Dear Prime Minister

To my great shame, five men have been held by Canadian authorities under so-called security certificates, and between them have spent almost 200 months in jail. Four are still in custody, one is free under stringent conditions of bail. All this without the benefit of due process or public trial. There are no formal charges.

Mahmoud Jaballah, Mohamed Harkat, Mohammad Mahjoub, Adil Charkaoui and Hassan Almrei now face deportation to countries where their lives would be in danger. In a process which falls short of international standards of human rights, security certificates are reviewed in camera by a Federal Court and no review or appeal is possible. Earlier this month, Heather Mallick in the Globe and Mail described the process this way:

Even the judges, as they sit in a basement room and hear the secret evidence that purports to uphold security certificates to whip innocent people away from their crying children, complain that they are embarrassed.

Mr. Justice James K. Hugessen of the Federal Court said he felt like a fig leaf, covering up the unspeakable bits of a system once considered fair and just.

Concerns about security have left a trail of national hangovers, such as the internment of the Japanese during the second world war and many Germans and Eastern Europeans during the first world war. This has the makings of another national regret. One that, of it is not corrected, will be a shame in the history of your country and mine.