We have two thick files on Omar Khadr, covering just the last five and a half years. The issue as we see it has nothing to do with liking or not liking who Omar Khadr was or is, or what he did or didn’t do.

It has to do with a Canadian citizen, a minor, railroaded through an American kangaroo court in support of the discredited agenda of a foreign power with the aid of his own country. It has to do with knowing that no civilian court in the United States or Canada would have permitted any charges against Omar Khadr to stand. It has to do with a Canadian government and a Canadian prime minister complicit in the torture, abuse and mistreatment of a child soldier for political purposes. It has to do with the shame that the likes of Stephen Harper, Vic Toews, Steven Blaney, Peter MacKay, et al, have brought upon us and our country. It has to do with how they’ve demeaned the value of citizenship in it.

It’s very possible Canada will one day have to write a large cheque to satisfy a judgment in Omar’s favour. Should that happen, we’d like to see Stephen Harper brought back from exile in Texas, made to get down on all fours, that cheque clenched in his teeth, have to crawl up to Khadr, present the money to him, and kiss him on the butt.

Those two files contain a number of letters to our politicians. The latest, published below, is in response to the Globe and Mail’s May 9th “PM has no apologies for Omar Khadr.”

May 12, 2015

The Right Honourable Stephen Harper,
Prime Minister of Canada,
Office of the Prime Minister,
80 Wellington Street,
Ottawa, ON K1A 0A2

Re: Omar Khadr

Prime Minister:

Omar Khadr should never have been charged with any crime. You know that.

Omar Khadr’s U.S. appeal of his military tribunal conviction will succeed. You know that, too.

You are complicit in the torture, abuse and mistreatment of a child soldier. What do you think that makes you?

You got nothin’ but medieval Machiavellian motives for ragging on Khadr, selling your soul for a few bigoted votes.

How could you do that to yourself? How could you do that to your country?

Charles H. Klassen

In spite of protests to the contrary, our federal government has been using the Canada Revenue Agency to disrupt the activities of charities it considers “radical”, or in other words, organizations that do not agree with Stephen Harper’s world vision. Environmentalists, free-speech groups, and progressives are under scrutiny.

Elizabeth Renzetti’s op-ed in the April 20th Globe and Mail, “Silence of the charities”, is worth reading, with its insight into the work charities have done in the past to bring about positive changes in government policy and public thinking. One of her sources for this column pointed out that, “In the past, governments worked with charities to improve societies. It’s a problem when that stops happening.”

A few days before, on April 16, the Toronto Star ran Michelle Shephard’s “Ottawa seeking new prison watchdog”. Howard Sapers is the current Correctional Investigator for Canada. He’s been an ongoing critic of the government’s prison policies, including its treatment of aboriginals and the mentally ill.

Mr. Sapers has been fearless in pursuit of positive outcomes for offenders returning to the community, but in doing so keeps running afoul of the government’s medievalist mindset.

In this kind of company, I beg Mr. Harper to add
turnoverarocktoday to his “enemies” list.

100 MILLION CHINESE CAN’T BE WRONG!
About two weeks before the last federal election, a friend called, passionately angry. “I want to know who these people are who are voting for Stephen Harper? Who are they?”

I told him 100 million Chinese can’t be wrong.

There are millions of people in China, and probably many hundreds of millions, educated adult men and women, who believe they live in a democracy and their government is doing just fine.

Now, if there are 100 million Chinese who believe that, then finding a very few million Canadians who would vote for Stephen Harper’s Conservatives is not a stretch.

Remember Brigette DePape? She was the University of Ottawa graduate and Senate page who walked into the chamber during Governor-General David Johnston’s reading of the speech from the throne on Friday, June 3, 2011, in uniform, and holding a handmade red stop sign with the message “Stop Harper!”. She stood in the middle of the Senate chamber holding the sign in front of her for a few seconds before the sergeant-at-arms escorted her out of the room.

A few days later on June 9, the Toronto Star published an op-ed piece she wrote explaining her action. “As a page, I witnessed one irresponsible bill after another pass through the Senate.” And, this was in 2011! She started a fund to support peaceful direct action and civil disobedience against the Harper agenda. Brigette’s site, http://www.stopharperfund.ca will still take a reader to a plethora of anti-Harper results.

Turnoverarocktoday wrote to her family in Winnipeg a few days later on June 10 to congratulate her parents for their daughter’s idealism and courage.

So, what has changed?

Stephen Harper and his party’s blatant disregard for the best interests of every citizen in favour of policies marked by partisan politics, founded on medieval sensibilities appealing to sophists, a servile minority, and the mean-spirited is supported by a marginally and unfortunately justifiable belief that enough voters can be persuaded that  the emperor really is resplendent in new robes to tip the electoral scale in a preference for the status quo.

For all of us whose heads are not stuck in the sand, or lodged in a dark crevice at the rear of our body, it’s important to appreciate that a public servant is not above severe criticism, no matter how lofty the position. Canada may be ripe for both an Arab Spring and an Edward Snowden, but we have neither the equatorial climate conducive to the former, nor the world standing to attract the latter.

Let us therefore throw those little jabs which become increasingly uncomfortable with repetition, bruise before long, and wound in the end. Begin today!

If you don’t know what’s going on, you have a perfect excuse to do nothing.
The Toronto Star, Letter to the Editor, September, 2013