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Harper Consistently Embarrasses Canada Abroad
Israel and the U.S. have well-deserved reputations for standing up for their citizens abroad. Canada, under Stephen Harper, is gaining a reputation for failing its own.
Omar Khadr rots in Guantanamo.
Abousfian Abdelrazik, tortured in his native Sudan, had to be holed up in the Canadian embassy in Khartoum for a year before being allowed to return to Canada.
Bashir Makhtal – abducted from Kenya to his native Ethiopia and sentenced to life in prison for allegedly belonging to a separatist group – may or may not get Ottawa's help in fighting the verdict of a kangaroo court.
Huseyin Celil – a Uighur Canadian human-rights activist serving a life sentence in China after being convicted, in secret, on charges of terrorism – has been forgotten by Ottawa. Its waning interest has run in tandem with its increasing enthusiasm for business with China.
Perhaps the Harper Tories don't want anything to do with anyone tarred with the terrorism brush, rightly or wrongly.
But now comes the case of Suaad Hagi Mohamud. The Toronto woman was left dangling in Nairobi after an airport official thought her lips did not match the picture on her passport. Rather than helping her, the Canadian embassy became a party to tormenting her. It has taken 11 weeks and a DNA test to prove her identity.
Her case wouldn't even have come to light had it not been for Star reporter John Goddard, who has kept at it, day after day.
Gar Pardy, former head of the consular services section of foreign affairs in Ottawa, and others see a pattern of discrimination.
They draw comparisons with Brenda Martin, jailed in Mexico but rescued by a minister's intervention and flown back on a government plane. She is white, others not. The others are also Muslim.
Star columnist Christopher Hume yesterday accused the Harperites of racism based on colour. "This smacks not just of prejudice but of apartheid."
Former MP Omar Alghabra, who was Liberal citizenship critic, says the "elephant in the room" may be the Tory belief that some Canadians are not "real" citizens and, thus, unworthy of consular help.
Dan McTeague, former Liberal minister responsible for Canadians abroad, says Harper shows no interest in Canadians in trouble overseas unless he is embarrassed into action by the media or the courts. Given that 9 per cent of Canadians are abroad at any given time, we need a parliamentary debate on the issue.
Dirty laundry
Protocol has it that when travelling abroad, the leader of a country refrain from washing dirty domestic laundry in front of foreigners or playing partisan politics.
Not Harper. Either he cannot help himself or he does mean to fully use the international stage to beam loud messages back home.
Sept. 2007: He's in Australia, from whence he berates Chief Electoral Officer Marc Mayrand.
The latter had said he couldn't deny women in niqabs the right to vote because the law did not let him. The Prime Minister accused Mayrand of subverting the will of Parliament, when, in fact, Mayrand was upholding it.
But Harper, riding a wave of bigotry in Quebec in time for three federal by-elections, wouldn't let facts or protocols get in his way.
Last month: At the G-8 summit in Italy, he blasts Michael Ignatieff for saying Canada was losing clout globally. In turned out that the latter hadn't said so and Harper apologized, rightly. But he wouldn't have magnified his problem had he refrained, in the first place, from domestic mudslinging abroad.
This week: Grilled in Guadalajara about his decision to impose visas on visitors from Mexico, Harper blames our refugee system.
That is seen by Tories as a Liberal legacy, when, in fact, it was Brian Mulroney who set up the independent Immigration and Refugee Board and the rules governing it.
Harper wants to tighten the rules. What better way to set up the coming changes than to use the megaphone of a foreign summit to badmouth the system back home?
20 Comments so far
Show All"... the U.S. have well-deserved reputations for standing up for their citizens abroad."
Tell that to Rachel Corrie.
And Tristan Anderson.
Except when the country is Israel.
Let alone John Walker Lindh.
There is no shortage of spineless witless Canadians and Harper is their leader, like Lyin' Brian Mulroney the previous Consevative PM, Harper is a corporate tool and a stooge for big money.
I did not vote for the prick.
Yes the entity known as "Israel" stands up for it's members but it is absolutely murderous to others. With the USA you never know, the government in Washington often colludes in the mistreatment of it's own people abroad. Is it "al quaida" or the CIA?
Harper consistently embarrasses Canadians at home as well.
Sophie Scholl-The Final Days
Harper's Government is a disgrace here and abroad...he is a clone of the Bush genome! I am ashamed to be associated by nationality to Harper. He is just another fascist crony of the corporate elite!! We Canadians must wake up, as the Us citizens must wake up, and vote him out of office in the next election!
