On Monday night, Ann-Marie MacDonald, Gordon Pinsent and others will take to a downtown Toronto venue and read selections from Franz Kafka's The Trial to raise money for the families of five alleged terrorists. By doing so, these crusaders of Canadian culture will draw a direct parallel between the process used to deport the accused men and the 1925 book chronicling the ordeals of the guiltless Josef K., who in The Trial is arrested, interrogated and finally executed for an alleged crime that is never revealed to him. The Trial helped establish "Kafkaesque" as a synonym for impenetrably oppressive and nightmarish -- and critics have applied the term many times in relation to Canada's controversial security-certificate process. "There's no trial, no evidence; they are there at the minister's pleasure. Their families, meanwhile, are abandoned and living in limbo," said MacDonald in an interview. "There's a very good argument that says that's against Canadian law, that they are being detained illegally, and the security certificate is a bit of a boondoggle. And that's Kafkaesque."

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