Whatever it is about Abousfian Abdelrazik that Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s government seems to want to sweep under the table, it is past time that Parliament took a hard, close look at the case.

Abdelrazik is the Montreal man who has been stranded in the Canadian embassy in Khartoum for nearly a year and in Sudan itself for six years while Ottawa has multiplied excuses not to bring him home. On Friday, citing unspecified “national security” reasons, Foreign Minister Lawrence Cannon denied him an emergency passport. Yet Ottawa promised on Dec. 23 to provide travel documents if he could muster a paid-up plane ticket, which he did. Cannon’s decision is just the latest hurdle Ottawa has thrown in his way.

This is surreal, given that Canada went to bat for Abdelrazik not 15 months ago, asking the United Nations Security Council to remove him from a no-fly list after the Canadian Security Intelligence Service and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police advised there was no reason for him to be on it.

What gives? New Democrat MP Paul Dewar, the party’s foreign affairs critic, rightly wants to know. He is pushing to have Abdelrazik, who denies being “an Islamic extremist,” summoned before Parliament’s foreign affairs committee. Meanwhile Liberal MP Irwin Cotler warns Ottawa is violating Abdelrazik’s constitutional right to return. Dewar’s motion deserves support. If it carries and the government refuses to repatriate him, it will be in contempt of Parliament.

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Tags: Abousfian Abdelrazik, Irwin Cotler, Khartoum, Lawrence Cannon, No Fly List, Ottawa, Parliament, Paul Dewar, Stephen Harper, Sudan

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