At least the release doesn't start with "Canada's New Government"...

I hope that this will be my final post relating to l'affaire Galloway (because I really do think think the whole thing is best put to bed), but a line in Linda McQuaig's otherwise off-point and fairly unedifying column from today's Star caught my attention:

In March 2008, the Harper government signed a broad-ranging security pact with Israel.

The pact, which has received scant attention in Canada's Parliament or media, established close Canada-Israeli co-operation in "border management and security," under a management committee comprised of Canada's deputy minister of public safety and Israel's director general of public security.

McQuaig's implication is that the Canadian and Israeli governments were somehow in contact regarding banning Galloway.

Frankly, this notion strikes me as silly (not least because the scoundrel would have received a tenth of the publicity had he been allowed into the country), but I was interested in the pact McQuaig refers to. So, off to the Public Safety Canada website! News release is here, and the text of the thing itself is here - it's a Declaration of Intent, not a pact.

As for the documents contents, judge for yourself. The piece explictly declares itself not legally binding. Is it diplomatic bumf? My own instinct is that bumf is usually produced by governments for some specific reason - but as to what that reason is, I can't say. Likely not to explicitly bar loud-mouthed British MPs.

Thoughts? Aldous, what is the precedent for these sort of quasi-binding thingies?