Public Safety Committee on March 31st, 2009

[C/Supt Gilles Michaud]

That I can't confirm.

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

Well, I can. You might want to bring yourself up to speed on that.

There is also a list in the CPIC notification that a person might be a person of interest—was not necessarily charged and does not have a criminal record. Would I not be correct in saying police would have that information as a result of the CPIC check?

[Supt Bert Hoskins]

I believe you are referring to the observation category.

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

Yes. And for police or other investigative agencies who would have access to CPIC, it makes sense they would need to know that information in order to help them do their job, their job being to protect Canadians.

Thank you.

We had some desire on the part of members of Parliament to extract apologies and to extract information that you're not prepared—or some of you don't feel disposed—to give, and that's because there have been two exhaustive judicial investigations into these matters that we're discussing today, matters that occurred under a previous government. But would I not be correct—and I am throwing this out to all three of you—in saying it really doesn't matter who the government was at the time? Any Canadian government would never knowingly wish to infringe on anyone's human rights or knowingly instruct their agencies to do that. However, in the course of their business, sometimes agencies make errors or mistakes, and we have recourse to civil litigation. Would I not be correct in saying that we wouldn't want to score any political points when we're dealing with things that occurred under other governments or even this government, that we just want to get to the bottom of things and make things right? Would that not be what your agencies want to do?

[Geoffrey O'Brian]

I'm not sure why they're looking at me.

[Voices]

Oh, oh!

[A voice]

You gave the apology.

[Geoffrey O'Brian]

With some caution, because I'm not sure if I want to accept the premise of your question about scoring political points...and of course as a public servant at that point I'm supposed to tug my forelock, if I have one, and hide.

Seriously, I cannot imagine any member of Parliament, any member of the government, any head of any agency, any employee of our agency purposively engaging in something that they knew was going to result in inappropriate treatment for someone. Somehow one gets the idea that if you become an employee of CSIS you suddenly leave and park Canadian values at the door. We are a mosaic of Canadian society. Last week I think in the House our employment equity program was tabled, which I think is fairly impressive. The bottom line is that with those reservations, I agree with you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Garry Breitkreuz]

Ms. Mourani, please.

[Maria Mourani, Bloc, Ahuntsic, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you for being here today, gentlemen.

Mr. O'Brian, I would like to continue along your lines. You say you can't imagine that staff at your agency deliberately mistreated a Canadian citizen. I'd like to know your opinion on the examination of the young Omar Khadr, who was taken to Guantanamo in 2003. The images of that interrogation that we saw last summer on the Internet show CSIS employees and a Foreign Affairs employee asking him questions about faith, that is Islam, and about Al-Qaeda members. He was asked whether he had met any. As he was 16 years old, one may assume that he had met them at the age of approximately 10. That young man showed injuries below his sweater.

[Dave MacKenzie, Conservative, Oxford, ON]

On a point of order, Mr. Chair, we're still talking about these reports. We're not talking about what's going on with the United States. This is about the O'Connor and Iacobucci reports. I don't know how this has gone off.

[The Chair, Conservative, Garry Breitkreuz]

Just a brief explanation, Ms. Mourani.

[Maria Mourani, Bloc, Ahuntsic, QC]

I'll continue. That young man said he had lost an eye and his feet. The Federal Court of Canada—so we're not in the United States—found that he had been tortured by American guards. We taxpayers paid for the salaries, plane tickets and travel of the CSIS employees. I'd like to know whether you think there was an appearance of torture. When they arrived at the site of the interrogation, did they see that that young man, a Canadian citizen—

[The Chair, Conservative, Garry Breitkreuz]

How does that relate? I asked you to relate this to the study that we're doing. Could you explain how this relates to what we're studying?

[Maria Mourani, Bloc, Ahuntsic, QC]

I'm talking about torture, Mr. Chairman. I'm going to come to my question, if you'll allow me. I've been interrupted three or four times. My question is this: does the Canadian Security Intelligence Service still use information obtained under torture?

[Dave MacKenzie, Conservative, Oxford, ON]

Point of order. I'm not sure the member understands.

[Maria Mourani, Bloc, Ahuntsic, QC]

Look, Mr. Chairman, we're talking about torture here.

[The Chair, Conservative, Garry Breitkreuz]

Mr. MacKenzie, please finish your point of order.

[Dave MacKenzie, Conservative, Oxford, ON]

Mr. Chair, the point of order is we're dealing with these particular two inquiries. The member is off to some other area that has nothing to do with the two reports we're dealing with. I'm not sure any part of that has anything to do with these reports. That's what this committee is supposed to examine. That's what we should be doing. If she wants to go on some other sort of a fishing trip, that's one thing, but she should stick to the matters at hand.

[The Chair, Conservative, Garry Breitkreuz]

Ms. Mourani, can you explain how this relates to the O'Connor and Iacobucci reports?

[Maria Mourani, Bloc, Ahuntsic, QC]

Mr. Chairman, we want to clarify one point; we want to talk about the use of information obtained through torture. That's also part of these reports. I don't understand what the problem is if I cite another example to arrive at the same point. We're constantly told that we can't talk about specific cases.

[The Chair, Conservative, Garry Breitkreuz]

Okay, we'll continue, but we're really running out of time here.

[Maria Mourani, Bloc, Ahuntsic, QC]

I'll cite another case because I can't talk about those that are currently before the courts. I'll cite another example of information obtained through torture. You have to know what you want. We can't talk about current cases, so I cite another example, and you tell me that won't work. It works; we're talking about torture, and we want to know whether the agencies dealing with public security use information obtained by torture. I'll cite another example.

[The Chair, Conservative, Garry Breitkreuz]

Just a minute. With all due respect to our witnesses, they probably are unable to comment on specific cases—

[Maria Mourani, Bloc, Ahuntsic, QC]

Oh, Mr. Chairman!