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Federal Liberals could take a political hit over the government's decision to settle a lawsuit with Omar Khadr rather than fight it in court even if most Canadians believe the former Guantanamo Bay inmate was owed an apology, a pollster says.

"It's not unreasonable to say this maybe has the potential to be one of the lasting or sticky missteps of this government," Shachi Kurl, executive director of the Angus Reid Institute told HuffPost Canada Tuesday.

"The broken promise on electoral reform, for example, seems to be something that isn't necessarily haunting the Trudeau Liberals in the same way that this might haunt the Trudeau Liberals."

Kurl says a new poll from her firm suggests Canadians are specifically uncomfortable with the compensation Khadr received, even though the Supreme Court of Canada unanimously ruled in 2010 that his constitutional rights were violated.

While Liberals aren't revealing details of the deal, citing confidentiality, it was widely reported last week that the settlement was $10.5 million.

"This is as much about the money as it is about anything else," she said.

Seventy-one per cent of respondents think the government made the wrong decision and should have fought the lawsuit in court, according to the Angus Reid Institute poll. Twenty-nine per cent support both the apology to Khadr and reported $10.5-million payout.

The survey questionnaire spelled out that Canada's top court already ruled the "Canadian government of the day acted unconstitutionally after Khadr's arrest" in Afghanistan in 2002 and that it was "partly responsible for his continued imprisonment in Guantanamo Bay."

The court found Canadian intelligence officials obtained information from Khadr in 2003 under "oppressive circumstances," including significant sleep deprivation, and that they illegally shared evidence with the United States.

Fully two-third of respondents also told the firm they reject the notion idea that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's government had "no choice" but to settle with Khadr, who had filed a $20-million lawsuit against the government.

Tory Leader Andrew Scheer has said he would have fought the case in court on principle and has blasted the deal as "disgusting."

Public Safety Minister Ralph Goodale said at a press conference in Ottawa last week that a settlement was the only sensible course for a case with "virtually no chance of success."

Goodale was also sharply critical of the previous Tory government of Stephen Harper for not advocating for Khadr's return to Canada when he was detained at Guantanamo Bay. Khadr was repatriated in 2012 while the Tories were in government.

It's perhaps not surprising then that 91 per cent of past Tory voters told the Angus Reid Institute they opposed the settlement.

Yet, 61 per cent of past Liberal voters and 64 per cent of NDP supporters also share Scheer's perspective, raising the spectre that some Liberals could pay a political price for the decision.

"It's quite telling to me that it's not just majorities of past Conservative voters who are expressing a level of discomfort with this deal but also really significant numbers of past Liberals and NDPers," Kurl said.

The poll also suggests Canadians have conflicting views of the Toronto-born Khadr, now 30, who was captured after a firefight at a suspected al-Qaida compound. He pleaded guilty before a discredited military commission to throwing a grenade that killed U.S. special forces soldier Chris Speer. He has since recanted and has long said he was tortured during his years in Guantanamo Bay.

Seventy-four per cent of respondents say Khadr was a child soldier and should have always been treated as such. Yet, when asked if Khadr has been treated fairly or unfairly during his saga, 42 per cent said they were unsure, while 34 per cent said he was treated fairly.

A majority of respondents also indicated Khadr was at least owed an apology for his treatment.

Asked to imagine themselves on the government's negotiating committee, 29 per cent of respondents said they would offer both an apology and compensation, while another 25 per cent would offer an apology but no money. Forty-three per cent said they would offer neither.

Kurl also believes outrage over the settlement may be affecting the way Canadians see Khadr, who has publicly renounced violent extremism. He has long said he was pushed into war by his father, Ahmed Said Khadr, who was killed in 2003 as he stayed with al-Qaida operatives.

Shortly after Khadr was granted bail by an Alberta court in May 2015, 55 per cent of respondents told the Angus Reid Institute they thought he remained a potential "radicalized threat now living in Canada." The latest poll suggests 64 per cent of Canadians now feel that way.

"It's not as though Omar Khadr has been doing seen doing anything that would indicate he remains a radicalized threat. If anything, he's kept a very low profile," Kurl said.

"Whatever statements he's made have continued to reflect that he continues to renounce that world view."

The Angus Reid Institute's survey was conducted online between July 7-10 among a representative randomized sample of 1,521 Canadian adults. For comparison purposes, the firm notes a similar poll would carry a margin of error of 2.5 percentage points, 19 times out of 20.

