Mr. Speaker, on October 4, I rose in my place to ask the Prime Minister to justify why Omar Khadr, a convicted terrorist, got a rushed $10.5 million payout while the Liberal government refused $6,000 worth of dental surgery for Josey, a young Cree girl, and continued to fight her in court. These are very different kinds of cases, but as members hear my argument they will understand why the question was so important and the answer so unsatisfactory. There are times when we need courts to make decisions and times when compassion and common sense should reign, especially when smaller dollar amounts are at stake.
To talk specifically about the Omar Khadr case, in 2010 the Supreme Court of Canada ruled that Khadr's rights had been violated while he was detained in a U.S. military prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, where he was held after being captured as a suspected terrorist. As a remedy in response to the Supreme Court of Canada's ruling, the Conservatives brought Khadr back to Canada and, of course, he kept his citizenship. The current Liberal government then provided a $10.5 million compensation package to Omar Khadr for abuses he suffered while detained in that U.S. military prison for captured and suspected terrorists. The federal Liberals stated that the funds were given because of the 2010 ruling by the Supreme Court on the violation of his rights.
It is important to say what the Supreme Court did and did not say. The Supreme Court did not instruct the Prime Minister to financially compensate Khadr. As Howard Anglin wrote in the National Post on July 6, “There was no court order requiring payment and the government could have continued defending the claim for years to come.”
It is also important to remember that Khadr was found assembling IEDs, a fact that has been reported widely in the Canadian media, including by The Globe and Mail, Macleans, and Global News. Also, in 2010 he plead guilty to killing U.S. medic Sergeant Christopher Speer. Here we clearly have no obligation. Certainly there was a court process under way, but I would argue that the government should have let that court process play itself out before it just awarded $10.5 million, and not only that, before it rushed to make the payment to prevent the widow of Sergeant Christopher Speer from having any recourse.
Then we have the case of Josey Willier. She is a Cree who was living in Calgary. She was nine years old. Her teeth began to emerge sideways in her palate. Many of us in this House have children and have seen the different things that happen as children grow and that we need to remedy those things. Over a number of years, it is important to note, she experienced ongoing problems with her teeth that resulted in headaches and a chronic aching pain in her lower gums. Moreover, she was not able to chew properly and had difficulty opening her mouth. There was significant discomfort associated with the impacted teeth and overbite, and she was taking over-the-counter medications daily. An orthodontist recommended braces, without which she would need to have invasive jaw surgery in the future and her jaw, of course, would have to be broken.
The government ended up fighting Josey in court. It—