Welcome Back, Khadr
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Summary
In the wake of Omar Khadr's $10.5 million payout from the federal government, a conservative senator questions why a convicted terrorist should not be allowed to walk into secure government facilities like the Parliament of Canada. Andrew Lutton explains why.
Transcript
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Liberal Canada's favourite terrorist turned folk hero is back in the news.
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Basking in the glory of his 10.5 million dollar payout from the federal government not too
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long ago, Omar Khadr recently took a trip to Ottawa with his lovely wife.
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And well in Ottawa they decided to visit Parliament of Canada, it's a national landmark.
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They didn't just walk around the grounds, they actually went into the building.
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Khadr was spotted in the Senate gallery, the public gallery for visitors to the Senate
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to go by a staffer to a conservative senator who decided to look into this and shockingly
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found that Omar Khadr and his wife were able to waltz through security despite him being
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And despite all of the questions that people raised about his treatment at Guantanamo Bay,
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on the record right now, by the letter of the law, he is a convicted murderer connected to terrorism.
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How does someone like that walk into Parliament Hill?
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Jonathan Hill has clamped down a fair bit on security since the shooting a few years
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But the fact remains that to walk in there you've actually got to be screened.
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His name should have, without putting it through a computer system, tripped some radars of the
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Now, we do know that the Liberals tried to block Khadr from an event where several Liberal dignitaries
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They obviously didn't want the PR battle to go on there.
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And this is not me accusing Omar Khadr of being a risk or a threat, but the fact remains
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he is a convict of a serious violent offense, the type of which that you would think would
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preclude you from walking into secure government facilities.
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So, this is a discussion that was started by Senator Leo Houssakos, a conservative senator.
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And in response to these concerns, which are entirely valid, former lawyer Dennis Edney,
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former lawyer to Omar Khadr said that this is Islamophobia.
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To criticize a convicted terrorist and murderer walking into Parliament Hill is Islamophobic.
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So, the wide-reaching implications of M103, the anti-Islamophobia motion, are that you
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can't criticize murderers walking into secure government facilities like the Parliament
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Moreover, Khadr's team has said that this is a constitutional liberty, the constitutional
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Now, I agree that Parliament needs to be there for all Canadians.
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But we are talking about significant security breaches if convicted criminal offenses, documented,
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convicted, and by the way, confessed, do not preclude you from entering.
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This is where, as Canadians, political correctness can actually risk lives.
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It isn't just a theoretical on-paper battle about which words you can or can't use.
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There are security consequences to being politically correct, and this is what we're seeing at Parliament
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For the True North Initiative, I'm Andrew Lutton.