Public Safety Committee on March 5th, 2009

[Brent Rathgeber, Conservative, Edmonton—St. Albert, AB]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Garry Breitkreuz]

We'll go over to the Bloc Québécois now.

Ms. Mourani.

[Maria Mourani, Bloc, Ahuntsic, QC]

It is Mr. Ménard's turn.

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

I will ask the first question and Mrs. Mourani will ask the others.

I imagine that you are very familiar with your legislation and the recommendations of the commissions that dealt with you. Which recommendations ask for legislative change that has not yet been made?

[Paul E. Kennedy]

If in reference to myself, because the work falls under the rubric of national security and therefore is classified—for instance, have they put procedures in place dealing with disclosure of information, and has there been adherence by them to those procedures—by definition, since the material is national security, you can't get in the door to look at it. So I would say in that area I've told you I can't give you any assurances. I can't, because I can't get in there unless they decide to open up their doors and waive all the privilege. So the answer is nothing; I can't look at any. Therefore, I need the power, and the power has to be access as of right to all information, and they cannot claim any privilege to stop it, whether it's national security, defence, or foreign affairs. The only thing I think should be...cabinet confidence.

But as long as they can claim a privilege, I cannot tell you I've looked at everything and I cannot tell you they've put those things in place and are respecting things that are in place.

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

I am not sure that you understood my question correctly. Which legislative changes suggested by the two commissions of enquiry have not yet been made and should have been? What changes to the act should we make?

[Paul E. Kennedy]

None.

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

None?

[Paul E. Kennedy]

Clearly, no legislative changes. My act has been the same act since 1988.

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

I would have thought that you wanted the power to investigate RCMP national security activities.

[Paul E. Kennedy]

I would like the power. I don't want a separate power of national security. I think everything falls in one power. You don't separate national security; it's all part of what they do. Every activity they do should be subject to our review. By the way, just to clarify the record, there's one reference that linked to my colleague on the Canadian border enforcement agency as well. O'Connor indicated they should be subject to the same review as the RCMP, which is the same body, because they are peace officers under section 2 of the Criminal Code and they enforce the law as well.

[Maria Mourani, Bloc, Ahuntsic, QC]

Good morning, everyone. Thank you for being here. I want to ask two quick questions

Ms. Pollack, you have conducted a number of investigations into the Canadian Security Intelligence Service. I would like to know if that service has used, uses, or plans to use information obtained by torture inflicted during interrogations? Is that kind of information reliable in terms of analyzing national security?

Also, the New York Times and La Presse have been quoted as saying that CIA airplanes carrying prisoners from secret CIA prisons have apparently landed on Canadian soil. No one knows much about what happened; it is all rather vague.

In your investigations, has this information been brought to your attention? Have you any more information for us about that, or is it an urban myth?

[Susan Pollak]

I'll deal with the latter question first. We've never seen any information to suggest that anything of this sort has been happening here.

As for the first question, related to information obtained through torture, there is a decision that has been rendered by a member of this committee in the context of a complaint that was made, in which it was determined that at times, yes, CSIS does use information that was obtained through torture and that their overriding focus in doing so.... Obviously they do so in the context of investigating threats to the security of Canada. That's the first point to make.

Secondly, however, the deciding member identified the fact that rather than simply being concerned about the reliability of such information, which, as most of us will recognize, can be notoriously unreliable because of the circumstances in which it is obtained, CSIS should be more attentive to its obligations under the Canadian charter and Canada's obligations under various UN conventions prohibiting torture.

It has been identified as an issue and a concern. It's one of those very difficult questions.

[The Chair, Conservative, Garry Breitkreuz]

Thank you very much.

Mr. MacKenzie, please.

[Dave MacKenzie, Conservative, Oxford, ON]

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you to the committee.

My friend, Mr. Ménard, mentioned the no-fly list. Just for clarification, we do not have anything called a no-fly list in Canada. My understanding is that ours is Passenger Protect. I also understand that in the instances Mr. Ménard is speaking of, that probably did relate to a no-fly list held by another country as opposed to Passenger Protect in Canada.

I'm not sure, Ms. Pollak, if your agency has any connection to that, because it's under Transport. I'm not sure if the suggestion that there are numerous complaints does fit the Canadian equivalency for similar legislation.

[Susan Pollak]

You're correct in the terminology. It's known as the Passenger Protect list. It is a list administered by Transport Canada.

As Ms. Roussel explained, people can complain to SIRC if they believe that the reason they're on that list relates to information that has been provided to Transport Canada by CSIS. They would use section 41 of the act.

[Dave MacKenzie, Conservative, Oxford, ON]

CSIS would be one of the agencies that may very well provide that information to Transport Canada.

[Susan Pollak]

That's correct.

[Dave MacKenzie, Conservative, Oxford, ON]

In extension of that, have you had complaints?

[Susan Pollak]

We have had some complaints, but I can't go into any details.

[Dave MacKenzie, Conservative, Oxford, ON]

That's fair.

I noticed, Mr. Kennedy, that you also were shaking your head.

[Paul E. Kennedy]

Yes, because I remember when that was being developed and talking to Transport at the time, and what's happened is that we have had no complaints either. I guess the challenge is that you go to Transport and you don't know where you got it from and what they're acting upon, but they're told, obviously, at some stage, that if they have a problem to go to us or to SIRC.

[Dave MacKenzie, Conservative, Oxford, ON]

I think there is a mechanism there, but frequently our agencies get tagged with what's going on in other countries, particularly in the press, because the issues get crossed if you're watching American news. Some Canadians may even be on another country's no-fly list. That's not our doing. That's obviously the airline's responsibility, who gets on their aircraft.

I think it's worthwhile clarifying for Canadians that we do not have the no-fly list. The former Minister of Defence, Mr. Graham, said that he had problems going through airports, and I never indicated he was on a no-fly list. That was not our doing; it was another country's.

I sense a total difference in the two agencies. Mr. Kennedy's agency is set up as a complaints body to investigate complaints, but it would like to go beyond that, and the SIRC body was set up with a different role. There seems, to me at least, to be a clash of corporate personalities, if you will, between the two agencies: one feels they have the tools to do the job and the other would like to expand.

To me, Mr. Kennedy's vision would go beyond what a police complaints body is to do and move into another area. In many respects I can see the suggestion that SIRC be expanded, because if we talk about all of those other agencies, they do cross a number of things, and probably from the perspective of internationalism, the SIRC body is the natural body--if it's to be expanded in some way--to do those things.

I'm wondering, Ms. Pollack, from your knowledge of what occurs in other countries--and you've explained that many of them are parliamentary committees and so on--could you tell me if there's anybody out there who has something that we are suggesting or that has been suggested that is significantly different from what we do.

[Susan Pollak]

I'm not sure if I understand the last part of the question. What do you mean by “significantly different”?

[Dave MacKenzie, Conservative, Oxford, ON]

Well, I think you indicated that SIRC is a model that other countries perhaps were ahead of or different from. If we were to combine the suggestions we've heard and what Mr. Kennedy is suggesting, do you know if any other body out there would be like that, or would that be somewhat unique in the world that we live in?