Racism and Maher Arar

This week, the Honourable Mr. Justice Dennis O'Connor, formerly of the Ontario Court of Appeal, released his final report of inquiry into the detention and torture of Mr. Maher Arar, a Syrian-born Canadian engineer. In 2002, Mr. Arar was travelling back to Canada from a vacation in Tunisia. In New York City, he was apprehended by the American government and "renditioned" by private aircraft to Syria on the grounds that he was a suspected terrorist or terrorist sympathizer. In Syria, he was imprisoned and tortured before the Canadian government pursuaded his captors to release him.

Mr. Justice O'Connor's investigation was about Canada's role in this tragedy. He concluded that the Royal Canadian Mounted Police had been negligent in adding Mr. Arar's name to a list of persons with terrorist links. This information, once provided to the United States' government, provided the pretext for the rendition. It seems that the RCMP had no evidence whatsoever to link Mr. Arar with terrorism. To compound the error, the RCMP later attempted damage control by providing background information to news agencies in Canada which claimed that Mr. Arar did have terrorist links. Again, there was no evidence to support these allegations.

To his credit, RCMP Commissioner Giuliano Zaccardelli issued a wholesale apology to Mr. Arar. When he later realized that he had provided incorrect information to a House of Commons committee investigating the matter, Zaccardelli corrected his evidence and resigned.

Much to my dismay, when all of this was reported in our national newspaper, the Globe and Mail, many of the comments submitted by readers in response were rather singular in their lack of sympathy for Mr. Arar. Some complained that he was pursuing restitution at the taxpayers' expense. Some expressed suspicions that he must have been guilty of something. Some claimed that the police ought to be forgiven for making mistakes such as this.

Now, there are many people for whom the spending of tax money for any purpose whatsoever is execrable. Generally, these people are comfortable with their own finances but wish that they could keep more of their earnings at the expense of the less fortunate. This rather uncharitable approach to public policy governs many of the ambitions of the Conservative Party, and has been a blight upon public debate in Canada for too long. As I have said before, if you like living in a great country, you must expect to pay for the privilege.

Leaving aside the fact that Mr. Justice O'Connor said that there was no evidence that Mr. Arar had any connections to terrorists, one supposes that the commentators who claim that Mr. Arar must have done someting wrong have inside information which they have failed to share with the RCMP or the Inquiry. If they do not, then their position is truly baffling.

Given that the police and military are the only elements of our society which are both armed and authorized to use deadly force, I suppose that some constraints should be placed upon them. I don't know about you, but I would feel a lot better about things if the police did not make too many mistakes like this. I believe Commissioner Zaccardelli feels the same way. He certainly says that he does.

An undercurrent of all these comments was that Mr. Arar did not deserve the same treatment that a Canadian-born person would deserve. Presumably, the fact that Mr. Arar was born in Syria led many of the commentators to suppose that he is not a genuine, loyal Canadian. Of course, if he had been born in Glasgow, it is rather unlikely that he would have been judged by the same standard.