Open Letter to Mr. Harper, members of the government, and the leaders of the opposition.

The significance of Omar Khadr.

The rights and freedoms guaranteed Canadian citizens by the Canadian Charter are for "all" Canadians; at least that was the intention of those who framed the Charter.

The guarantee of rights safeguards both, the citizens and the democracy under which they live. It is easy to guarantee those rights to those with whom we agree, those whose religious or political views we share. When we fail to grant those rights or uphold them concerning those with whom we disagree, we effectively undermine one of the most important premises of our democracy, namely that all human beings are of equal value in the eyes of the creator, so to speak. By failing to guarantee those right to those with whom we disagree we demonstrate that we believe their lives and safety are not as valuable as our own.

Omar Khadr has been deprived of the basic human rights, guaranteed all Canadians under the Charter. By refusing to bring him home to the country of his birth we have allowed the American government to override those rights. We have effectively been complicit in denying him the basic rights of habeas corpus.

The purpose of the writ of habeas corpus was to prevent the king and representatives of government from imprisoning people they disagreed with, without first being charged and brought to trial. The United States Bill of Rights states that the federal government cannot deprive a person of life, liberty, or property without due process, which is essentially the principle of habeas corpus.

It has always been a source of amazement to me that we believe that by changing words, by re-defining them, it somehow means we are no longer subject to the law, the spirit of which, words however inadequate, seek to describe. For example; "enemy combatants," "military tribunals" and so on.

I cannot imagine Lester Pearson or Pierre Trudeau remaining silent on issues as important as this. What have we heard from Mr. Harper on this matter? Nothing! And what of the opposition parties? Apart from sporadic comments there has been no sustained and concerted effort to bring this issue before the Canadian public and explain the profound importance it has for us.

What happens when the Canadian government either through its action or inaction compromises its own Charter and offers silent support to another nation, which violates not only habeas corpus but also the Geneva conventions concerning war, the treatment of prisoners, the use of torture and violates the United Nations conventions concerning child soldiers?

Christ is reported to have said, "in as much as you do this to the least of these my brethren you do it to me." As I see it, when we fail to guarantee the various rights and freedoms to the weakest of our citizens we undermine those rights and freedoms for all of us.

For those outside our borders who witness these events the implications are startlingly clear. Our actions speak much louder than our words and demonstrate that we do not hold all human beings in the same light.

In the context of our times, our behavior is dangerous to our fellow citizens, making us justifiable targets in the struggle by the poor and oppressed to survive.

The Chinese sage Lao Tzu made the following observation some twenty five hundred years ago, "When a country falls into chaos, patriots are born." To my mind there's not much difference between a patriot and a traitor, between a freedom fighter and what we now call a terrorist. Is it not a matter of perspective? We love to justify our behaviour or lack of it by re-defining words; we even use them, to our shame, to dehumanize others, so that we can justify killing them. A case in point. Rick Hillier's reference to the Taliban as "scumbags."

When human beings are deprived of the means of survival: food, a roof over one's head, sufficient safety to raise one's family, it creates a dangerous climate that inevitably leads to violence and conflict. Who among us will not do everything in his power to take care of his family and provide them with the wherewithal to survive, even to the point of using violence to obtain what is needed from those who have more than enough and are unwilling to share?

Why should this matter to us?

The fact that a small proportion of the worlds population controls the vast majority of the worlds wealth and resources and does so through force of arms, creates instability and violence Under such circumstances the poor and dispossessed will fight for their very survival as would we under similar circumstances

Again, Lao Tzu, observed; "when taxes are high, people go hungry. When governments interfere people lose their autonomy. When rulers demand too much, people are not afraid to die. Not being afraid to die they cannot be controlled." Lao Tzu went on to ask, "why do people care so little about death?"—Now that is a question worth pondering.—Lao Tzu answers it as follows. "When life becomes intolerable death is welcomed and he who has embraced his death lives without fear. A man like this makes a formidable enemy!"

We know these things to be true. The ongoing deadly toll from suicide bombers, is obvious. No one can, in the long run, win against this. Even the powerful Israeli military cannot defeat those who've nothing left to lose; those prepared to give their lives in the hope that one day their people will be able to live in relative peace, and take care of their families.

So from a purely selfish perspective we are faced with a paradox. If we allow greed to dominate our behaviour then we are courting destruction. Could it be that some day , perhaps not too far away, that our desire to live will depend on whether we've learned to be unselfish, learned to share what we have with those who have so little, those who in the grand scheme of things are truly our brothers and sisters.

This is why Omar Khadr matters to all of us.