I want a Torture Inquiry

To:Prime Minister Stephen Harper pm@pm.gc.ca

CC:NDP Leader Jack Layton Layton.J@parl.gc.ca,

Liberal Party Leader Michael Ignatieff Ignatieff.M@parl.gc.ca

Bloc Quebecois Leader Gilles Duceppe DucepG@parl.gc.ca

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Subject: I Want a Torture Inquiry

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Dear Prime Minister Harper,

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I am very concerned by the recent testimony of senior intelligence officer Richard Colvin.

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According to Mr. Colvin, who served in Afghanistan and is currently posted to Canada's embassy in Washington, the government received repeated warnings that people who were taken prisoner and transferred to Afghan authorities by Canadian troops were tortured by the Afghans. Yet the Canadian government failed to act.

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I support the call for an independent public inquiry into the possibility that government and military officials abandoned their responsibility to ensure Canada acted within Canadian and International law, and upheld Canadian values.

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I look forward to your reply.
Sincerely,
[Your name here]

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With thanks to Thwap and Mentarch for picking this up.

It was mentioned in comments at Mentarch's that petitions are useless.

Verifiable petitions like this one from Ceasefire are read aloud in the House of Commons.

How else are they gonna know we're paying attention?

Who's with us?

Grade 5 composition; Grade 10 social studies

Over at Creekside, Alison provides information most people had received via the public education system by the time they were 15. If they had stayed in school.

I have one more item to add.

No matter how one views the George Galloway controversy, if one is going to frame a petition, or in this case, a counter petition, one should be certain that the opening does not contain a heinous error in the salutation. (For those who were absent that day in grade 5, that would be the person or persons directly addressed.)

Jason Kenney is not The Right Honourable. Officially, as a Canadian minister of the Crown (and not the prime minister), the correct honorific is "The Honourable". Kenney is not entitled to the socially superior reference. That's basic secondary school stuff.

Notwithstanding, there are many other things we could call Jason Kenney with complete accuracy.