Statement made on 17 November 2011 by Senator Roméo Dallaire
Hon. Roméo Antonius Dallaire:
Honourable senators, my question is for the Leader of the Government in the Senate. In 2000, Canada ratified the Convention on the Rights of the Child, including the Optional Protocol on Child Soldiers.
I wish to remind senators that Canada has yet to implement the necessary provisions of the convention. In other words, we ratified the convention, but we have not implemented it. We have not changed our security laws, our criminal laws or our immigration laws, which has allowed the government to let Omar Khadr rot in Guantanamo and, like Pontius Pilate, to wash its hands of its responsibilities to this child soldier.
I am raising this issue because the government clearly informed us that there was an agreement with the United States whereby, after one year — which was up in October — Omar Khadr would be returned to Canada to serve the rest of his sentence. He should not have been incarcerated, but that is another story.
Could the leader inform us of the details of the Canada-U.S. agreement for repatriating Omar Khadr?
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