Pause here, for a National Post op-ed,15/4/04, made a telling point back then.
‘… The Khadr family last week strolled into Toronto waving a Canadian flag of convenience in their search for a surgical suite.
Elsamnah Khadr should be about 20 years too late to claim medicare for her 14-year-old son Karim, crippled in the 12-hour gunfight that claimed the life of his father, a notorious terrorist fundraiser.
And there’s not much doubt she’d rather be elsewhere. Having deemed Canada unfit to raise her children lest they become drug addicts or, apparently worse, homosexuals, she left in the 1980s to expose her four sons to the joys of al-Qaeda training camps.
But her son’s injury and the lure of free health care have forced her to return to a country she considered unworthy to live in and enter an Americanized culture her husband was allegedly committed to destroy. And that has caused a fury in the land, mixed with taxpayers’ sense of helplessness as they watch Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty reluctantly cave to citizenship laws requiring him to extend the perks and privileges afforded any bonafide Canadian.
Clearly, the words of this matriarch and her outspoken daughter, the actions of her deceased husband and terrorist-suspect sons, and the notoriety of their infamous ringleader friends render the entire clan unworthy of citizenship or its benefits.
Sure, you feel for the son in a wheelchair. Even if he was actively engaged in the gunfight that caused his injury, this is a kid who was captive to an upbringing that undoubtedly forced him to graduate from toilet training directly to terrorist training. But the sins of his father are so many and this misuse of citizenship of such brazen self-interest, they lack any legitimate claim to Canadian compassion.
Various Khadr family members have worked as bin Laden confidants, injured Americans, raised funds for al-Qaeda, applauded the 9/11 tragedy and declared suicide bombing to be a public service. Elsamnah Khadr has been quoted as hoping her children die as martyrs to their extreme Islamic cause.
Nothing about this warped thinking fits with Canadian values. The only overlap is how Canadian tolerance and compassion allows this situation to develop and persist. If you visit the government Web site on citizenship, you will be told our core values are respect for cultural differences, freedom, peace, law and order and equality. In the Khadr world, a premium is placed on fighting and dying.”