Most Canadians reflected their opinion in favour of stay of war resisters.

The general opinion of the majority of Canadians is that the war resistors should be allowed to stay in Canada.

This is proved time and again by various poles conducted in Canada. In a pole conducted by the Strategic Communications last August, a majority of sixty four percent said that they were in favor of war resistors to settle in Canada.

Although results differ in various parts of the country, yet everywhere the majority of people were willing to give these war resistors from US a chance to stay in Canada as permanent residents. The lowest support for the war resistors was reportedly in Alberta with 52 percent. Therefore it is time for the Harper government to give a deep thinking on the public opinion.

Corey Glass, one of the war resistors was to leave Canada today. Last week a news report claimed that Glass has been discharged from the military and was free to return to US. But the fact is that Glass has not received any official discharge paper from the army. Now, since he has not been formally discharged, he can be charged and punished by the Imprisonment and Bad conduct discharge. Being a member of Individual Ready Reserve, Glass could possibly be recalled to active duty in Iraq by July 2010 and can be forced to serve past that date, through the ‘stop loss’ program.

The stop loss legislation allows the US military the liberty to unilaterally extend a soldier’s contract for an indefinite period even after he has served his required tour of duty. This is often described as ‘back door draft’. Glass’s story is going to be repeated again and again if the Harper government continuously ignores the majority of Canadians and the Parliament.

Recently the Immigration and Refugee Board was ordered by a federal court to hold a new hearing for Joshua Key, another war resistor. That the IRB erred in excluding evidence about Geneva Convention and the violation of Human Rights by the US military which is the basis of the war resistors cases is clear from this judgment.

Officially condoned military misconduct that fall well short of war crime is capable of supporting a claim to refugee protection, said Federal Court justice Robert Barnes. After the ruling an immediate halt to the process of removal of US- Iraq war resistors that is already underway is expected as the situation is more critical than ever for Immigration Minister Diane Finley and Prime Minister Harper.

In the year 2005, when Harper was the leader of opposition, he was of the opinion that the government must listen to a parliamentary majority as the Prime Minister bears the moral responsibility to respect the will of the house. Now the question is-whether or not the Prime Minister will respect the vote?

At this moment Harper himself is the Prime Minister and he will do well if he abide by his own words.