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Can you name the other Canadians who have been deported and tortured? Have you been following how their cases are going? Any estimate on how much reparations Canada should pay them?
Maybe there is a case on point?
Having said that, I don't feel bad about him getting 10 Mil as it sends out a message.
[ 26 January 2007: Message edited by: Peech ]
Then, he bragged about how he supports Stockwell Day in "going to bat" for Arar in his fight to get off the watch list.
Harper's patriotic pro-Canadian credentials are now established. He can continue suckholing to the U.S. on every other issue.
What a scam.
Well what is the precedent for payments out to persons betrayed by their government to a foreign power, tortured, and libelled by civil servants of the highest rank?
Legally speaking, I think each of the above charges could be entered in as different claims, so the issue is not merely one of reperatations for psychological damages, or physical harm. Not so simple really.
[ 26 January 2007: Message edited by: Cueball ]
[img]biggrin.gif" border="0[/img] [img]biggrin.gif" border="0[/img] [img]biggrin.gif" border="0[/img] LOVE IT !!!
Corporate CEO's forced to resign because of impropriety get bigger severance packages than that.
$10 million is nuisance money to the federal government. They spent $16 million on the O'Connor Commission alone; it changed practically nothing except to force the resignation of the RCMP Commissioner, who stands to get millions in pension money himself.
David Milgaard got the equivalent of over $12 million in today's money for spending 21 years in penitentiary. I'd take that over ten months of torture in Syria.
If I were on the jury hearing his lawsuit, I would have awarded Arar $10 million in punitive damages alone. Altogether I would have given him $30 million.
The PM does the right thing by any standard and all you can do is complain.
Partisan politics. Just gotta love it.
Last I heard he hadn't been able to find work so he enrolled in a PhD program in computer science.
Again, I am not unhappy with the settlement because it (hopefully) sends out a message.
[ 26 January 2007: Message edited by: Peech ]
That's true and it was under the Liberals that this fiasco was initiated (as I recall.)
That's the reality Heywood. It is partisan politics and Steven Harper is a master at it.
One of his overall areas of vulnerability with the electorate is his coziness with the Bush Whitehouse, and being too close to the Republican agenda. This gives him an important fig leaf in an area that isn't really going to cost him. He's not going to turn around on Afghanistan, he was shown as weak in the softwood lumber, he's impotent with regards to the border issues, but on this, for a paltry 10 million bucks, he can bluster around on his high horse showing everyone how he stands up to the Americans.
The Americans aren't going to do a thing beyond the occassional comment from Wilkins, and those responsible for what happened to Arar will go unknown an unpunished
Just you, or the whole jury?
Best of all, what liberal or NDPer will oppose Harper on this? I'll bet you'll even find some babblers saying Harper did the right thing! Call me clairvoyant.
Ok, now call me a cab. Or better yet:
http://www.rabble.ca/babble/ultimatebb.php?ubb=get_topic&f=1&t=006241
Absolutely I was serious. I maintain exactly the same position.
The culprits must be found, charged, and punished.
Canada must assume full responsibility for what it did to Arar - not Harper's mealy-mouthed non-apology which does not acknowledge that anyone actually committed any wrongdoing.
Whether Arar has the "privilege" of visiting the U.S. is of no concern to me and no business of Canada's - except in so far as companies doing business in Canada discriminate against Arar based on U.S. proto-fascist (I like Spector's term) legislation, then we enforce our laws in our country.
And of course Arar must be made whole and given reparations - where precisely did you see me suggest otherwise? I told you the $10 million deal was fishy and I asked questions about when and whether justice would be done - read my opening post above. I still haven't heard answers to these questions:
So what "doesn't really jibe"? All that has changed is that Harper has handed over millions of dollars of our money without actually taking responsibility for anything, or admitting that anyone was responsible. Or - did you hear or see him take responsibility for something? I must have missed it.
He did not take responsibility for anything, he actually blammed the Liberal government and then said he was more than happy to fix it though.
Harper also, in the clip shown said NOTHING about Wilkins or the USA. If he had of, I am sure it would've have been shown, unless they are dividing the news up on it, will have that portion on the evening news.
Which is why we deserve it so much.
http://www.pm.gc.ca/eng/media.asp?category=1&id=1509
[ 26 January 2007: Message edited by: Cueball ]
Is there just some kind of instinctive need to allow for preverication on point?
[ 26 January 2007: Message edited by: Cueball ]
Sometimes the concept of a collective just society emerges from the muck To recognize those fleeting moments, one must ignore the vulgarity of perpetual bandwagon politicians like Harper and see the triumph of an individual who was tortured as a result of the participation by Canadian taxpayer funded authorities.
CNN story
eta
Yep. The AP writer paraphrased Harper.
[ 26 January 2007: Message edited by: HeywoodFloyd ]
"It's a question that touches all Canadians," Arar said. "Can we really trust the Americans to be our partners in the fight against terrorism?"
Do you think they do that on purpose, or not, because when I see him he looks pretty well white.