Canadian Woman Allowed To Return Thanks To DNA Test

[Josephus]

This wouldn't have happened if she was white.
www.thestar.com/news/canada/article/679861


ALLAN WOODS
IN OTTAWA
LESLEY CIARULA TAYLOR
IN TORONTO

Nothing in Canadian law stops the government from "picking and choosing" which Canadians it will help and who it will abandon, a former senior diplomat warns.

In the case of Suaad Hagi Mohamud, a Toronto woman who was detained in Kenya for 12 weeks, "overzealous" civil servants chose to abandon her, said former consular services chief Gar Pardy.

What's worse, he said, is that Ottawa could just say, "`Sorry it happened' and that's the end of it" unless somebody ensures there is a "protection of Canadians act."

Such an act would turn "Crown prerogative" – meaning Canadians are at the mercy of the government for anything not spelled out in law – into something that gives overseas Canadians some protection.

Mohamud's ordeal was closer to being over yesterday after Ottawa agreed to issue travel documents so she could return home. But other Canadians are still vulnerable.

"This is an issue that is not as uncommon as people would think," said Toronto lawyer Lorne Waldman. "If it weren't for the fact she had supporters here she would probably have gone to jail for six months or a year for using a false document. Clearly that's problematic.

"There are lots of other cases where people don't get all the publicity because people aren't interested or they don't have advocates in Canada and they get stranded."

Many people are just assumed to be guilty, he added.

The Conservative government has clearly tried to stay away from Mohamud's case.

Foreign Affairs Minister Lawrence Cannon and Public Safety Minister Peter Van Loan avoided comment even when a legion of supporters, family members and even Mohamud's Toronto employer came forward to verify her identity.

Pointing to a case in contrast, Pardy discussed the plight of Brenda Martin, who was jailed in Mexico, rescued by a minister's intervention and flown home in a government plane.

"I'd like that same level of service for everyone. It shows how this is a matter of discretion and discrimination" the way different Canadians are treated.

In another case, Justice Russell Zinn ordered the government to bring Abousfian Abdelrazik back from his Kafkaesque nightmare in Khartoum, where he received permission to travel but was denied a passport until he somehow disproved terrorism allegations.

"The only basis for the denial of the passport was that the minister had reached this opinion; there has been nothing offered and no attempt made to justify that opinion," Zinn said.

Pardy agrees that the litany of abandoned Canadians, from Maher Arar, tortured in a Syrian jail, to Abdelrazik and Mohamud should force someone in government to weigh the consequences.

"We get brown stuff on our faces every time this happens. There must be a better way of doing this.

"This is going on week after week. There should be some learning, some political will somewhere in the system to fix it."

Mohamud's ordeal started in May when airline KLM and Kenyan authorities flagged her as suspicious, saying her lips and eyeglasses didn't look like her Canadian passport photo.

Then the staff at the Canadian High Commission in Kenya not only failed to help her as a citizen but also sent her passport to Kenyan immigration authorities for criminal prosecution.

That step astonishes Pardy. "You would think they would bloody well have made sure their judgment was based on something more than thick lips," he said. "The ministers should be insisting on a proper investigation.

"Ministers have been getting a free ride. They are more and more sliding away from direct responsibilities when things go wrong. If ministers aren't responsible, then nobody is responsible."

When Mohamud's lawyer pleaded her case to federal court, the Tories refused to comment because the case of mistaken identity was now a legal matter.

One of the few remarks came from Cannon, who said she would have to try harder to prove that she was the person pictured in the passport.

All the crucial decisions in Mohamud's frustrating tale of a trip gone wrong were actually made in an office building overlooking the Ottawa River, where bureaucrats in the Consular Services and Emergency Management Branch of Foreign Affairs have the power to help or hinder Canadians in need of their government's help.

"The buck stops with them, and the advice they give to the minister," said MP Dan McTeague, a former parliamentary secretary responsible for Canadians abroad under former prime minister Paul Martin.

"When these matters become political, it's entirely the discretion of the minister responsible in the case and they're often told not to speak."

The overriding lesson, said Pardy, is "we need to make sure nobody forgets this."

[Valmy]

This wouldn't have happened if she was white.

I bet bad things sometimes happen to white people to.

[Josephus]

I never said they don't.

Bad things happen to me all the time.

[Valmy]

I never said they don't.

Bad things happen to me all the time.

Sounds like she just got screwed to me via bureaucratic BS.  That is always a danger you have to consider when you go abroad...especially to places like Kenya where things have been a bit sketchy of late.

[Eddie Teach]

Does she look white in the passport photo?

[Malthus]

Heh, anyone thinking this is a "racial issue" should try dealing with the Canadian immigration authorities in Ukraine. 

Fact is, some places in the world are more productive of various sorts of scams and system-gaming, and the authorities are *much* more likely to be jaded and unhelpful if you have the misfortune to be from there - has nothing whatsoever to do with "race", necesarily (last I checked Ukranians were "white"). 

[Josephus]

Sorry if I missed the story about the Ukrainian Canadian held in a Ukrainian jail for 12 weeks and Canadian authorities not doing anything.

Link?

[Valmy]

Sorry if I missed the story about the Ukrainian Canadian held in a Ukrainian jail for 12 weeks and Canadian authorities not doing anything.

