Canadian faith
My fellow blogger Norman Spector is one smart cookie. In his last couple of blog posts he has sounded a clarion of caution regarding the Supreme Court's disposition in the matter of Omar Khadr. In sum Spector's point is this: The courts can moralize all they like about the violation of young Omar's rights but repatriating him to face "Canadian justice" is a whole other matter, one that falls properly under the jurisdiction of our political institutions:
"The only authority on our side that is competent to assess their true position and the impact our actions would have on Canada-U.S. relations is the government, advised by DFAIT and perhaps by some experienced hands like Alan Gottlieb and Derek Burney.
And, whatever the Harper government decides to do in the wake of the Supreme Court decision, one of the last places you'd look for this kind of expertise, on which hundreds of thousands of jobs filled by ordinary Canadians depend, are among the ranks of the nine justices who sit on that Court."
Okay, okay we get it. If you're going to play in the NFL you'd better wear a helmet. That said, I noted an article this morning in the Financial Times by a former editor at the Globe Chrystia Freeland. In it she takes a stab at explaining how it is the Canadian banking system avoided to financial tsunami that hit the rest of the banking world:
"The Canadian system is based on principles; it is about the spirit, not the letter of the law."
If and when we approach the Americans and ask that they hand Khadr over to us we ought to do so in a manner that reflects the principles that compel us to do so. When we listen to the better angels of our nature that is precisely how and why Canada has maintained its eccentric sovereignty strung out on a thin line beside the world's most powerful predatory economic and military power. In short, act as if ye had faith and faith shall be granted to you.