On Friday, Foreign Minister Lawrence Cannon refused to grant an emergency passport to Canadian citizen Abousfian Abdelrazik, who's been trapped in Sudan for years. On Saturday, Canadian left-wing bloggers exploded in anger about the decision.

Creekside provided a summary of official correspondence about the case, as well as Cannon's official email address.

Gordo at Gordo's Brain was highly critical: "I've been annoyed with my country’s government before. Right pissed in a few cases. I’d never been ashamed of them until Stephen Harper's Conservatives came into power."

Ken at KenonCanPolitics was equally unhappy: "This Conservative government simply seems very inconsistent as to when it shows concern with someone's human rights. Apparently the slightest hint of connection to terror and human rights go out the window."

Peace, order and good government, eh? quoted Deepak Obhrai, Cannon's parliamentary secretary and then suggested Obhrai was misrepresenting the legal issues around Abdelrazik's right to return home.

In the right blogosphere, Google turned up few mentions of Abdelrazik. But Pieface at Politic? didn't see what the fuss was about, and took a shot at Maher Arar for good measure:

Mr. Abdelrazik ... is listed as a terrorist by the United Nations. And Lawrence Cannon, Canada's Foreign Minister has now stated that Canada considers this Sudanese-Canadian to represent a national security threat. And, as such, he will not be welcomed back to Canada; the Government of Canada is not prepared to issue an emergency passport to facilitate his passage back to Canada, citing a relevant section of the Canada Passport Order.

Mr. Arar has decided to champion the cause of Mr. Abdelrazik, claiming that he is a victim just as Mr. Arar had been, of maladept intelligence, incorrectly labelling him as a terror suspect.

Among right-wing bloggers, only Jay Currie expressed unhappiness about the Cannon decision, and even then took a shot at Mr. Abdelrazik: "Canada cannot and must not 'exile' her citizens. (We might, however, be a bit pickier as to who we extend the privilege and protection of our citizenship to.)"

Crawford Kilian is a contributing editor of The Tyee.