In the days following 9/11, there was a mad, emotional rush on both sides of the US/Canadian border to pass what, in retrospect, seems to be draconian legislation to protect us from terrorists. The Canadian legislation was subsequently toned down after "sober second thought", but in the US the Patriot Act remains in force despite a lot of opposition, Gitmo continues to hold "illegal combatants" without charge or benefit of counsel, and a general tone of hysteria continues to be in evidence. It was in this atmosphere that, a year ago, Maher Arar, a man with dual Canadian and Syrian citizenship and travelling on a Canadian passport, was summarily arrested and deported to Syria from New York by American officials.
Fast forward to today, and while Arar has been returned to Canada, it seems his worries are far from over. While the government has been officially close mouthed about Canada's role in all this and has resisted calls for a public inquiry, anonymous government officials have leaked to the media that Arar supplied information to Syrians regarding terrorist activity. They may have just painted a target on the man's back. If Arar is guilty of something then law enforcement officials should be prepared to arrest and charge him. If they lack enough evidence for a charge, then it's inexcusable for some anonymous government spokesperson to offer hearsay evidence against Arar in the court of public opinion where his chance of getting a fair trial is nil, and his life may have been endangered.
Former NDP leader Alexa McDonough has written to Foreign Affairs demanding a public inquiry into the leak of information concerning Maher Arar's deportation case. This comes on the heels of a formal complaint lodged by the Commission for Public Complaints Against the RCMP into that law enforcement agency's role in the deportation.
I say we need a public inquiry into the whole mess. I'd like to know if a Canadian citizenship is really worthless the moment some anonymous officials on either side of the US border decide they have suspicions about you, or will our government actually stand up for us and our rights. While Bush and Ashcroft seem more determined than ever to make due process a distant memory in the US, I'd like to think our own country is better than that. And I think we need to know.
