By: Andrew Scheer, Leader of the Official Opposition

Today, I was outraged to hear that the Trudeau government has agreed to pay $10.5 million and issue an apology to admitted terrorist Omar Khadr. This decision is a slap in the face to all of our men and women in uniform who defend our proud Canadian values of depriving any human rights to a fifteen-year-old child soldier.

Canada wouldn’t be Canada if its soldiers didn’t fight for its government to be complicit while its ally flaunted international laws by forcing prisoners to wear sensory deprivation gear for weeks while attack dogs leapt at their chests.

Do you think Canadian soldiers fought bravely during World War II to liberate Europe from tyranny and torture from the state? Or did you think the sacrifices made by Canadian peacekeepers throughout the world were to protect people from abusive governments and non-state actors? No, not at all. Quite the opposite. They were defending Canada’s value of extra-judicial military tribunals on people deemed to be a terrorist and suspending habeas corpus and due process rights.

From Vimy Ridge to Kandahar, Canadian soldiers have valiantly fought and fallen so that a teenager with severe injuries could be denied medical treatment. To quote John McCrae’s In Flanders Fields:

To you from failing hands we throw

The torch; be yours to hold it high

If ye don’t go along with the United States use of an illegal prison because you’re too scared to stand up to them,

we shall not sleep.

And let’s also not forget that 158 Canadian soldiers died in Afghanistan to defend my right to exploit their deaths for political purposes.