All I can say to our fine neighbors to the north is, try having George W. Bush as your spokesman abroad for 8 years. That was seriously embarrassing.
Yeah well that stooge Harper is the next best thing isn't he?
Steven Harper is a right-wing evangelical "Christian" theo-con nut case, but just one refection of Canada's ever-increasing adoption of USA Incorporated's values, culture and general "globalization" influences.
Canadians can be grateful that, so far, he and his party have been held to minority government status. Even so, they have managed to embarrass the country frequently, especially in the foreign affairs arena where Harper has reversed decades of Canadian foreign policy with his adamant support for Israel, even after its jets smashed a clearly marked United Nations observation post, killing a veteran Canadian peacekeeper. One hopes that Canadians will wise up soon and rid themselves of this national embarrassment.
It's by no means certain, however, that the Liberal Party and its chosen leader, Michael Ignatieff, will prove to be a major improvement. Ignatieff has also strongly supported the Middle East agenda of the U.S./Zionist coalition as well as Canada's role in NATO and its Afghanistan adventure. Some of his recent pronouncements, however, have become slightly more even-handed in recognition of Canadian multicultural sentiment.
Canadians may soon be faced with one of those "lesser evil" choices with which Amercians have become so familiar. Luckily, they at least have the luxury of other options in a fairly well established multi-party system of parliamentary democracy and day-to-day leadership accountability.
Several other Canadian citizens, visiting relatives in Southern Lebanon, were also killed by the Israeli air force. Harper shrugged his shoulders and praised Israel for its "measured response".
oh yes - but those weren't white canadians - "true citizens" - of the sort that would ever vote for the conservative party. they were lebanese who happened to have with canadian passports, thats all...
besides, harper and ignatieff are both so firmly aligned with the israeli/american/nato axis of evil its not even funny.
The thirty percent of voters with the lowest intelligence will vote for Harper again.
"Harper's Government is a disgrace here and abroad...he is a clone of the Bush genome!"...my thoughts exactly. I didn't vote for him.
Elizabeth May & The Green Party are needed to lead Canada into the 21st Century. She won all the pre-election debates last fall. Elizabeth May represents the party that no one wanted to invite to participate in the debates. She WON the debates. All of them. In English & French. Even the press agreed.
It has taken me over 40 years to find a candidate that I am honored to support.
http://greenparty.ca/
"Harper's Government is a disgrace here and abroad...he is a clone of the Bush genome!"...my thoughts exactly. I didn't vote for him.
Elizabeth May & The Green Party are needed to lead Canada into the 21st Century. She won all the pre-election debates last fall. Elizabeth May represents the party that no one wanted to invite to participate in the debates. She WON the debates. All of them. In English & French. Even the press agreed.
It has taken me over 40 years to find a candidate that I am honored to support.
http://greenparty.ca/
Whoever elected this troglodyte (Harper) it sure wasn't me. It's getting a little scary, though, because I'm not so sure that he and Ignatieff aren't simply twins who were separated at birth. I'm also concerned that everyone is being blinded by the idea of GREEN and GREENESS as in Green Pary and Elizabeth May. Sorry, but I want to know exactly what those GREEN policies are and I make no assumptions that your definition of green and my definition of green are the same. That leaves Jack Layton, who has a LOT more to offer than the other three IMHO -- but Canada has to get over its own fears of 'socialism' first.
All of the Green Party policies are available on the web site indicated in my earlier post.
Ignatieff is no better and there's no one else on the horizon who could win even a minority. I don't know my country anymore. We're screwed.
"I know not with what weapons World War 3 will be fought, but World War 4 will be fought with sticks and stones." - Albert Einstein
Maybe the Bloc Quebequois could be persuaded to expand its horizons and work on separating the entire country from the empire. Do you think they could be convinced that the American imperialists are actually the English in disquise?
Harper is an idiot, a disgrace and an embarrasment to Canada. Even worse, he and his Conservative party minions (read well off white males - Canada's Republican party) are out & out racists. If this woman was from Forest Hill, what is left of our Armed Forces would have flown over to Kenya in a leased Russian jet to get her out-pronto!
Harper obviously believes there are "different" citizens of Canada, those the Conservative party can identify with and those they cannot...guess who gets help?
Heads need to roll at the consulate in Nairobi. They've been corrupted by the locals. The poor woman didn't know standard procedure is for exiting Somalis to bribe the Kenyan airport police. The fact that the Canadian foreign service backs up trumped up charges is outrageous. The comments of Lawrence Cannon, the Minister for Foreign Affairs, were equally outrageous and reflect racist Canadian government.
The sooner Harper goes the better.