The reviews are in

Chris Selley:

What the government is arguing is that the explicit permission the UN grants member nations to repatriate their own blacklisted citizens is only meant to apply when those citizens happen to be located in a nation next door to their own. If Abdelrazik was in Phoenix, in other words, or Anchorage—heck, maybe even in Moscow, if we could arrange an over-the-pole flight—Canada could help him out. But because other UN nations lie between him and us, we can’t. Indeed, we mustn’t.

On its face, this interpretation is laughably stupid. Now, remember Ciise’s journey home. It’s also manifestly wrong.

For the record, I concede the government, as it argued in its filing, may have no legal obligation to ask that Abdelrazik be exempted from his travel ban. It does have, at the very least, a moral obligation to explain to him, and to the Canadian public, why it hasn’t. It has completely failed to do so, as just about every reasonable Canadian I’ve come across agrees, and has made a terrific ass of itself in the process. At this rate, those poor justice department lawyers will soon be arguing there’s no such place as Sudan, or that Ciise never returned home at all, or that heavier-than-air craft aren’t capable of flight under the laws of gravity.