Canada ignores its international legal obligations when it maintains it has the right to deport people to countries where they risk torture, Amnesty International says in a report card to the United Nations...
The Amnesty report, to be presented to the UN Human Rights Committee in Geneva next week, also takes the federal government to task for imprisoning four Muslim men without charges as alleged security risks and failing to implement a long-promised independent appeal process for people making refugee claims...
The report also says the federal government does not provide adequate social services for aboriginal people, especially women who are victims of violence and children who are in custodial care. Federal financing for child and family services is on average 22 per cent below the level provinces provide to non-aboriginal people.
The article focuses mostly on the torture-related issues, and not without some justification. But the aboriginal-rights issue, tossed in as the last paragraph of the article, should be by far the more difficult to justify from the federal standpoint.
While I don't agree in the least with the pro-torture side, there's at least room for some rational debate as to whether or not torture could lead to results that could make it worth the loss of individual safety in "exceptional circumstances". It's far more difficult to find any logical basis for systematic underfunding of social services where those services are all too likely to be more needed. (Assuming, of course, that neither apathy nor ignorance is a "logical basis".)
Unfortunately, there's no indication that the federal government is interested in changing its failing grades on either issue. The Liberals are actively trying to uphold the torture policy, while presumably ignoring the recommendations on aboriginal funding until they fade out of the public view. We can only do our best to make sure the issues aren't forgotten.
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