Sounds Just Fine

This current Conservative-led government has suffered more than its share of criticism from opposition parties and from interests within Canadian society who confuse rights and entitlements of citizenship with the hard place that Canadians who choose to commit egregious criminal offences abroad find themselves in. Nowhere is it written that any society cleave to its citizens' 'rights' in insisting that their psychopaths who murder while in another country, must be swept back to the comfort of a prison 'at home'.

This government has been criticized harshly because of its decision to respect the justice system of other democratic countries who have exercised their system of law in determining the guilt of foreign malefactors, who have done grave injury to their own citizens. This not only respects the law of other countries, but recognizes that people exercise free will to act as they do, and must pay the penalty associated with their decisions to harm others.

This is as true in the case of a mass murderer as it is in the instance of Omar Khadr, held as an enemy alien for his part in the Taliban-led insurgency against NATO military forces assembled in Afghanistan to deliver the country from Taliban and al-Qaeda rule. Mr. Khadr, now adult, deemed a 'child' when he was taken into custody after battle, reflects the pride that Iran, Hezbollah, Hamas and their ilk take in grooming 14-year-old children to jihad.

New legislation that the current government has proposed, in amendment of the International Transfer of Offenders Act, permits the minister of public safety to block the return to Canada of convicted offenders, recognized as a threat to the safety of the public. The minister will be able to bar return of any incarcerated Canadians recognized as likely to re-engage in criminal activities.

With particular emphasis on those psychopaths within society whose pathologies inflict danger on children. Inclusive of offenders convicted of sexual abuse. This amendment is in direct response to Federal Court Justice Michael Kellen rejecting the government's position that allowing a convicted child molester transfer to Canada to serve out prison terms here, might threaten the security of Canadians.

The emphasis now on determining how the ministers of the government may proceed in protecting the best interests of Canadians, is to broaden the allowable criteria by which a proposed transfer may be blocked. While critics of the government accuse the government of ignoring the needs of Canadians caught in foreign justice systems, the truth is, their own criminal actions put them there.

And most reasonable Canadians would line up alongside the government in agreeing that those of society's moral transgressors who have committed truly grave criminal offences, can sit in those foreign jails and wait out their penalties.