Mr. Speaker, lawyers may well meet to decide on the amount of compensation Mr. Arar should receive, that is fine by me, but I do not think they need to write to the Prime Minister asking him to apologize. He should do so immediately. Ordinarily he makes quick decisions.
The Prime Minister believes, for example, and rightly so, that what Jan Wong wrote was unacceptable. He is seeking an apology from the Globe and Mail. The O’Connor report explains that the way Maher Arar was treated was unacceptable, and the Prime Minister refuses to apologize.
How can the Prime Minister justify saying that an apology is warranted in both cases, but that he refuses to offer one because it is the government? A bad example is being set for the Globe and Mail.