Evidence of meeting #13 for Public Safety and National Security in the 40th Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was csis.
A recording is available from Parliament.
10:25 a.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Garry Breitkreuz
If you have other cases you want them to comment on, it's up to them whether they do.
Mr. Holland, you had a point of order.
10:25 a.m.
Liberal
Mark Holland Liberal Ajax—Pickering, ON
Mr. Chairman, I'm not sure you're understanding Ms. Mourani's point.
In both the Iacobucci and O'Connor reports, one of the chief concerns was.... And I'll quote directly from page 145 of the analysis of recommendations in Justice O'Connor's report, where the 14th recommendation states that “Information should never be provided to a foreign country where there is a credible risk that it will cause or contribute to the use of torture.”
This is a central point to the proceedings of this committee. I believe what Ms. Mourani is trying to establish is whether or not this practice has continued, as we saw in the instance of Mr. Almalki and Mr. Arar, and in other examples. That is central to the point.
10:25 a.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Garry Breitkreuz
Okay. Mr. Rathgeber, briefly, and then we'll go back to Ms. Mourani.
10:25 a.m.
Conservative
Brent Rathgeber Conservative Edmonton—St. Albert, AB
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I think you understand Ms. Mourani's question perfectly, and with all due respect to Mr. Holland, the line of questioning deals with a situation on which these witnesses cannot possibly be prepared to provide answers. It happened in Guantanamo Bay in Cuba by American officials, allegedly.
The order of the day, under Standing Order 108(2), is a review of two committees of inquiry, the Iacobucci inquiry and the O'Connor inquiry. I agree with my friend Mr. MacKenzie that questions ought to be limited to those two reports and recommendations.
10:25 a.m.
Conservative
10:25 a.m.
Bloc
Serge Ménard Bloc Marc-Aurèle-Fortin, QC
Yes. We're here to talk about the action taken on the Iacobucci and O'Connor reports. It was recommended that information obtained by torture no longer be used. Mr. Mourani is right when she tells you that we can't question them about the El-Maati case, for example, because it's before the courts. However, we want not only to know whether the officers received training or attended workshops and so on, but also to see whether, in practice, they have stopped using information obtained by torture. She cited a known example. I want to respect my colleague Mr. Rathgeber when he says that they aren't prepared to respond to that. I hope there aren't tens of cases or alleged cases in which torture was used to obtain information. There's only one that's known to the public; they therefore had to consider it in their preparation in order to convince us that they have taken the recommendations seriously and that they no longer use information obtained under torture even when it comes from the Americans.
10:25 a.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Garry Breitkreuz
Okay, thank you. I think you've made your point.
I think the witnesses have heard the discussion.
Ms. Mourani, you still have two minutes left. Go ahead.
10:25 a.m.
Conservative
10:25 a.m.
Bloc
Maria Mourani Bloc Ahuntsic, QC
Very well.
Sir, it would be nice if you could answer me. Please, sir.
10:25 a.m.
Advisor, Operations and Legislation, Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS)
Perhaps I could try. I could try to answer in French, but, if I do, I believe we'll miss the nuances. So I'm going to answer in English.
If I may say, it seems to me that the introduction to that question and the reaction it evinced, if they do nothing else, show that this is a loaded, difficult question. It's a question that involves policy and operations. There is a moral aspect, and there is a legal aspect. I would love to give a black-and-white, once-and-for-all answer. The simple answer, frankly, is to say we will never use information that we know comes from torture or from mistreatment. I cannot say that, for three reasons.
10:30 a.m.
Bloc
Maria Mourani Bloc Ahuntsic, QC
I don't understand your answer. You use the future tense. Are you telling me that, currently, you no longer use information obtained by torture? Even if it comes from the United States, do you check the information?
10:30 a.m.
Advisor, Operations and Legislation, Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS)
No. Excuse me. I'm sorry--
10:30 a.m.
