Public Safety Committee on Jan. 30th, 2007

[The Chair, Conservative, Garry Breitkreuz]

Your time has expired.

[Sue Barnes, Liberal, London West, ON]

That's what I thought.

Thank you very much. I just wanted to get those timelines straight for everyone.

[The Chair, Conservative, Garry Breitkreuz]

Does anyone from the Bloc have any questions in regard to this?

Monsieur Ménard.

[Serge Ménard, Bloc, Marc-Aurèle-Fortin, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Ms. Bloodworth, I gather that you were Deputy Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness Canada at the time of the so-called Arar affair, and more specifically, during the time when he was detained in Syria. Am I right?

[Margaret Bloodworth]

No, it's not, Monsieur Ménard. I was deputy minister at Public Safety starting in December 2003, when the department was created, when Ms. McLellan became the minister. I was deputy minister at Defence while Mr. Arar was detained in Syria.

[Serge Ménard, Bloc, Marc-Aurèle-Fortin, QC]

Very well.

Mr. Elliott, were you working for Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness Canada while Mr. Arar was detained in Syria?

[William Elliott]

No, I was not. At the beginning of Mr. Arar's detention, I was an assistant deputy minister at the Department of Transport. I was appointed assistant secretary to the cabinet for security and intelligence on June 23, 2003. I was appointed national security adviser to the Prime Minister on April 19, 2005.

[Serge Ménard, Bloc, Marc-Aurèle-Fortin, QC]

To show you that I always use my allotted time wisely and that I have good questions when I have only a little time, I have no further questions, Mr. Chairman.

[The Chair, Conservative, Garry Breitkreuz]

Thank you.

Mr. Comartin, do you have any questions?

[Joe Comartin, NDP, Windsor—Tecumseh, ON]

Yes I do, Mr. Chair, thank you.

Thank you, Ms. Bloodworth and Mr. Elliott, for being here.

There has been something bothering me with regard to the commissioner's two different testimonies. It involves the knowledge he would have had around claims for national security and documents not being disclosed. I don't have the page here, sorry, but in his report Justice O'Connor actually makes some reference to this--of course because he's irritated by it.

I'm wondering who makes the decision when a claim is made for a national security classification on material. I'm asking that particularly with regard to the watch list. Who would be the person determining that national security applies to that material, if it did in fact apply or if there was a claim for that, which I understand there was?

[Margaret Bloodworth]

First of all, with a claim of national security, which can happen in relation to many things, including access requests, in general the determination would be made by the head of the organization, or to whomever they delegated, that owned the information—for example, CSIS in relation to CSIS information, the RCMP in relation to theirs, and Public Safety in relation to their information.

The O'Connor inquiry obviously was a different case because we had many thousands of pages from a number of organizations, primarily the Department of Foreign Affairs, CSIS, and the RCMP. There was actually a working group led by Justice counsel and our outside counsel who represented the government during that inquiry. They went through the many pages, some of them many times. The first cut was what that group decided.

At the end, the final decisions that happened toward the end in the report, there were.... I wasn't actually involved in it myself; it was before I came to this job. There were actually decisions, up to and including the level of the government, as to.... In the end, we only claimed on 0.05%.

So it was a process that primarily involved an interdepartmental group.

[Joe Comartin, NDP, Windsor—Tecumseh, ON]

Okay. So going specifically to the watch list, we've heard both from the O'Connor report and I think from other witnesses who have been before this committee that the material was originally prepared by individuals who were RCMP officers...or, I'm sorry, the material that was given to them, if I can put it that way, the material in effect naming Mr. Arar--as we now know, falsely--as an Islamic fundamentalist or fanatic. Those types of terminologies were used.

So if that material was prepared by them, who would have made the initial claim for national security for that material? Would it have been this committee, or would it have been somebody within the RCMP hierarchy?

[Margaret Bloodworth]

I think Mr. Elliott has more specific information.

[William Elliott]

Mr. Chairman, perhaps I could describe the process and then try to respond with respect to specific kinds of information.

There were several stages throughout the conduct of the inquiry by Mr. Justice O'Connor. The initial stage dealt with the production of documents for the inquiry. The complete documents that were relevant were provided to Mr. O'Connor and his team, including his lawyers. Then there was a process whereby documents were redacted. In other words, each document was considered, and for material about which there were concerns with respect to confidentiality based on national security, there were redactions made. Documents in the redacted form were then submitted to commission counsel.

Throughout the period, there were discussions largely between commission counsel and government counsel with respect to those redactions. The redactions were the subject of discussions initially in relation to public hearings as opposed to in camera hearings. In other words, what documents and in what form would be referred to and relied on in the public hearings as opposed to the in camera hearings. Then redactions were also the subject of discussion in the context of the commission making either summaries of evidence or reports.

As Mrs. Bloodworth has indicated, there was an interdepartmental group that was involved in the redaction of documents, was involved in support to our government counsel in discussions with commission counsel in an effort to reduce the amount of material that was redacted, and in an effort to come to a common understanding between counsel with respect to which exemptions were appropriate and which were not.

[Joe Comartin, NDP, Windsor—Tecumseh, ON]

I'm sorry, Mr. Elliott, but I'm going to interrupt. As you can appreciate, having been before this committee, we are short of time always.

My real issue is this: did at any time Commissioner Zaccardelli involve himself in the decisions around what was going to be redacted and what was not going to be? I have the same question for ministers, either of Public Safety or of Justice, and then yourselves as national security advisers, or Ms. Bloodworth in her role as deputy minister.

[William Elliott]

Where there were disagreements between our counsel and the commission counsel, redactions were the subject of interdepartmental discussion, including at the level of deputy head, which would have included the commissioner or someone designated by the commissioner.

Ultimately, in the context of the final report from the commission, there were recommendations made to the government, and the government made decisions with respect to redactions.

With respect to the specific area you asked about, which is watch lists, my understanding is that all of the issues relating to redactions with respect to the watch lists were resolved in discussions between government counsel and commission counsel. So there was no involvement of either deputies or ministers in that decision.

[Joe Comartin, NDP, Windsor—Tecumseh, ON]

What about the commissioner?

[William Elliott]

I don't believe the commissioner would have been involved.

[The Chair, Conservative, Garry Breitkreuz]

Thank you.

We'll now go over to the government side.

Mr. Norlock, I believe you have some questions.

[Rick Norlock, Conservative, Northumberland—Quinte West, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

To carry on with Mr. Comartin's questioning, just so that we all understand what a redaction is--we know these proceedings are televised--would a redaction be actually the honing down or consolidation of a lot of loose material into a smaller amount of material, but yet the redacted list would have in it all the information requisite?

[Margaret Bloodworth]

It's a good question, because we do tend to use the term a lot. I myself recall asking what it meant. Redaction is when you take a document and say, “This piece of that document should not be revealed publicly”, for whatever reason, and you block it out.

That is the process of redaction. You actually see the document but with some pieces blacked out.

[Rick Norlock, Conservative, Northumberland—Quinte West, ON]

So instead of reducing it, you're actually obliterating some of the information that may be sensitive in nature.

[Margaret Bloodworth]

For what goes public. The commissioner and his staff would have had it all; it's just for what goes public.

[Rick Norlock, Conservative, Northumberland—Quinte West, ON]

That was going to be my next question, if the commission did actually know what that material was but for the purpose of public consumption it couldn't be released.

[Margaret Bloodworth]

Exactly. And I think the commissioner was quite clear about that. He had access to all the documents and in their complete form.