Yesterday was a day of travel.   Coming off a fabulous Art of Hosting in Pembroke Ontario that was a deep personal exploration of source and the spirit of hosting for many who were there.   Thursday evening we gathered at Alastair Haynes’ home in the east end of Ottawa for a curry dinner followed by hours of music and whiskey, all of which wrapped up at 1am.   Friday morning my mate Kathy Jourdain and I left ofr the airport, she to fly to Halifax and me to set out on a milk run across the country.

We left Ottawa at 12:35 on a nice CRJ705 (a better plane than the little CRJs that Air Canada also flies) headed for Winnipeg.   It was cloudy over most of Northern Ontario, but clear over Lake Superior, the skies opening up over Whitefish Bay.   And hour later we were descending over the flood waters of the Red River Valley into Winnipeg where I changed planes to a small CRJ bound for Calgary and Kelowna.

At Calgary, we landed for a station stop and a crew change, but what was to be a half hour pause turned out to be more than an hour when the plane carrying our captain failed to arrive on time.   Eventually he was spotted rushing across the tarmac, and we set off on the third leg for Kelowna, out over the magnificent and clear Rocky and Kootenay Mountains.   We entered the Okanagan Valley from the north and landed in Kelowna 40 minutes later.

After all that travel the best thing to do was to hook up with Jeremy Hiebert for some animal protein and hops, malt and barley juice.   We jawed awhile about his evolving ice book, homeschooling, a little father to father talk about raising curious and lively kids. Funny that we didn’t really talk about music, except to note that we would both meet again in Princeton this summer for the 2nd annual Princeton Traditional Music Festival.

Here only for today, running an Open Space for the annual Assembly of BC Arts Councils and then it’s off early tomorrow morning to California, for the last leg of the epic journey of work and travel.

I’ve been in Portland Oregon this week working with Native community radio stations from across the United States on an exciting capacity development project.   While here I’ve been enjoying the city.   Portland, Seattle and Vancouver really are sister cities.   We share the same climate, the same eco-systems and concerns, the same look and feel.   The histories of the three cities are intertwined by the people that have lived on this coast since the cities were founded.   The Columbia is the furthest south outlet of Canadian freshwater on the west coast, so in many ways, what flows nearby here is tied to what happens in the Canadian Rockies.   Out in the ocean, the migration of birds, salmon, whales and seals intimately connects these three cities too, even though Portland isn’t strictly a coastal town.

I have been here only once before, on a road trip to California, and I never spent any real time in the city.   On this trip, I was staying in a downtown hotel, and working a light schedule, so I had time to walk around and explore.   Took in dinner one night at a lovely restaurant, Higgins, which serves local, seasonal food in a west coast style.   I also stumbled into the real world version of Powell’s Books which is located in a funky little neighbourhood surrounded by the specialty bookshops that it spawned.   It’s a very friendly book store for such a big place, and full of helpful and cheerful staff.

I’ve been travelling by public transit on this trip too.   I almost took the train from Vancouver but was constrained by time.   Otherwise I would have loved to have gone from Vancouver straight through to San Francisco by train.   As it is the only train I will ride on this trip is the excellent MAX light rail in Portland which whisks you from the airport to downtown in a little over a half hour for $2.35.

On my way now to Sausalito to spend the weekend in some relaxed but important conversations around designing a global conference which will be held next year on Hawai’i.   Looking forward to being in the Bay area, and at the same time, resolved to return to Portland again soon.

I am not talking about the bailout here.   I am talking about a serious rescue.

Abousifian Abdelrazik is a Canadian who has found himself in a big pickle.   He returned to his birthplace in Sudan in 2003 to visit is ailing mother.   While there, the CSIS, our spy agency, apparently had him arrested.   He was later allegedly interrogated by CSIS, the FBI and Sudanese intelligence officials about ties to Osama bin Laden.   He was in and out of detention for years in Sudanese jails, where he alleges he was also tortured.   In the meantime, his passport expired and his wife divorced him.

In April of 2008, he took refuge in the Canadian embassy in Khartoum but the Department of Foreign Affairs refused to prepare travel documents for him because he was on the US and the UN no fly lists.   After much effort and a huge amount of opposition here in Canada, the federal government finally relented and said he would be allowed to return if he could produce a pre-paid airline ticket.   By this time Mr. Abdelrazik was destitute and had no means to pay for a ticket.   Instead 115 Canadians defied the federal government’s threat to charge them under anti-terrorism legislation and raised money to buy him a ticket and bring him home.

The ticket was paid for and the clearences offered, but yesterday the federal government reneged on its commitment and claimed that unless Mr. Abdelrazik got himself off teh UN no-fly list he could not return home.   I can’t imagine how it is possible that one individual could do such a thing without the help of his own government.

Mr. Abdelrazik has not been charged with any crime.   Both the RCMP and CSIS have cleared him of any wrongdoing, and in fact CSIS has even launched and internal probe to see what happened in this case.   In short, Mr. Abdelrazik is no different from any other Canadian citizen travelling the world.   He is in a bind not of his doing and his own government refuses to help him come home.

This is highly alarming for me and it should be for the thousands of other Canadians who leave our country every day.   If you are wrongly arrested in a foreign country, does your Canadian passport mean anything?   Will your government come to your rescue or will you be abandonned to rely on your own wits and resources?   Do you know under what conditions the federal government will come to your aid?

With this concern in mind, today I sen the following letter to my Member of Parliament, John Weston:

Dear Mr. Weston:

As you are aware, the case of Abousfian Abdelrazik is ongoing.   After creating near impossible conditions for his return to Canada, his country of citizenship, and then clearing him of any wrong doing, the federal government has now said that he must clear himself from the UN no-fly list before he can return home.   It seems clear that this could be a simple matter for the Canadian government, as a UN member, to speak for the integrity of its citizens and have Mr. Abdelrazik removed from the list and not have that act subject to the veto of any other country.   Surely a government can be expected to come to the aid of its citizens in such a predicament.

I am an international traveller who does business in the United States and Europe.   Like Mr. AbdelrazikI I work legally and am not involved in any criminal activity.   I am very concerned with this case and with the government’s intransigence in bringing this man home even after he has been cleared of any wrongdoing by our own intellegence services.

As a citizen of your riding, I would like to know that if I was ever caught in a similar situation, that my family could rely on you to do everything you can to bring me home.   I would like to know, for my own peace of mind and as a citizen, what Mr. Abdelrazik has done to deserve this treatment from his own government.   I know you have also travelled extensively around the world, and I would strongly request that you place yourself in Mr. Abdelrazik’s shoes and do everything you can to bring him home without any further delay.

I would like to know under what conditions I would be assured of help from the federal government should I be wrongly arrested while travelling in another country.   I think legions of other business travellers and tourists would like to have the same assurances.

Mr. Weston has never responded to any of my emailed requests for information, but perhaps this time will be different.   I will post his response here.   I am very concerned that something is changing about Canadian citizenship and that our own government no longer has the final say in what happens to our own citizens.