The Parties and the Rights of New Canadians

This week Stephen Harper made a point of wooing so-called New Canadians - immigrants who have gained citizenship through naturalization. One aspect of the Conservative Party Platform, just released today, is devoted to policies to enhance the security of minority communities within Canada, including New Canadian communities.

That minority communities in Canada are gaining some attention is to be applauded. But immigrants to this country can justifiably ask how secure their rights as Canadian will be under a government formed by either the Liberals or the Conservatives. There have been some horrific cases in recent years involving Canadians with dual citizenship being abandoned to detention and abuse by foreign regimes, in violation of their fundamental human rights. Canadian governments were at times complicit in the abuse, and in other cases simply refused to assert the rights of the Canadian victims, and indeed the rights of Canada being violated through the abuse of its citizens.

We will return to examine thes ramifications of these cases in more detail, but for the moment let us just take a quick look at some examples of governmental failure to protect the rights of Canadians. The first case has to be Maher Arar, which developed during the last Liberal government. A Syrian Canadian who was detained by U.S. authorities while in transit in New York, and "renditioned" to Syria on the basis of, in part, false information provided to them by the RCMP suggesting that he had terrorist links.

Abuse of Detainees in Afghanistan and the Rule of Law

Photo - MCpl Brian Walsh/DND

As we mentioned in an earlier post, we believe that the rule of law ought to be an issue in this election. In particular, how each of the parties would likely conduct itself as a government from the perspective of the rule of law. To what extent would a government formed by any particular party respect and give effect to individual rights? To what degree would it comply with its obligations under domestic and international law? Moreover, combining aspects of the rule of law and related principles of democratic accountability, how would the government respond to allegations that government agencies had violated the law? How confident could the public be that such charges would be investigated in an objective and transparent manner, with full disclosure of information to the inquiry, and to the public?

Redacted Email on Treatment of Detainees

We plan to explore these questions, in part by looking at some of the incidents of the past few years. There is, for example, the allegations that Canadian Forces personnel were complicit in or at least had knowledge of the abuse and possible torture of suspected Afghan insurgents detained and turned over by the Canadian Forces, at the hands of agents of the Afghan government. There is considerable evidence that detainees captured and turned over by the CF were indeed tortured, though there remain questions regarding the extent to which the government knew or should have known that they would be tortured. These questions raise the possibility that Canada was in violation of the Geneva Conventions, to which it is a party, and possibly even guilty of war crimes and violations of the torture convention.

Law and Order vs. The Rule of Law

In a Globe & Mail op-ed piece today the argument is made that the Harper government is right in its quest for harsher sentencing guidelines and other tough-on-crime measures. In particular, the piece seems to suggest that the Conservative government is correct in reigning in recalcitrant and misguided courts, which are apparently in the habit of "erring on the side of criminals."

First, the author of the op-ed himself acknowledges that most experts in the field view as misguided the mandatory sentencing and other tough-on-crimes measures that are being advanced by the Conservatives. We agree.

Second, however, we would suggest that far more significant as an issue in this election is the question of the extent to which this government has exhibited a respect for the rule of law. Harsher criminal law measures may gain some popularity by pandering to the politics of fear, but government action that erodes and undermines the the rule of law is conduct that eats away at the very foundation of a democracy.

What do we mean exactly by the rule of law, and what actions has the government taken that could be argued to be inimical to the rule of law? We will be addressing those questions in a series of posts over the course of this campaign. So stay tuned! - CM.