"This is not residential schools we're apologizing for," he told me. "We're apologizing to an enemy combatant who betrayed his country and went overseas to build roadside bombs."
But wait. Omar Khadr was just a 15-year-old kid. He was brainwashed by his al-Qaeda-loving parents. He was terribly wounded by the Americans, who held him captive in Guantanamo for many years and, at the very least, mistreated him. Successive Canadian governments didn't lift a finger to get him back. In 2010, the Supreme Court of Canada declared in no uncertain terms that the government had violated his basic rights – the rights that are enshrined in the Charter and guaranteed to every citizen. What about that?
"Sure, he checks off all the boxes," says Mr. Adler. "He was technically a Canadian. But who believes his family were ever Canadians in spirit? He was technically a child soldier. But he wasn't some kid who'd been kidnapped and turned into a robot and forced to kill people at gunpoint."