Scheer and other Tories repeatedly refer to Khadr as a self-confessed or "admitted terrorist."

Khadr told The Canadian Press last week he is not a "hardened terrorist" and asked for Canadians to judge him on his actions.

Even though the deal is done, Scheer has pledged that Tories will force debate on the issue once the House of Commons resumes sitting in September, the Calgary Herald reports.

At the G20 summit in Germany over the weekend, Trudeau said the settlement reflected that the Charter of Rights protects all Canadians, "even when it is uncomfortable."

"When the government violates any Canadian's Charter rights, we all end up paying for it," he said.

With files from The Canadian Press, previous files

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Omar Khadr Settlement Could 'Haunt Trudeau Liberals': Angus Reid Institute Pollster - Huffington Post Canada

Ontario PC Leader Patrick Brown reads a story to 3-year-old Zoe Wilson and her mother Tanya at the St. Thomas Early Learning Centre, July 11, 2017. (Photo by Miranda Chant, Blackburn News.) By Miranda ChantJuly 11, 2017 1:58pm

Ontario PC Leader Patrick Brown hammered the Liberal government over its handling of funding for intensive therapy for children with autism.

At an election campaign-style stop at the Early Learning Centre in St. Thomas on Tuesday, Brown promised that if he is elected premier next year, he would make autism funding and services a priority. But he did not outline any specifics on how he would achieve that.

Brown also slammed the Wynne government over last years attempt to impose a controversial age limit for Intensive Behavioural Intervention (IBI) therapy.

Last spring, with 16,000 children with autism waiting for some form of treatment, the Liberals terminated the IBI treatment for those age five and above. IBI therapy is considered an effective and life changing treatment for many children. Thousands of Ontario families have waited for years for IBI treatment. But with one stroke of the pen the Liberals ripped away any hope they had, said Brown.

The Liberals have since backed away from the age limit, introducing a new program for therapy funding in the province. The new autism funding program adds an additional $200-million to the $333-million the province previously committed over a five year period.

Brown claimed the Liberals decision to restore IBI therapy to all ages came only after intense pressure from the Ontario PCs.

We listened and worked with parents, we fought day in and day out and I am very proud that we forced the government to do the right thing, said Brown.

However, Minister of Children and Youth Services Michael Coteau maintains it was the governments work with parents, support workers, and clinicians that led to the change.

Patrick Brown has never done anything for children with autism or their families, said Coteau in a written statement. As an MP in the Harper government, he voted against a national strategy for autism that could have led to more co-ordinated service across the country. Now, he continues to mislead families and cause confusion. While Ontario is making the largest investment in autism services in the country, Patrick Brown is playing politics with families.

A high-speed rail line that would link Toronto, London, and Windsor was among the other topics Brown touched on during his stop Tuesday. While he wouldnt commit to the project if his party forms government next spring, he did cast doubts on the Liberals intentions to move forward with it.

I do think its valuable, I do think it is a worthy goal and under this Liberal government it will never happen, said Brown. They are using it as a re-election tool, they are using it as a photo op not something that they actually have a plan to implement when [Minister of Finance] Charles Sousa introduced their budget he mentioned all of their infrastructure projects for the next 14 or 15 years and this wasnt even mentioned.

In May, Premier Kathleen Wynne announced the province was moving ahead with preliminary designs and a $15-million environmental assessment for high-speed rail. At that time she anticipated the Toronto to London corridor would be completed by 2025, while the London to Windsor line would be ready by 2031.

Brown visited London, Windsor, and Kingsville on Monday as part of a 20 riding tour. Wynne and NDP Leader Andrea Horwath are also making campaign style stops across the province this summer, hoping to win over Ontarians ahead of the June 7, 2018 election.

Reporter Email Miranda Chant

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Brown Hits Liberals On Autism Funding - BlackburnNews.com

Democrats have launched a long-overdue debate about what they will stand and fight for. The party is impressively united and its activists mobilized against President Trump and the right-wing Republican agenda. With Trump unpopular and the Republican Congress even less so, Democrats are salivating at the prospect of a wave election next year that would allow them to take back Congress. After they came close but lost this years handful of special elections, there is increasing recognition that were not them is not sufficient. Democrats have to have a more compelling economic agenda and message. Not surprisingly, there is widespread disagreement about what that message should be.