Link?

Oh so now you are back on white people never get screwed around thing again?

Hey her race may have played a part but I bet shit like that would and does happen to white people even in Canada.  Sometimes life sucks.

[DisturbedPervert]

Sorry if I missed the story about the Ukrainian Canadian held in a Ukrainian jail for 12 weeks and Canadian authorities not doing anything.

Link?

The Canadian authorities didn't do nothing in this case.  They sent the passport to Kenyan immigration for prosecution.

[Malthus]

Sorry if I missed the story about the Ukrainian Canadian held in a Ukrainian jail for 12 weeks and Canadian authorities not doing anything.

Link?

Not claiming that happened. Merely that in other ways, they have demonstrated an unwillingness to be helpful or take any pains when the person seeking service was identifiably Ukranian-Canadian, whereas someone of a different European background or a long-term Canadian would expect (and receive) more prompt and better treatment.

The reason isn't hard to see: they are used to certain areas in the world being productive of various sorts of scams. In Ukraine, these days, scamming the gov't is more or less a way of life. So if you come to the Canadian authorities there with a request for help, they just assume you are up to something, rather than leaping to assist you. This leads to lengthy delays and the requirement for much prodding and reassurance before they will do *anything*. 

My source here is personal knowledge from my wife's family members.

[Drakken]

This wouldn't have happened if she was white.

I am still waiting for the Foreign Affairs's office to help that white woman from Quebec who had the brillant idea to marry a Saudi national, follow him in Saudi Arabia, and have a kid with him there.

Now that she awaken from her pipe dreams, she wants to come back. Aha, good luck.

[Berkut]

My source here is personal knowledge from my wife's family members.

Your wife is a black Ukrainian-Canadian?

[Grey Fox]

[saskganesh]

This wouldn't have happened if she was white.

I bet bad things sometimes happen to white people to.

absolutely. Canada is equal opportunity when it comes to abandoning our citizens overseas.

William Sampson was a small time bootlegger in Ridyah, but was detained and tortured because of fabricated terrorism connections. the Canadian government trusted the word of the Saudis and Sampson rotted for two and a half years in an Arabian jail.

[Josephus]

Oh, allright.

I'll retract the white argument.

But first this:

http://www.thestar.com/news/gta/article/679862

CHRISTOPHER HUME
The DNA tests Suaad Hagi Mohamud was forced to undergo last week proved not only that she is who she says she is, but also that she is Canadian.

The point seems lost on the current federal government, which has been content to let her twist in the Kenyan wind for three months while it did everything possible not to sort out the details of a case of mistaken identity.

But it is a point worth remembering, especially in the face of mounting evidence that Prime Minister Stephen Harper's regime is determined to create different categories of citizenship. According to the administration's new meaning of Canadian citizenship, the main qualification is not residence, place of birth, oath of allegiance or passport – it's the colour of your skin.

And in Canada today, God help you if you're not white, because the federal government sure won't. Indeed, that government creates these problems in the first place.

Mohamud's case is a perfect example; her nightmare began when a functionary in the Canadian High Commission in Nairobi agreed with a Kenyan airport official and decided she wasn't the woman whose photograph appears in her passport. We were told, incredibly, that it had something to do with her lips. She was immediately declared an "imposter" and Kenyan authorities were asked to prosecute her.

Although she produced all kinds of identification – including a driver's licence, OHIP card, social insurance card and a Canadian citizenship certificate to boot – her fate was sealed. The poor woman even spent time in a Kenyan jail, the horror of which one can only begin to imagine.

Meanwhile, her 12-year-old son – clearly another figment of her imagination – languished in Toronto, wondering if, not when, his mother would be able to return home.

Months after Mohamud's ordeal began and even now that its falsity has been exposed, no one in Harper's government has said a word, let alone apologized.

This isn't just another political scandal; this is cause for deep national shame. This smacks not just of prejudice, but of apartheid.

The whole episode, don't forget, began and ended with Canadian officialdom. Even if one accepts that bureaucrats in a far-flung posting make stupid mistakes such as this, the elected government's response has turned that error into something wholly different, namely a matter of policy. Whether that policy is official or not, it's now clear that only certain Canadians can count on the protection of the federal government.

Had Mohamud been a white mother from Leaside, you can rest assured that Harper himself would have led the charge to have her repatriated.

And we're not talking about the Omar Khadrs, or the Maher Arars, men suspected of real or imaginary ties to terrorist organizations. We're dealing with a single mom who produced her Shoppers Drug Mart Optimum card and even receipts from a local dry cleaners.

But Canadian High Commission first secretary Liliane Khadour wrote to Kenyan immigration authorities, saying: "We have carried out conclusive investigations including an interview and have confirmed that the person brought to (us) on suspicion of being an imposter is not the rightful holder of the aforementioned Canadian passport."

Well – guess what? – Khadour couldn't have been more wrong if she tried.

Even yesterday, after the results of Mohamud's DNA tests were made public, not a syllable on the subject was uttered by anyone in government. Their silence speaks volumes. And what it says isn't pretty: Canada, that bastion of tolerance, that refuge of civility, that exemplar of multiculturalism, no longer belongs to its citizens. It is not ours, it's theirs. We just live here.