A star member of Canada’s Al-Qaeda family is smarting from a rejection from the Canadian Passport Office. Khadr’s lawyer huffs: “In a democracy we don’t function that way”?? What way? We don’t do anything to protect ourselves?
From the Toronto Star, :
Abdurahman Khadr, a former Guantanamo Bay detainee who said he was an American spy, was denied a Canadian passport due to concerns about national security and the potential negative reaction from the public, court records show.
The documents include a report from the Canadian Passport Office urging Foreign Affairs Minister Bill Graham to refuse passports to Khadr and other family members, “in the interests of national security of Canada and the protection of Canadian troops in Afghanistan.”
Marked “secret,” the report is part of the federal justice department’s reply to a federal court motion by Khadr appealing the decision to deny him a passport. Large paragraphs are blacked out in the report due to security concerns.
In a section entitled “considerations” the Passport Office states:
“We believe the implications of providing passports to the high risk members of the Khadr family are significant in terms of `Canada-U.S. relations’ … it seems likely the Canadian public and the American government would be highly critical of full passport services being provided to this family.”
Graham used a rare power of intervention, known as a royal prerogative, to deny the 21-year-old Canadian citizen a passport. The Passport Office does not have the grounds to reject a claim for a passport on issues of national security.
In a telephone interview, Graham would not go into any details about the case.
Khadr’s lawyer, Clayton Ruby, said he would challenge the ruling as a breach of his client’s Charter rights. He questioned Graham’s authority to use the royal prerogative.
“I concede that the Queen can exercise the royal prerogative but she doesn’t know Mr. Khadr,” Ruby said yesterday, agreeing that Governor-General Adrienne Clarkson is able to employ the powers.
“This is the kind of thing the Soviet Union used to do in the bad old days … Graham ought to know better, in a democracy we don’t function that way.”