Let me throw in a few comments while stating that I'm far from an expert on this topic.
The problem with this guy, as far as I can glean from the news and the web, is that he was never in Canada. He was born in the UK to a Canadian father and Brit mother and lived all of his life in the UK until he left Oxford to wander around Syria.
His passport has nothing to do with being a Canadian citizen (while I do not know for sure, I suspect he doesn't even have a Canadian one). His status is based on being the first generation descendant of a Canadian citizen.
Much, if not all, of the legislation under the Combating Terrorism Act (which has been incorporated in Part II.1 of the Criminal Code) creates offences relating to "everyone who leaves or attempts to leave Canada for the purpose of . . . etc etc" That wouldn't apply in these circumstances.
There are terrorist offences over which Canada claims extra-territorial jurisdiction but they require actual proof that the listed offence was committed. My guess is that because of the circumstances that such clear evidence of him having committed an offence over which Canada can claim such jurisdiction will be hard to come by and that if we do help him out to come here he will escape any consequences.
Considering the stance that the Liberals have taken with respect to reversing prior legislation facilitating stripping citizenship from persons with dual citizenship in certain circumstances they are now between a rock and a hard place.
Personally I believe they deserve to be there. The problem is that there is probably a vocal constituency of the Liberals who feel that bringing this ******* to Canada is the right thing to do. Hopefully they'll be in a decreasing minority.
