Stockwell day didn't redeem himself, but if I ran into him on the street today, I probably wouldn't spit on him...

I knew there was a reason I only put Stockwell Day 'On Notice' instead of making him 'Dead to Me', obviously I had some premonition that he'd do something amusing. You get 'em Stocky, I love it. I guess the Americans figure that they couldn't possibly look any worse for kidnapping an innocent man and flying him to Syria to be tortured, so they decided to keep their foot in their mouth, their thumbs in their asses and their heads in the sand.

U.S. assails Canada over Arar

U.S. Ambassador to Canada David Wilkins, seen delivering a speech in Ottawa in this file photo, said today in Edmonton that Canada should back off in its efforts to have Maher Arar taken off a U.S. security list. Email story
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Wilkins tells Stockwell Day to 'back off'

January 24, 2007
Canadian Press
EDMONTON — U.S. Ambassador David Wilkins is angry that Canada keeps trying to have Maher Arar removed from a U.S. security watch list.
Wilkins said today that Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day is offside with his efforts and should back off because a U.S. review determined that Arar should remain on the watch list.

“It’s a little presumptuous of him to say who the United States can and cannot allow into our country,” the ambassador told a news conference today after a brief meeting with Alberta Premier Ed Stelmach.

“Canadian officials would rightly never tolerate any American official dictating to them who they may or may not allow into their country.”

A Canadian inquiry exonerated Arar last fall and concluded that RCMP gave U.S. authorities misleading information before he was deported, held and tortured for more than a year in a Syrian jail.

But Wilkins said that three U.S. agencies did a full review of the Arar file and found their own reasons to keep the Canadian on the American watch list.

“The information that resulted in this conclusion was independent of any information that had been supplied to us by the Canadians,” he said.

“We respect Canadian officials and their decisions on who should be on their watch list. We would ask them to show us the same respect.”

Day said Tuesday that he’s seen the information supplied by the Americans and found nothing new to suggest Arar is a safety risk.

“It simply does not alter our opinion that Mr. Arar is not a threat, nor is his family,” Day said in Halifax. “We are continuing to let our position be known on that.”

Day has not responded to Wilkins’ comments today .

Arar has launched a lawsuit against U.S. officials.

Also today, Wilkins addressed the issue of new border security measures that took effect this week requiring all Canadians, including young children, to have passports in order to enter the U.S. by air.

There were several reports of American border officials giving entry to Canadians without passports, but Wilkins said this does not signal any official grace period.

“The border security folks obviously use their discretion and use common sense on the first day of implementation,” Wilkins told reporters. “But this is a law. It will be enforced.”

He said that for now, border security staff will handle each incident of Canadians showing up at the border without a passport on a ``case-by-case basis.”