So Much For Protecting Canadians Abroad

Our Con$ervative Government has gone one step further in chiselling away at its job to protect and serve Canadians. This time, it's a blanket statement about intervening on behalf of Canadians sentenced to death abroad.

The short message from the Con$ boils down to this: don't get convicted of a crime abroad - they won't help you. Period.

The Tories have announced a change in Canada's foreign policy when it comes to Canadians on death row.

Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day has said his government will not plead for the life of Alberta-born Ronald Allen Smith, who faces lethal injection in Montana for the 1982 murder of two men.

The government also announced that it will not attempt to save other Canadians who were given the death penalty following a fair trial in democratic countries like the U.S.

Now, I'm not going to speak to the particulars of the Smith case - that's irrelevant here since the government has made declarations that are far more sweeping than the Smith case. They have essentially said that if you get into trouble with the law abroad, they aren't going to lift a finger to help you.

The words of "fair trial" and "democracy" have to be called into question when we look at the current environment in the United States. Since 9/11, we have seen a plethora of people detained without trial (Canadian Omar Khadr for one), deported to foreign countries for the purposes of interrogation that falls outside the bounds of lawful activity (for example Maher Arar, another Canadian) - on the assumption that a trial in the United States or other "recognized democracy" is going to automatically provide a "fair trial".

The US government's respect for due process and the law these days is questionable on good days. Every bill that passes Bush's desk seems to receive some kind of "signing statement" that basically says that the executive branch will ignore the law if it is convenient to do so. Other countries may be democratic on paper, but that doesn't mean that these countries engage in "the rule of law" in the same sense we understand it.

The Con$ have already made it clear that they don't give a fig about Canadians abroad in the first place, and the HarperCons are now signalling that they will quietly roll over for their American masters in the interests of peace in their 'marital bed'.