In the New York Times, Mark Penn and Andrew Stein argue that the path back to power for Democrats is to unquestionably move to the center and reject the siren calls of the left, whose policies and ideas have weakened the party. Penn and Stein are deliciously unseemly personifications of the partys money wing. Penn served as chief strategist for Hillary Clintons failed 2008 campaign while continuing as chief executive of Burson-Marsteller, a public relations firm with clients such as Blackwater, the shady private mercenary firm; drug companies such as Amgen; and British Petroleum, the company besmirched by the Gulf of Mexico oil spill. He was forced to resign from that campaign when it was revealed he had met with Colombian officials about a free-trade agreement that Clinton nominally opposed. The multimillionaire Stein, a former Manhattan Bureau president, was convicted of tax evasion and endorsed Trump in 2016.

Penn and Stein invoke President Bill Clinton as their ideal, arguing that Democrats should be the party of fiscal responsibility, above partisanship, and focused on economic growth and rising wages. They trot out a range of issues that are standard Democratic Party fare infrastructure investment, immigration reform, community policing, protecting workers in the gig economy and holding the line against Republican efforts to repeal Obamacare. Adopting the scabrous rhetoric of the right, they warn that bigger government handouts wont win working-class voters back. Their particular btes noires are identity politics and political correctness, represented by transgender bathroom issues and sanctuary cities.

To make their case, Penn and Stein summon up a fictional account of our political history. Democrats relied on identity politics and a government solution for every problem in the early 1990s, leading to Republicans taking the House in 1994. Democrats came back when Clinton embraced a balanced budget, welfare reform and the crime bill, leading to his reelection in 1996. Under President Barack Obama, they say that Democrats, misled by politicians such as Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), once more ran to the left, embracing identity politics, class warfare and big government, and thus lost 1,000 legislative seats, the presidency and control of both houses of Congress.

This is fake history. Clinton ran and won in 1992 on a populist economic agenda promising to raise taxes on the rich, launch a jobs program and provide health care for all. He complemented that with purposeful racial signaling rejecting Jesse Jackson in the Sister Souljah incident, calling for ending welfare as we know it and parading in front of black prisoners while touting harsh three strikes criminal sentencing. Upon entering office, Clinton abandoned the populist promises and embraced a budget that he privately termed one of an Eisenhower Republican. The effort to gain bipartisan support for health-care reform was torpedoed by Republican obstruction. Clinton then championed the North American Free Trade Agreement, over the warnings of labor leaders and the opposition of most Democrats. That contributed directly to the Democratic defeat in 1994. In 1996, Clinton came back after the Republican Congress shut down the government and campaigned as the defender of Medicare, Medicaid, education and the environment.

Similarly, Democratic losses under Obama did not come from identity politics, class warfare and big government, as Penn and Stein suggest. Rather, Democrats paid a big price for bailing out Wall Street bankers while homeowners were abandoned. Obama passed an inadequate stimulus and then moved to embrace deficit reduction tightening our belts while unemployment was still in double digits. Democrats suffered from the resulting slow recovery and from Republican assaults on Obamacare.

Utterly absent from the Penn and Stein analysis is the terrible cost and utter failure of the neoliberal policies they espouse. Clintons free-trade policies sustained by Obama racked up unprecedented trade deficits, with companies shipping good jobs abroad and driving down wages at home. Clintons fiscal austerity echoed by Obama left U.S. infrastructure decrepit and dangerous, while forgoing needed investments in education, affordable college and housing, and more. Clintons tough-on-crime agenda was catastrophic for African American men and left the United States with the highest prison population in the world.

Penn and Stein speak for a failed political establishment. The energy, ideas and activist base of the party come from the left. Sanders told 4,000 activists assembled at the Peoples Summit last month in Chicago that we have won the battle of ideas. Sanderss calls for a $15 minimum wage, a $1 trillion infrastructure investment, leading the green industrial revolution, fair taxes on the rich and corporations, tuition-free college and an end to the corporate trade regime are slowly becoming staples in the party consensus. Medicare for all is gaining ever more adherents. Even Penn and Stein move to embrace fair trade, without saying that they are abandoning a pillar of Clintons New Democrat agenda.