Advisor, Operations and Legislation, Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS)
Let me start.... I'm trying to find a good way to start and to come at this. Perhaps I can start with what Susan Pollak said. She was here a few weeks ago. I think you asked the same question of her and she replied that CSIS does use information. Frankly, I'm tempted to say that there are four words that can provide a simple answer, and those four words are either “yes, but” or “no, but”, and the “yes, but” is, do we use information that comes from torture? And the answer is that we only do so if lives are at stake.
And there is a premise to that. The premise to that is, first of all, it happens rarely in the exchanges of information that we have. Second of all, information that may have been extracted by methods which are less than the kinds of methods we would like applied to people--citizens, dual citizens, whatever, whether citizens or not.... Normally, the recipient of that information doesn't know how that information was obtained.
So with those first two points--“happens rarely” and “don't necessarily know”--there's been a general answer, which is that every bit of information we get we attempt to assess in terms of its reliability, but in trying to get at this debate, one of the best discussions I've ever seen of this, and I don't know whether the committee's had a chance to read the House of Lords decision, the famous--at least for us famous--House of Lords decision in 2005 called, in shorthand, the torture decision, but that was dealing with their SIAC process. Their security--
10:30 a.m.
Advisor, Operations and Legislation, Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS)
Perhaps if I can try to wrap it up--
10:30 a.m.
Advisor, Operations and Legislation, Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS)
--the import of the House of Lords decision was the following. In the common law, and for hundreds of years, information where there is reason to believe it comes from torture can never be used in judicial proceedings, ever. That's the law. The issue is how you do that.
The second point is, can the executive use that information to protect the security of the country in certain instances? The House of Lords went into that. I'm sorry, I've gone on, but I'm drawing a distinction between law enforcement and use by the executive.
10:30 a.m.
Conservative
Brent Rathgeber Conservative Edmonton—St. Albert, AB
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you very much to all four witnesses. I'd like to thank you and your respective agencies for providing security to our borders and to our country.
I'm following up on some questions that my friend Mr. Norlock posed and some comments that you made, Mr. O'Brian, borrowing from Justice O'Connor and indicating that no Canadian agency or likely no Canadian would knowingly subject another Canadian citizen to indignity or torture. When you quoted Justice O'Connor, the quote you used was “interact with countries with poor human rights records”.
Mr. Michaud, you used similar phraseology in your briefing paper when you talked about “decisions to interact with a country with a questionable human rights record”, and then you went on.
I'm curious. Is there a concise or pithy definition of what is and what is not “questionable” or “poor human rights”, and who makes that decision?
Mr. O'Brian first, perhaps.
10:35 a.m.
Advisor, Operations and Legislation, Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS)
I think my answer would be that it has to be a process, and it's an ongoing one. The fact that a country has been identified as one by Amnesty International, or by the U.S. State Department, or by our own foreign affairs department, or even by us--and we do yearly assessments of each of our posts--that engages in practices we don't approve of would not necessarily mean that particular information that we get from them would be extracted by those means. That's the first point.
My short answer is that there is no finite list. Perhaps if I can put it another way, I know we are looking for a way in which we can say green light in all of these cases but red light in these kinds of cases. Frankly, my perhaps unsatisfactory answer to you or to some of the members here has to be that by and large our response is neither a red nor a green but in a lot of instances an orange light, which means proceed but proceed with caution.
10:35 a.m.
C/Supt Gilles Michaud
Basically, we don't rely on a definition per se to define what is and what is not. Our assessment process is such that if there are any indications that individuals in that particular country are treated in a way that does not meet our standards, then we proceed with caution. We would be very careful in our dealings with this country.
10:35 a.m.
Conservative
Brent Rathgeber Conservative Edmonton—St. Albert, AB
As a follow-up to your green and amber analogy, are there categories for some countries that you or your agency believe have abysmal human rights records and ought to be treated one way, and perhaps other categories for countries with poor human rights records for which maybe less concern or caution ought to be exercised?