WhatFinger


Multi-million dollar payments to terrorists who kill American soldiers and an absence of border controls go to the very heart of what Canada is as a country

Whatever happened to ...Omar Khadr?



Remember Omar Khadr? The little Terror Tyke. A proud member of Canada's First Family of Terrorism, Khadr was in Afghanistan in 2002 working in the family business of jihad when he killed U.S. Army medic Christopher Speer and wounded Sgt Layne Morris, blinding him in one eye. The darling of the left ended up in Guantanamo Bay and pleaded guilty to terrorism charges before an American tribunal. Khadr sued the Canadian government demanding he be repatriated back to Canada. In 2010, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled Khadr's rights had been violated under the Charter because he was subjected to such things as sleep deprivation and Canadian officials who interviewed him in Guantanamo Bay were partly responsible for this breach. Although Canada's top court found his Charter rights were breached, the justices refused to force the government to repatriate him. Although Khadr was entitled to a remedy the top court was silent on what that remedy should be. After this decision, the Harper government did arrange for the little terrorist to be brought back to Canada.
Khadr also sued the government of Canada seeking $20 million in damages. In early July 2017, word leaked out that the government settled with Khadr and paid him $10.5 million. Later confirmed by the Liberals, Public Safety Minister Ralph Goodale and Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freedland apologized to the poor dear. (CBC, July 7, 2017) While he was entitled to a remedy that remedy could have consisted of the repatriation that was already done. The court did not specify he be awarded monetary damages. The Liberals out and out lied saying they had to make the payment because of the courts. If the government cared about Canadians they would not have given Khadr any money until a judge ruled they had to and that ruling was confirmed by the Supreme Court of Canada. CPC leader Andrew Scheer was outraged or at least feigned outrage when the payment was made. The Tory leader said he would hold the Liberals accountable and make them justify making the $10.5 million payout to a self-confessed terrorist. Scheer then went back to spending his summer attending barbeques. The time to strike was last summer, not at some yet-to-be- set opposition day after the House resumed sitting. Parliament began last Monday and there have been five sittings of the House. During the five Question Periods, there was not one question about the Khadr payment. Nor was there a single question raised in the House about the Liberals' apparent willingness to let thousands and thousands of illegal immigrants walk into Canada from the United States. (Hansard Canada)

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The bulk of the CPC attacks on the government made during Question Period had to do with Trudeau's proposed tax changes aimed at small businesses. The government plans to take away some advantages incorporated business owners currently have such as income sprinkling (paying money to family members not involved in the business) and increasing taxes on passive investments. This proposed legislation is consistent with Trudeau's view, expressed back in 2015, that rich people start small businesses just to cheat the government out of tax money (Toronto Sun, Sept. 20, 2017) The proposed new tax scheme will be devastating to a lot of small businesses and independent professionals such as doctors who have no power to set their fees. The proposals of course will not affect the type of corporations the wealthy Trudeau and his even wealthier Minister of Finance, Bill Morneau, have to shelter their monies from their beloved government. And these new tax proposals ignore the fact the self-employed do not get the same benefits as those who are employed do. If the business goes under they cannot collect unemployment insurance. Those who are self-employed do not get paid for sick days, paid vacation days, paid maternity and paternity leave and most importantly, pensions. They have to finance these things out of their own money and not all independent small businesses and professionals can be classified as "rich" as Trudeau thinks they are. It is an important issue to be raised by the official opposition. But not to the exclusion of other important issues issues such as the Khadr payout and the disappearance of Canada's southern border. There is a reason of course why Scheer is concentrating on the tax changes. He is an elitist. Unlike Omar Khadr these proposals can affect him and his caucus members personally. Not fighting the attack on Canada's small businesses will anger the business community that includes donors to the CPC and may hinder MPs looking for a good life after politics. It is an important issue but should not be fought to the exclusion of other issues such as Khadr and the porous border.

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Taxing and being taxed is Canada's national pastime and taxes can always be lowered in the future. But multi-million dollar payments to terrorists who kill American soldiers and an absence of border controls go to the very heart of what Canada is as a country. And the future is not promising. From a political point of view, concentrating on tax changes to the exclusion of the Khadr payment is not helpful. If Scheer really wants to form the next government in 2019 he has to win the support of soft Liberal voters. These soft voters, if they do not run small businesses, will not be affected by the changes and are just as likely to buy the Liberal claptrap that these changes are just about making the rich pay their "fair share." But a lot of these Liberal voters were upset their hard earned tax dollars were going into the pockets of a self-confessed Islamic terrorist. If Scheer really wants to be prime minister someday, he cannot afford to wait to attack the Liberal government about the Khadr payout. It has gone too long already and the longer he waits, the less ordinary Canadians will care about it.


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Arthur Weinreb -- Bio and Archives

Arthur Weinreb is an author, columnist and Associate Editor of Canada Free Press. Arthur’s latest book, Ford Nation: Why hundreds of thousands of Torontonians supported their conservative crack-smoking mayor is available at Amazon. Racism and the Death of Trayvon Martin is also available at Smashwords. His work has appeared on Newsmax.com,  Drudge Report, Foxnews.com.

Older articles (2007) by Arthur Weinreb


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