PRISONER HOPES TO SEE ENLIGHTENMENT OF DAY

The federal public safety minister is tough on Canadians in foreign
jails.

If the tragic plight of Brenda Martin follows the expected course,
the fate of this desperate Canadian trapped in a Mexican prison
without trial for more than two years will likely come to rest in the
hands of Stockwell Day.

Hold the applause.

Canada's public safety minister has the singular power to decide if
Martin would be allowed to return home to serve any sentence she
might receive in our penal and parole system.

Generally speaking, Day's involvement in repatriating Canadians from
foreign prisons does not call for champagne.

Over the decades, Canada has negotiated international prisoner
transfer treaties with 70 countries around the world, including
Mexico, as an essential component of a foreign policy rooted in the
federal government's caring for its citizens abroad.

In the past 30 years, prisoner transfers have been the final lifeline
for over 1,350 Canadians imprisoned in foreign hellholes.

It is likely Martin's only hope.

Now the subject of a 24-hour suicide watch, Martin could roll the
dice with Mexican justice and continue her already long and likely
futile quest to be exonerated on fraud charges.

Alternatively, the Mexicans are apparently ready to convict her
without a trial or let her plead guilty to a relatively minor
offence, just to get rid of her and all the diplomatic kerfuffle her
case is causing.

Theoretically, a conviction could put her on a plane back to Canada
as soon as the two governments could shuffle the paperwork for a
prisoner transfer.

With the more than two years she has already spent behind bars in
Mexico, and the understanding of parole officials here, Martin would
likely never see the inside of a Canadian jail.

At least, that's how it would all work if Stockwell Day decided this
particular Canadian is worthy of his grace.

Until recently and with relatively few exceptions, most Canadians
imprisoned abroad who have applied to transfer back to their home and
native lockup have been automatically accepted where the countries
holding them agreed to let them go.

Ministerial approval in Canada, by and large, has been a rubber
stamp.

But all that quietly changed after the current Conservative
government came to power in 2006 -- more precisely, after Day became
public safety minister and resident salesman of all things supposedly
tough on crime.

As supreme arbiter of the prisoner transfer program, Day seems to
have a philosophy perhaps best described as: Screw them.

An internal government report obtained by Sun Media indicates that in
Day's first year in office, transfer requests from desperate
Canadians in foreign prisons simply piled up in his in-basket,
delayed sometimes months at a time.

Those that did clear the minister's desk were rejected in record
numbers.

The report shows that in the four years prior to the Conservatives
coming to office, for instance, 362 Canadians successfully
transferred from foreign prisons to Canadian lockups.

During the first year Day took over approvals, the total number of
transfers dropped by almost half.

This was apparently no statistical anomaly.

In fact, Day has taken to boasting about letting convicted Canadians
rot wherever they happen to be arrested.

In 2006, the minister wrote in a British Columbia community
newspaper: "B.C. dope dealers busted in the U.S. are demanding to be
transferred back to cosier Canadian jails and reduced prison times.

"Memo to drug dealers: I'm no dope. . . . Enjoy the
U.S."

Aside from the political morality of Day's using his authority under
the prisoner exchange program to impose his personal views, what's
the point of it all?

Most of the prisoner transfers turned down by Day are being rejected
on grounds they "would jeopardize the safety of Canadians and the
security of Canada."

But those considerations were meant to apply to terrorists and
organized crime.

For all others, the whole point of the prisoner transfer program, as
explained by Day's own department, is to facilitate rehabilitation in
a Canadian institution and ensure supervised release on parole.

The alternative is serious felons being deported back to Canada at
the end of their foreign sentences, and dumped straight onto our streets.

Perhaps faced with a growing threat of lawsuits and public protest
from families of Canadians jailed abroad, Day has apparently been
allowing prisoner transfers at more normal rates recently.

As Brenda Martin reaches for what may be her only lifeline out of
Mexican hell, she can only pray for the amazing grace of Stockwell
Day.