As the federal election approaches, there are now two contrasting faces of the Harper era which provide real danger to Canada’s governing Conservatives.

The better-known face is Mike Duffy, of course. He has come to embody the overweening sense of excess and entitlement of the Harper decade. Now that he has turned on his government patrons, Duffy’s bitter fight for payback will place an added spotlight on his trial during this autumn’s election campaign.

But far more dangerous to the Conservatives is the face of Omar Khadr.

After nearly 13 years behind bars, the 28-year-old was allowed out on bail last week by an Alberta judge, a Harper appointee, who ruled that the government had failed to prove that his release posed a risk to the public.

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Since U.S. troops captured him in Afghanistan in 2002 when he was 15 years old, Khadr has been tortured, denied justice and completely abandoned by Ottawa. He was the youngest inmate at the notorious U.S. prison in Guantanamo Bay.

Khadr was accused of throwing a grenade that led to the death of a U.S. soldier. In 2010, in order to get out of Guantanamo, he pleaded guilty to five war crimes, including murder, in front of a discredited U.S. military commission.

But now that Khadr is free, if only on bail, attention will eventually focus on a hidden secret of this long, poignant drama: In spite of bogus Canadian and U.S. claims, there is persuasive evidence that Khadr is entirely innocent of this murder charge.

Hidden away in prison for so much of his life, Khadr has been a convenient whipping boy for the Conservatives. They now worry that Khadr — emerging from jail as a handsome, articulate and seemingly humble young man — will capture the fluttery hearts of the uninformed. Well, just strap yourself in. We ain’t seen nothing yet.

Let me make three simple predictions about how this Khadr saga will unfold:

One: In the months ahead, the more this young man reveals himself to Canadians, the more he will find Canadian public opinion coming to his side.

Two: Politically, this will happen at a critical time when Canadians are increasingly rejecting the government’s policy of fear, with a majority of voters now opposing the insidious anti-terror law, Bill C-51.

Three: One day, when the history of the dark Harper era is written, the government’s immoral treatment of Khadr — abandoning a Canadian child at the altar of political expediency — will be regarded as perhaps its greatest shame.

A tragic dimension to the Khadr story is that his life has really become an afterthought — an absolute irrelevancy — to those who have used his story for their own crude political purposes. Canada’s prime minister stands virtually alone in the world among political leaders in defending Guantanamo as a respectable form of “due process.”

So this false narrative, repeated endlessly by an uncritical media echo chamber, drowns out alternative voices. Thankfully, at least two Canadian news organizations — the CBC and the Star — have been consistent and dogged on this story.

If you want to understand what’s happening beneath the surface in the “Omar Khadr Story,” I have two weekend suggestions:

Watch the award-winning CBC documentary, The United States vs. Omar Khadr. It’s available on the CBC website. It was prepared by correspondent Terence McKenna and producer Nazim Baksh. Although broadcast in October 2008, it is still wonderfully topical. It outlines what happened on that day in Afghanistan in July 2002, and persuasively suggests that Khadr was not responsible for the murder of the U.S. soldier.

Read the superb book Guantanamo’s Child: The Untold Story of Omar Khadr, written by the Star’s national security reporter Michelle Shephard. Her reporting on Khadr and Guantanamo has been groundbreaking for years, but this 2008 book provides a reminder why Khadr’s story is so gripping.

“Freedom is way better than I thought,” said a smiling Khadr in his first words to the media. If I had been at that news conference, I probably would have said to him: “Yes, but we’re not quite there yet.” But, in recent days, we have him to thank for making some progress.

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Tony Burman, former head of CBC News and Al Jazeera English, teaches journalism at Ryerson University. Reach him @TonyBurman or at tony.burman@gmail.com .

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