Public Safety committee  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.

Public Safety committee  The simple truth is that I don't know all of the details of that. What I can say is we have agreements that are in three parts: there is an agreement to exchange information for security intelligence purposes; there are agreements for security screening purposes; and then there are technical exchanges that we do.

Public Safety committee  No. Excuse me. I'm sorry--

Public Safety committee  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?

Public Safety committee  Perhaps if I can try to wrap it up--

Public Safety committee  --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?

Public Safety committee  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.

Public Safety committee  Yes, it would be.

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

Public Safety committee  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.

Public Safety committee  I'll do that, because, frankly, that is, if I may say, slightly above my pay grade.

Public Safety committee  I am pausing because I am, frankly, listening to the held breath of a number of government lawyers, with whom we have all sat down and.... I do in some ways apologize, because it's not an easy position. But the fact is that three individuals are suing the government and individual agencies for several hundred million dollars.

Public Safety committee  Yes, thank you. I think it's terribly important, in terms of context, to understand that this world of review is with us all the time. It isn't a question of going along and being found out and then suddenly having to adjust. It's a constant thing. When I was trying to prepare for this today, one of the things I found, which frankly surprised me, was that this year's SIRC report, which I think was tabled in the House two months ago, talking about our operational policy, notes that in 2007 and 2008--those are the years they are reporting--CSIS revised and/or published over 140 policies.

Public Safety committee  No, I don't think so. We attempt to describe individuals in lots of circumstances, depending on the status of the investigation. If it's early in an investigation, we may be simply seeking information. If it's later in an investigation, we may be able to come up with an assessment, and we will do so.

Public Safety committee  I'm sorry I'm having slight difficulty understanding exactement quelle question vous avez posée. Is it simply an issue of yes, we have access to CPIC and the criminal database, which all police officers and a number of investigative agencies in the country do have? When we exchange information with the United States, if there is a reason to exchange information and if there is a reason to give the details about an individual that would assist us, we would do that, and that might include the criminal record of that person.