Thank you for your editorial “Canadian is Canadian.”
It seems that many Canadians do not understand the reasons for the settlement of the government with Omar Khadr. You are quite correct, that settlement is only about what the Canadian government did or didn’t do to a Canadian citizen.
Whatever happened or didn’t happen in Afghanistan was immaterial to the decision to apologize and to pay compensation to Mr. Khadr. The settlement is limited to what the government did to him.
You have made that point eloquently in your editorial. Yet this is the very point that unfortunately does not seem to be understood by 71 per cent of Canadians.
Thank you for having the courage to go against popular opinion. That settlement makes clear that human rights are not subject to a majority opinion. We can all feel a little safer now.
As far as the amount of the settlement is concerned, our governments, both Liberal and Conservative, inflicted great damage on the individual and deprived him of his human rights. What’s that worth? I don’t know. But it should be fairly obvious that Canada got of cheaply.
Gerry Laarakker
Vernon
