Thoughts on Our Constitutional Values
Jack Letts was born and raised in England. He likes pasties and Dr. Who, speaks with a British accent, and looks like someone you’d call a regular bloke. But as of this summer, Jack Letts is no longer a citizen of the United Kingdom. After travelling to Syria in 2014 to join ISIL (where he admittedly fought against the Syrian army, trained child soldiers and did online public relations work), ‘Jihadi’ Jack Letts had his citizenship stripped by the House of Lords. Detained in a Kurdish prison for the past two and a half years, the only thing keeping Letts from disappearing forever is Canadian citizenship obtained through an Ontario-born father.
Letts’ circumstance isn’t exactly unique. There are currently at least six Canadian men being held in prisons across northeastern Syria for ISIL-related charges. Nine Canadian women (dubbed ‘ISIS brides’) and eighteen Canadian children live in nearby refugee camps. But only Letts faces statelessness and only Letts has provoked a debate in Canada, England and beyond regarding what to do with returning ISIL members.
Canadian Minister of Public Safety Ralph Goodale has stated that there are no plans to get Letts out of Syria. However, he acknowledged that Letts’ constitutional right to enter the country means that he wouldn’t be denied access if he ever got on a plane to Pearson. Meanwhile, the leaders of our major political parties have either stayed silent or expressed no interest in repatriating him; some more acerbically than others. Maybe they genuinely believe that Letts’ complicity in genocide against Yazidis, the November 2015 Paris attacks, and sex slavery (among other crimes committed by ISIL) amounts to a renunciation of his right to participate in Canadian society. Maybe they flinch at the thought of spending $114,587 a year to house Letts in a federal penitentiary. Maybe it’s just election season and no one wants to take risks. Whatever the reason, I think Canada’s apparent disavowal of responsibility for Letts is wrong because it implies that our institutions can be applied selectively to our sovereign citizens.
When you excise the superficial away from our national identity (the outdoors, hockey, ‘sorry’), what remains is belief in a core set of institutional ideals upheld across generations through democratic means that reflect features unique to our country like immense geographical breadth, a colonial past, and concentrated multiculturalism. Some salient parts of those institutions include our rights to a fair trial, to be sentenced proportionately, and to never be tortured. Because it can’t be guaranteed that Letts enjoys those rights 9,380 kilometres away, instead of leaving him to languish in Kurdish prison, we should let his repatriation and eventual trial be a public affirmation of the values we hold sacred.
Whether Letts visited Canada seven times or seven hundred, his citizenship shouldn’t be conditional on his actions. That is what our judicial and penal systems exist to rectify. As soon as we resolve to allow the government to strip citizenship or refuse repatriation, we step onto a slippery slope towards the arbitrary denial of Charter rights and freedoms. Sooner or later, Canada will have to make a decision on whether or not to repatriate Jack Letts. I hope the state he returns to isn’t a sorry one.