Sanders and Warren and the activists and movements driving this debate dont just want hollow political victories. They want what is needed to make this economy work for the vast majority, not just the few. That requires fundamental economic reforms and a political revolution, with small donors and volunteer energy challenging and eventually ending the reign of big money. Progressive groups are recruiting populist candidates up and down the ballot. They plan to challenge sitting Republicans everywhere. Conservative or corporate Democrats will increasingly face populist primary challengers.

Old party pros such as Penn and Stein dont get it. They see how unpopular Trump and the Republican Congress are, but their credibility on what to do next is shot. The populist temper of the time is rousing citizens across the country. Politics as usual wont suffice anymore.

Read more from Katrina vanden Heuvels archive or follow her on Twitter.

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The debate Democrats can't duck - Washington Post

Democratic National Committee Chairman Tom Perez at a rally outside the White House on May 10, 2017. Perez has sworn frequently in public speeches since taking over the DNC earlier this year. Photo by REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst

Last month, Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., bluntly summed up the Democratic Partys goals under President Donald Trump.

If were not helping people, Gillibrand told an audience at a New York University forum, we should go the f**k home.

Earlier this year, newly-elected Democratic National Committee Chairman Tom Perez didnt mince words when assessing the White House budget proposal. Its a s**tty budget, Perez said in a speech in Maine, part of a cross-country tour that included several expletive-laced speeches.

In the aftermath of Mr. Trumps victory in the 2016 election, a growing number of Democrats have begun cursing in public, using language that in the past was reserved for private conversations away from voters and the media.

The trend isnt entirely unprecedented, of course. In 2010, then-Vice President Joe Biden famously let an expletive slip during the White House signing ceremony for the Affordable Care Act. But the rise in examples of public cursing from Gillibrand, Perez, Sen. Kamala Harris, D-Calif., and other Democrats marks a sharp departure from the usual language used by politicians on the left in recent decades.

The shift seems to be a reaction, at least in part, to Trumps crass tone as a candidate, and may have paved the way for a new age of political incorrectness. Whatever the reason, the rhetoric of Democrats in the Trump era, including that of rumored 2020 hopefuls like Gillibrand and Harris, appears to mark a departure from former President Barack Obamas professorial language and Hillary Clintons focus group-tested remarks, representing instead a tone thats angrier and perhaps more authentic.

The political atmosphere has changed since the anomaly of Donald Trump swearing and getting away with it, Indiana University English professor Michael Adams said.

Swearing has been in public spaces over the past few decades, Adams added. Until recently, in political discourse, people thought you needed dignity, and some voters would object to profanity.

That changed during the 2016 election, when Trump used crass and politically incorrect language to send a signal to voters that he was an outsider figure, said Jennifer Mercieca, a communications professor at Texas A&M University.

His whole argument as a candidate was that he wasnt corrupt, and he knew he wasnt corrupt, because he used politically incorrect language as one way to differentiate himself from establishment politicians who followed traditional political norms, Mercieca said.

Trump may have been onto something. His language on the campaign trail and its positive reception by supporters fits neatly into the well-known sociolinguistic theory of overt and covert prestige.

The theory holds that individuals use standard, widely accepted language to gain recognition and status or overt prestige, in linguistics jargon with a wide group of people. In a field like politics, that means using politically correct language that appeals to the broadest swath of voters and offends the fewest and thats what traditional politicians do.

On the other hand, individuals seeking covert prestige with a smaller, specific group of people use language geared toward that audience language that might offend society at large. Politicians often seek covert prestige by using local political dialect to appeal to certain voters, Adams said.

Bill Clinton could speak in a fairly statesperson-like way, but [when] he was talking to people in a small town in Louisiana, he would talk like those people, Adams said.

Then-Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump speaks during the third 2016 presidential debate. Mr. Trump use curse words frequently on the campaign trail. File photo by Joe Raedle/REUTERS

During his presidential campaign, Trump stood out in a crowded Republican field by working profanity into his speeches.

In a November 2015 speech in Iowa, Trump called the press scum and garbage, and announced his plans to bomb the s**t out of ISIS.

In a speech leading up to New Hampshires Republican primary, Trump said companies that move overseas for lower tax rates can go f**k themselves. In the same speech, he attempted to draw a contrast between Obamas work ethic and his own, saying that as president hed abstain from golfing and insteadstay in the White House and work [his] a** off.

