The right to travel

Over the weekend, an astonishing proposal was revealed by Mr. Harper’s government: a proposed new bill that would criminalize travel to areas that the Government of Canada designates as terror havens.

Say what? I mean… SAY WHAT???

I grew up in a communist country where exit permits were a mandatory prerequisite for travel. I thought I saw the last of this Stalinist nonsense when I crossed the Iron Curtain one last time with this single use exit visa:

exit-visa

And here we have Mr. Harper, so concerned about victims of communism he wants to put a monstrosity of a memorial dedicated to its victims right next to the Supreme Court, yet now he does this?

I won’t even start arguing about the reasons why people may travel to terror zones. Someone who’s concerned about family. An aid worker. A doctor. A journalist. Or the problem of who designates a zone a terror haven and on what basis. And how such designations can become political ploys. Never mind all that. It is simply a fundamental right of us free citizens of a free country to travel abroad without restrictions. This is not North Korea; this is Canada. (And no, I never agreed with the US travel ban to Cuba either. It was always a matter of pride for me that I hold a Canadian passport that was free of such asinine ideological travel restrictions.)

No, Mr. Harper, enough already. We are really not that afraid of terrorist bogeymen that we would relinquish our fundamental rights as Canadian citizens. Back off please and respect our rights and values. Or better yet… just become a private citizen already and let someone else who is more respectful of our rights govern, while you take care of some cats.

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