Liz Marshall

This whole situation with Omar Khadr is so repulsive, shameful and depressing. Thinking about how this poor kid from Toronto has been treated makes me, as a Canadian, feel so embarrassed and sad. All his rights have been violated, he's been abused, tortured, held for six years (so far), long periods of which have been in solitary confinement, he faces a sham trial that would make the Soviets proud, and he was just 15 years old when captured, yet Canada has done absolutely nothing to help him. In fact, as we now indisputably know, the Canadian government has been an active participant in this whole tragedy. And so I ask: What sort of nation have we become anyway?

Let me ask you something, how often does a person get a chance to meet one of their heroes in person? And I don't mean a hero in the Bob Dylan, Neil Young, Robert DeNiro, Meryl Streep, Wayne Gretzky, or Pele vein either. I mean a real, inspirational, clearly-making-the-world-a-whole-lot-better sort of hero. Someone without whom many more people would be suffering or even dying. I'm talking about a hero like Stephen Lewis.