Given the circumstances of this case, it makes one wonder: what does it take in order to become a threat to national security to the Canadian Government? We have people in jails overseas, tried by foreign courts, in Third World countries or in backward states in the U.S, there are those who protest their innocence, there are those who, like Sacha, protest their role in criminal responsiblity, in capacity, and the extremity of the sentence.
There are those of us who are adventurous when we travel, willing to embrace the people we meet. There are those who are trusting, there are those who carry special vulnerabilities to travel and the disorientation that can come with it. We had sympathy for the man from Poland who was tazered and died at the hands of our police. Things can happen to people mentally, emotionally and by circumstance, while abroad, and whether they have a mental illness or not, that can put them in jail and in a bad light. That sentence, the evidence, and the portrayal of the person in question will be dictated by the foreign court and polity. Crazy things happen when travelling outside one's nation, this much has been well-documented in travel writing, movies, literature, evidence.
So, add to your risks of travel, the regrettable misuse of transfer laws by the Canadian government - if you're lucky you may be their darling, if not - you're exiled to the foreign jail at the mercy of a foreign prison system. This is what has changed since the Conservative government took office. Don't even expect Amnesty International to intervene, this is a domestic reponsibility and treaties are diplomatic - not under international human rights law. Diplomacy has always been our tool to protect our ctiizens without violating foreign sovereignty.
There is a slim chance of these things happening, but the risks of what can happen to you have just doubled. Find yourself in the wrong crowd, you may be falsely accused, your young adventurous 20 yr old may have been a little reckless while abroad - don't even think of taking any kind of risk when you travel, just stay in your hotel room and bus tour. We've heard of kids locked up in Thai jails with decades-long sentences with Thailand's harsh drug laws. I've had a friend, also bipolar, land in a Thai jail and then a Thai mental hospital, getting sick after doing perfectly for a year teaching English in Korea. Most of the time our government has vigorously pushed for the return of our citizens, sometimes we haven't had the choice, unable to bring them home because the foreign government wouldn't cooperate.
Those kinds of risks have always existed, but at least we could have the security of knowing that our government would be on our side, and we would only have to worry about the foreign one. That has changed. That is a sad day for Canadian freedom to travel, especially for those who carry vulnerabilities. Despite all the precautions we might take, and how well we take care of ourselves and succeed in life, that worry that international travel may disrupt our system, that we may have an 'episode' overseas is always there. We count on luck, the compassion of others, and especially the compassion of our own government to create a floor in facing our worst fears of what could happen. It could happen to anyone travelling abroad, without the protections of our standards of due process, at the hands of police and judges of a foreign country. This is all what we sensed in the case of Brenda Martin. But we never know fully the truth. The reality is that transfer is good for public safety and protecting all of our citizens regardless of whether they are a 'good person' who got wrongfully incarcerated, a 'good person' who made some mistakes, or even the 'bad guy'. These judgments amount to perceptions. Our government has handed over innocent people to Syria for torture, on grounds of perception. A Canadian man was jailed in India for a year, on a bureaucratic mistake.
The only way to deal with this, and ensure that you and your loved ones abroad don't receive the double injury of a foreign judicial system's injustice coupled with PR from our own Minister labeling them 'national security threats'; is to apply the law, the International Transfer of Offenders Act, fairly - not based on public perception, votes, rhetoric, ideology and certainly not to twist 'national security' to fit what those terms were never meant for. Otherwise, we are burdened with the threat of our own government while we travel abroad, and we're burdening ourselves at home to act as judges and juries for people who have already been tried. Some people get special favours, who may be guilty - others get the worst treatment possible by the government, who may not be guilty. Guilt is not at issue in transfer, nor is sympathy. The issues are outlined in the ITOA. For all of the law and order posturing of this government, especially this Minister, they can't even follow their own laws. That's hypocricsy. Stockwell Day, wake up, take the pillow from your head, and put the legislation in it instead.
