department of Justice Canada
DFAIT Legal Services Unit

Dear Mr. Hameed:

Re: Mr. Abousfian Abdelrazik request for an emergency passport

Pursuant to Section 10.1 of the Canadian Passport Order the Minister of Foreign Affairs has decided to refuse your client's request for an emergency passport.

Sincerely,
Donna Blois,
Council


Previous DFAIT corespondence on Abdelrazik :

July 13, 2005
Odette Gaudet-Fee, senior Foreign Affairs official in Ottawa,
To David Hutchings, head of the Canadian embassy in Khartoum:

"I wish I had a magic wand and make this case go away ... I find it unethical to hold him like this in limbo with no future, no hope and all because ...

Obviously I cannot address the issue of the no-fly list "

May 2005
Odette Gaudet-Fee :

"[Mr. Abdelrazik] has reached the end of his rope, he has no money, no future, very little freedom and no hope. Should this case break wide open in the media, we may have a lot to explaining to do."

April 2008
Sean Robertson, Director of Consular Case Management
Foreign Affairs :

"Since October of 2003, the government of Canada has provided a high level of consular assistance and support to Mr. Abdelrazik"

April 30, 2008
Transport Canada :

"Transport Canada and other senior Government of Canada officials should be mindful of the potential reaction of our U.S. counterparts to Abdelrazik's return to Canada as he is on the U.S. No-Fly List and the Department of Treasury's Specially Designated Nationals and blocked Persons."

March 2008

"Deepak Obhrai, the junior foreign affairs minister, met Mr. Abdelrazik at the embassy.
Mr. Abdelrazik said they quizzed him about why he came to Canada in the first place and asked about his views on Israel."

Very good summation of Abdelrazik's plight on yesterday's The Current
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Skdadl says if you send Abousfian Abdelrazik a message of support at projectflyhome@gmail.com , he'll definitely get it.

And while you're at it, send Foreign Affairs Minister Lawrence Cannon a fucking cluebat :
Telephone: (613) 992-5516 ... Fax: (613) 992-6802
EMail: CannoL@parl.gc.ca .
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Canada throws up yet another roadblock to Abdelrazik

"A Montreal man stranded in Sudan must get himself removed from a United Nations blacklist before he can return to Canada, Foreign Affairs Minister Lawrence Cannon said Friday."

Un-fucking-believable

Background :

• Canada has Abdelrazik detained - and tortured, he says - in Sudan in 2003.
• Sudan releases him but not before his passport expires and his name is added to the UN Security Council's list of terrorist suspects.
• Destitute, he moves into the weight room of the Canadian embassy in Sudan.
• His family in Montreal send money for a ticket but Canada refuses to issue a temporary passport.
• In December 2008 Ottawa says he could be given a temporary passport - after he books a flight home.
• He books one; they withdraw the offer.
• Ottawa then says he must first have a fully paid ticket but in February his lawyer says anyone contributing to it can be charged with aiding a possible terrorist.
• Nonetheless in March 170 Canadians including Stephen Lewis and a former solicitor general of Ontario buy him a ticket home.

And now this.

The RCMP has cleared him. CSIS has gone so far as to ask for an internal probe to clear itself of allegations made in secret Foreign Affairs department documents.


So what's the fucking hold-up? Apparently The Security of North America


Canada feared U.S. backlash over man trapped in Sudan

Senior Canadian intelligence officials warned against allowing Abousfian Abdelrazik, a Canadian citizen, to return home from Sudan because it could upset the Bush administration, classified documents reveal.

"Senior government of Canada officials should be mindful of the potential reaction of our U.S. counterparts to Abdelrazik's return to Canada as he is on the U.S. no-fly list," intelligence officials say in documents in the possession of The Globe and Mail.

"Continued co-operation between Canada and the U.S. in the matters of security is essential. We will need to continue to work closely on issues related to the Security of North America, including the case of Mr. Abdelrazik," the document says.

The Abdelrazik documents - prepared by senior intelligence and security officials in Transport Canada, the unit that creates and maintains Canada's own version of the terrorist "no-fly" list - make clear that it was the U.S. list that kept Mr. Abdelrazik from returning to Canada when he was released from prison three years ago. "

Un-fucking-believable.
This has nothing to do with the security of Canada, much less the Security of North America, unless - like this government - you count sacrificing a Canadian citizen and the sovereignty of Canada to be worth the price of keeping those trucks flowing back and forth across the border without any accompanying U.S. frowny faces.

Update : What Dawg said.

Chris wrote to his MP asking what assurances he has that as an international traveller the government will protect him. You can do the same.

To contact Foreign Affairs Minister Lawrence Cannon directly :

Telephone: (613) 992-5516 Fax: (613) 992-6802 EMail: CannoL@parl.gc.ca .

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Canada, Sudan, and the stench of hypocrisy

Two headlines on Canada and Sudan, just hours apart

Canada urges Sudan to cooperate with the International Criminal Court
after the bench issued an arrest warrant for President Omar al-Beshir for war crimes in Darfur.

Foreign Affairs Minister Lawrence Cannon :

"Canada strongly supports the work of the ICC, including its work in Sudan," he said, calling for "ongoing international scrutiny of Sudan's commitments to human rights."

Sure. Unless, of course, Canada is making use of Sudan's crappy human rights record to detain and torture a Canadian citizen, Abousfian Abdelrazik. Then we're not so keen on those "commitments to human rights".

CSIS asked Sudan to arrest Canadian, files reveal
Abdelrazik is 'first case of Canadian rendition,' MP says

"Canadian security operatives asked Sudan - a country with a notorious record of torture and abuse in its prisons - to arrest and detain Canadian citizen Abousfian Abdelrazik, according to heavily redacted Canadian documents, marked "secret."

The newly obtained documents provide the strongest evidence to date that Canadian Security Intelligence agents engaged in the Bush-era U.S. practice of getting other countries to imprison those it considered security risks aboard rather than charge them with any crime."

Abdelrazik fled to Canada in 1990 after being imprisoned in Sudan for his political beliefs following the coup by the same President Omar al-Beshir the ICC is after today. Abdelrazik was granted refugee status and in 1995 he became a Canadian citizen.
While he was visiting his ailing mother in Khartoum in 2003, Canada had him arrested and interrogated there. Despite his being declared innocent of terrorist ties and released from prison by Sudan, even despite Sudan's offer to fly him home to Canada, Canada refused to return or reissue his expired passport and his name subsequently went on the U.S. no-fly list.

On April 3, 2007, Foreign Affairs point man on the case, Sean Robertson, sent a cable to the Canadian embassy in Khartoum :

"Mission staff should not accompany Abdelrazik to his interview with the FBI."

A month later a Canadian embassy official in Khartoum told Ottawa that Mr. Abdelrazik had been told by the FBI that he would never see Canada again unless he implicated others as al-Qaeda operatives.

I do believe we've been here before.

Let Foreign Affairs Minister Lawrence Cannon know you're watching - Cannon.L@parl.gc.ca. -and support Abdelrazik's return to Canada on Facebook.
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Previous Creekside posts on Abdelrazik. . . Dr. Dawg's superior coverage.
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