Ottawa seeks to tighten prisoner transfer law
Last Updated: Thursday, November 26, 2009 | 4:16 PM ET
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The federal government wants to change the law governing whether an offender serving a criminal sentence abroad can get a transfer back to Canada.
Public Safety Minister Peter Van Loan said that legislation introduced Thursday would clarify the factors under which the minister would permit a return.
Van Loan said those factors would now include if an offender, upon return to Canada, would endanger public safety, continue to engage in criminal activity or endanger child safety.
Van Loan said they have applicants from 241 prisoners abroad to return to Canada, while only four people convicted here want to return to their home countries.
"That tells me that we have a pretty good corrections system," he said.
Van Loan said the proposed changes don't relate to Omar Khadr, because he has not been convicted of anything yet. Khadr is currently in detention in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, awaiting a U.S. military tribunal on charges of killing a U.S. serviceman in Afghanistan with a grenade.
A Canadian court ordered the federal government to seek the repatriation of Khadr, but the federal government appealed that order to the Supreme Court of Canada.
"In the case of Mr. Khadr, obviously, he is facing a trial," Van Loan said. "He has not been found guilty at this time."
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