I have a confession to make. Those of you who have a passing acquaintance with my opinions, et cetera, might not be too surprised by what I'm about to tell you, but for others this may come as a bit of shock, and I apologise for that. I just felt that, given the tenor of the times, I owed it to everybody to make a clean breast of things.

I'm a security risk. Yes, that's right: mild-mannered, beady-eyed Canadian with my head full of lies I may be, but I'm also a dyed-in-the-wool security risk. This is no new thing either, and not brought about by any of the many disparaging comments I may have recently made about various political figures on both sides of the border, or any relationship I may or may not have with foreigners of a different colour.

No, I'm ashamed to admit that my days of being a security risk predate George junior and senior's presidential stints. It all goes back to a series of incidents between 1980 and 1983. Not that it matters, I guess. As Maher Arar has learned, it doesn't matter when an incident took place, or whether you were innocent or not - once labeled a threat, always a threat.

I found out about my status in the summer of 1988. I was "between engagements", (that's what actors say when they’re unemployed, it sounds a lot better) and it so happened that my period of forced idleness coincided with Toronto playing host to the annual meeting of the Group of Eight Industrial nations (G8).

To handle the influx of media sure to accompany the leaders, they needed to hire a large number of media clerks; people who had experience with files, organizing information, and dealing with requests for copies of documents. Two or three local temporary employment agencies had been hired to tackle the job of recruiting individuals to fill these positions.

Since I had had plenty of experience doing office work from when I helped manage a theatre company, I decided to apply for one of the positions to earn some needed money to tide me over. My credentials were fine, I was actually overqualified but that didn’t matter, and I was told the job was mine as long as I cleared a security check.

As I wasn't going to be having any contact with any of the dignitaries, it was considered a forgone conclusion that I would pass. I'm not sure who was more surprised: me or the woman from the employment agency who had to phone and tell me that my application for security clearance had been rejected. According to her, no one else who had applied had been turned down, only me.