Together with over 70 percent of Canadians, our MP Larry Miller is livid at the Khadr settlement.
The two opinions as presented by his critics are contrived. We are told that we can either fight Khadr tooth and nail every step of the way through the courts OR we can pay him ten million plus.
There is a third option and it is done every day in Ontario courts. Admit liability and contest damages. That is, admit that the man's Charter rights were breached and proceed to a trial of what that might be worth. The "admission" only concedes what our highest court has already concluded with this precise person years ago. Like it or not, we are stuck with that finding.
Move on then to a trial in open court as to what compensation would be fair. What might a court award? Damages for future mental health counseling? $50,000. Damages for an impaired ability to earn income? He wants to be a nurse. Assume that the delay in his education kept him out of the workforce for a decade and you are looking at perhaps $600,000 for income loss.
Damages for pain and suffering and for his Charter breach are a little less predictable. That said, it is instructive to note that if you are rendered a quadriplegic in an accident, our court has capped that at a little under $400,000 for pain and suffering. So maybe use that as a baseline and add another $100,000 for the Charter breach. And, of course, the lawyers must be paid something.
But even so, these numbers lead to a fraction of the coin that the Liberals so hastily paid out to him. Would a court have gone with higher numbers? Perhaps a court would have gone off the rails with far higher damages but perhaps not. (Trudea said that the outside number might have been "thirty or forty million". Is this man capable of any sustained analysis?) These numbers are easily justfiable and are consistent with judicial precedent. The numbers may ave convinced a judge.
To be contested the bloated and arrogant financial demands of Khadr's legal team in open court would have been honourable and transparent. Instead we have participated in a furtive shakedown of the Canadian tax payers. No wonder the rage of many, including our MP, is palpable.
John A. Tamming
Owen Sound
