Further into the Dark Ages

Via Pogge, I see that, against all odds, the federal government is digging it's hole of shame and embarrassment even deeper on the Abdelrazik story.

Only two days after a man on the no fly list is flown home to Britain over the airspace of many countries without gaining permission, our Federal government, claims that "every country he might fly over on the way home from Khartoum needed to give explicit permission." Is there no lie too obvious or too ridiculous for this government? Have they no shame at all?

Given that they are willing to make a mockery of our Constitution - "It [the Government's court filing with respect to Mr. Abdelrazik] claims the right to return to Canada, enshrined in the Charter, applies only to citizens who present themselves at a border post." - I guess the answer is no.

Contact info for Foreign Affairs Minister Lawrence Cannon here

Canada's Back - In the Dark Ages

From the CBC:

* Canadian citizen travels to the Sudan in 2003.

* Is arrested and imprisoned on suspicion of terrorist ties but eventually released as no evidence of any guilt is found. Passport has expired by the time he is released from prison.

* Is cleared in writing by Canadian security agencies.

* Canadian government says it can not issue necessary travel documents for him to come home because he does not have an air ticket.

* Canadian citizens chip in to buy him a ticket.

* Canadian government now says it can not issue him travel documents until he gets himself off of the no-fly list - even though the No-fly list has a specific exemption allowing people on it to return home.

* Citizen is living on a cot in the Canadian embassy for almost a year, with no money and little prospect of getting himself of a no-fly list.

* Government refuses to answer questions about why it is refusing to allow Canadian citizen to return home, having made up a series of obviously fraudulent excuses, moving on to a new one after each arbitrary hurdle is cleared.

I don't remember them covering this part of our constitution in my civics classes.

Contact info for Foreign Affairs Minister Lawrence Cannon here

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And if you feel like making yourself depressed, read the comments on the CBC site as a steady stream of right wing folks argue that a Canadian citizen who has been convicted of nothing should be refused entry to the country and forced to live indefinitely in the Canadian embassy in Sudan, never returning to his home country.