Trumps primary opponents adopted his tone and coarser language in their stump speeches and press interviews in a futile attempt to catch up to him in the polls. Sen. Rand Paul R-Ky. said the idea of increasing phone surveillance after a 2015 Paris terrorist attack wasbulls**t. During an MSNBC Morning Joe appearance before he bowed out of the race, Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., called Trump crazy as hell.

Since taking office, Trump has yet to curse in public, though he has often taken to Twitter to air his grievances. Nevertheless, longtime political observers said Trumps language was part of a broader cultural shift.

Theres a long history of presidents using crude language, but it was mostly done in private.

Trump follows a long line of coarsening in culture in general, whether in music or comedy or movies, said Floyd Ciruli, a Colorado-based pollster. I didnt expect it to jump into politics, especially at the highest level.

Theres a long history of presidents using crude language, but it was mostly done in private. President Richard Nixon was captured swearing often on tape in the Oval Office, but he assumed the conversations wouldnt be made public. President Lyndon Johnson had choice words for his advisors and tailors but they rarely made their way out of the White House.

Being polite was the default of politicians, Chris Hayden, the director of communications for the liberal Center for American Progress, said. Our president has completely thrown that out the window.

As a result, Democrats now feel more comfortable getting looser with their language since there arent severe ramifications for the totally out-of-bound things [Trump] has said, Hayden added.

Hayden said the change could be good for the party because voters like it when politicians can talk like normal people. It demystifies that Washington politician, Hayden said.

With Democrats in the minority in Congress, I think theres a general sense that you have to show passion, resistance to all of these issues that liberals oppose, Ciruli said. Making the language basic and more profane demonstrates that.

Senator Kamala Harris, D-Calif., at a ceremony in Los Angeles on July 3, 2017. Harris and other Democrats have grabbed headlines by dropping curse words in public in recent months. Photo by REUTERS/Mario Anzuoni

In May, during a guest appearance on the popular podcast Pod Save America, Harris grabbed headlines by offering an unusually candid response for a U.S. senator to Rep. Raul Labradors, R-Idaho, claim that nobody dies because they dont have access to health care.

What the f**k is that? Harris said. Her reaction to the House health care bill was not an anomaly. The New York Times reported that the freshman senator is no stranger to curse words.

But Mercieca warns that Democrats need to be careful when using crude language. It can work when trained at unpopular legislation, but can backfire if its used to disparage other politicians, she said.

There are plenty of recent examples of lawmakers profane comments misfiring.

On the Senate floor in 2004, then-Vice President Dick Cheney told Sen. Patrick Leahy D-Vt., to go f**k yourself, a comment that did not sit well with Senate Democrats.

While speaking at an event in New Orleans last weekend Rep. Maxine Waters, D-Calif., ripped into Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carsons credentials to run the department. Waters said she planned to take his ass apart when Carson testified before the House Committee on Financial Services, where she is the ranking Democrat.

The comment drew heavy criticism from conservatives, suggesting that coarse language by lawmakers may rally their partys base, but doesnt necessarily boost bipartisanship.

Democrats will need to figure out the right balance between laying down a well-placed curse word to prove a political point, and coming across as just plain vulgar.

Carolyn Lukensmeyer, the executive director for the National Institute for Civil Discourse, said that by electing Trump, voters clearly rejected political correctness. Still, Americans dont want profanity to become commonplace in political speech, she said.

The public does not want this type of political correctness where politicians talk out of two sides of their mouths, Lukensmeyer said. But also, they arent ready for politicians to use swear words or degraded language about other groups of people.

Polling bears this out. According to a recent NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist survey, seven in 10 Americans think civility in Washington has gotten worse since Trump was elected. A January poll by the public relations firm Weber-Shandwick found that nearly eight in 10 Americans believed the 2016 election was uncivil. In the same poll, a majority of Trump and Clinton voters 72 percent and 81 percent, respectively said that incivility has risen to crisis levels.

[There is] absolutely no question political discourse and everyday discourse has been profoundly degraded, Lukensmeyer said.

What that means for Democrats who are cursing more frequently remains to be seen, said Hayden of the Center for American Progress. Voters will respond to politicians who show more visceral anger, but Democrats will need to figure out the right balance between laying down a well-placed curse word to prove a political point, and coming across as just plain vulgar.

Thats the line that we draw, he said. The question is, are Americans smart enough to make the distinction.

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What the #$@! Democrats are swearing more. Here's why - PBS NewsHour

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