PoliticalNick I might have even listened to your side of it until you start making ridiculous statements like the one you made in regard to this thread about murderers and rapists not being protected. Somehow deporting them, seems more effective than paroling them and putting them in half-way houses in neighborhood near you friends and neighbors.
Your comparisons to Stalin and Communist States are far reaching, even silly. We live in a Country where gays marry, abortions happen regularly, forum debate goes on without anyone wearing standard issue jack boots kicking in your door. Forgive me if I don't feel sympathy or even empathy for the drug/gun running scumbag who now finds himself in an extraordinarily predicament. One I might he might not be in had he avoided that whole drug/gun running endeavor in the first place.
RCS, it is not that I have sympathy for those committing heinous crimes. Quite the contrary as I support life sentences that really mean life and the death penalty for serious repeat offenders which is even more effective than deportation as we are not placing a blight on another nation's population.
Are we a communist state? Not yet, but maybe soon if things like the patriot act and Canadian anti-terrorism act keep being renewed and expanded and one must remember Stalin and Mao both started piecemeal, they didn't just kill millions in one fell swoop overnight. It was a slow, methodical erosion of rights and freedoms that began most dictatorships and communist states.
Now I certainly don't have sympathy or empathy for a drug dealer, especially one that uses firearms in his trade. I would gladly see him deported if it was clear he was an Indian citizen or Cuban or Vietnamese or whatever but to me it seem clear he is none of those. I also am unclear as to his status as a Canadian citizen. My belief is that since he was issued a birth certificate and a passport and paid out taxes and was deemed eligible to vote and lived freely as a citizen in this country for 2 or 3 decades and at no time did the govt seem concerned there may be a technical error then he should be deemed a citizen and the last thing you or I want is our govt to start deporting, exiling really, it's own citizens because once they start with criminals they then move on to political dissidents and maybe gays and whoever else they decide is undesirable.
Now, even if there is this 'technicality', a loophole in the law surrounding citizenship, I cannot condone the govt using loopholes and technicalities as a matter of convenience or for pure political gain which is what I see in this case. Allowing our govt to play the technicality card once means they will play it again & again & again until there is no end to who, where & when they do it to. People in general and especially govts have a propensity to keep opening the door wider & wider as soon as it is ajar. I don't trust them to stop and would bet money they won't if allowed to do this.
So for me it isn't about the individual. I find his method of making money deplorable and would gladly lock him up for longer than he got with forced, hard labour to pay for his incarceration. This is about bolting that metaphorical door closed tight before the govt gets it to open even a crack.