But it hardly lets Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s government off the hook. The shameful handling of Mohamud’s case by Ottawa is a national scandal. Canadians are wondering whether they face the same rough treatment if they run into trouble abroad.
Beginning with Foreign Affairs Minister Lawrence Cannon and Canadian High Commissioner to Kenya Ross Hynes, the authorities have some explaining to do.
This is a government, after all, that has proven only too willing to abandon citizens. Omar Khadr still faces trial before a tainted Guantanamo tribunal. Ottawa had to be ordered by the courts to repatriate Abousfian Abdelrazik from Sudan. And to seek clemency for Ronald Smith, a murderer who faces execution in the United States.
In Mohamud’s case, she ran into trouble trying to return to Toronto on May 17, after visiting her mother. A Kenyan airport official stopped her for not looking like her four-year-old passport photo. That snag should have been easy enough to clear up.
Mohamud quickly presented a credible batch of documents to Canadian diplomats in Nairobi attesting to her Canadian citizenship and residency. They included an Ontario driver’s licence, an Ontario Health Insurance Plan card, a citizenship certificate, a social insurance card, credit card, bank cards, a Humber River Regional Hospital card, a Shoppers Drug Mart card, a note from her Toronto employer, and a recent Toronto dry cleaning receipt. Given all this, Ottawa should have been able to confirm her citizenship within days at most.
Yet officials in the high commission rejected the documents, branding her an imposter. They sent her voided passport to Kenyan immigration authorities to help them prosecute her, which could have led to prison or expulsion to her native, wartorn Somalia.
Mohamud was forced to launch a legal battle to establish her citizenship, with support from the Somali community. Even then, it took Ottawa two months to finally agree, on July 22, to give her a conclusive DNA test, after it was found that her fingerprints weren’t on record.
To the very end, officials seemed indifferent, if not hostile, as she languished abroad. “The individual has to be straightforward, has to let us know whether or not she is a Canadian citizen,” Cannon said on July 24. “She’s saying so, but there is no tangible proof …” By that point Mohamud had produced documents and offered fingerprints, launched court action, filed affidavits and had lobbied for a DNA test. What more could Cannon expect from someone stranded abroad?
Yesterday the DNA results came in: a 99.99 per cent match with her young son Mohamed Hussein in Toronto. She is who she said she is. Once again, Ottawa looks callous, indifferent, inept.
On what “conclusive investigations” and hard evidence did Canada’s diplomats in Nairobi base their judgment that Mohamud was an imposter? Why didn’t she get the benefit of the doubt? Why did it take so long to establish her citizenship?
Instead of blaming the victim, Cannon should shoulder responsibility for this mess. And the Harper government owes it to all Canadians to spell out what will be done to ensure this doesn’t happen again.
Source: TheStar
