On Apologies...

It was a frustrating day on Thursday for liberals who follow American and Canadian politics. While the US congress was busy passing its president's torture bill that now endangers every American, torture was very much the issue of the day in Canada as well.

It was extremely disturbing to hear so-called Public Safety minister Stockwell Day repeat over and over, when asked when this government will apologize to Maher Arar, the following statement from Justice O'Connor's report:

“A compensation agreement could involve anything from an apology to an offer of employment, or assistance in obtaining employment. That's the recommendation of Justice O'Connor,” Mr. Day said.

The crucial word in that response is 'from'.

You don't need to be a lawyer to see how this government is hiding behind that word by insisting that an apology would play a part in negotiating a compensation deal with Mr Arar. But what Mr Day (and the tory government lawyers who are advising him) seem incapable of understanding is that the Government of Canada can give an apology without it affecting negotiations. Here's the rub though. The Tories could actually use that wording by Justice O'Connor to in fact stop at giving Mr Arar an apology while then claiming it had fulfilled O'Connor's recommendation. Of course they'd be damn fools to do that, without also offering Mr Arar financial compensation, but governments are often run by fools and this government is in no hurry to clean up the mistakes made by the previous Liberal government in this affair, preferring instead to come up with so-called 'creative' solutions of their own. And, in this situation, anything's possible.

Both Stockwell Day and Jason Kenney during question period on Thursday expressed the opinion that they didn't really feel obligated to apologize to Mr Arar since what happened to him occured during the Liberals' reign. Therefore, they think it's up to the Liberals to apologize. The only problem with that stance is that it is hypocritical coming from a Conservative government which apologized in June for the Chinese Head Tax.

This is what Harper said at that time:

And even though the head tax – a product of a profoundly different time -- lies far in our past, we feel compelled to right this historic wrong for the simple reason that it is the decent thing to do, a characteristic to be found at the core of the Canadian soul.

There is no decency to be found in the soul of this Conservative government that refuses to apologize also to Mr Arar and his family. They were wronged. That has been proven beyond a shadow of a doubt.

On parliament hill as well today, RCMP Commissioner Zaccardelli finally broke his silence and did apologize. Andrew Coyne of the National Post, appearing on CBC's National News on Thursday evening, had this to say about that apology:

Mansbridge (host): Well, we get a full apology from Giuliano Zaccardelli - no resignation. In fact, as far as I can tell, no resignation or firing of any person at any level in any agency, department, elected office, as a result of the Maher Arar story. Is that right? Andrew.

Andrew Coyne: It is not right. Let's begin with Mr Zaccardelli. If there was any doubt, it seems to me that he should go and that was absolved by this performance today which was cunning, theatrical, disingenuis, utterly political. You give the headline-making apology but you don't actually answer any of the questions that surround this affair, particularly those surrounding what went on after Mr Arar's arrest. I mean, we know there were mistakes made in the handing over to the US authorities but what particularly bears scrutiny is what happened afterwards - why they didn't support the government when they were trying to get the Syrians to release him, why they sent questions to the Syrians that implied that they still thought he was guilty even when they knew - they pretty much had to know - that they had an innocent man on their hands, a Canadian citizen was rotting in a Syrian jail all they did was stonewall and cover up. Now we need much more answers than this and we need accountability, not apologies.

So, we have a Conservative government that refuses to apologize for various reasons and we have the head of the RCMP who should not only apologize but should either resign or be fired.

All in all, it was not a good day for Mr Arar or Canadian justice.

Postcript: For all of the blustering that US members of congress who supported the torture bill did on Thursday about the so-called protections of rights of detainees and kidnap victims like Maher Arar, no one in the United States has been, or likely ever will be, held responsible for his rendition. A lawsuit Mr Arar filed against Rumsfeld et al was dismissed in early 2006 with the judge citing 'national security' reasons. That decision is being appealed by Mr Arar's lawyers.