Public Safety committee  I can say a lot of things, but I want to be relevant.

Public Safety committee  It was 1984. The McDonald commission report was in 1981, and then it took a while for the government to respond. There was a change of government in 1984, actually. I think they started working under the Trudeau government from 1980 to 1984 and then Mr. Mulroney came in in 1984 and the legislation was finally passed.

Public Safety committee  I would like to add that when I was president of the International Centre for Human Rights, at one point I was trying to convince the Peruvian government, under Fujimori at that time, to make some improvements in human rights, and his officials came back to me saying, “You're not doing this in Canada, so don't preach to us.”

Public Safety committee  If I remember correctly, we had set up the Marin commission to basically deal with the complaints of men in the force and some of the practices being used for discipline against the men. It's 30 years now. I'm more up to date on these recent cases. We had good results with the Marin commission, and we also brought into being, with the consent of the men across Canada and the women in the force, the “div rep” system, which allowed for some negotiation on issues the rank and file were concerned with.

Public Safety committee  They includued the RCMP, the National Parole Board, the Canadian Penitentiary Service, the Security Service of the RCMP, because—

Public Safety committee  It was before CSIS. Of course, I was four years as Solicitor General, and I saw mistakes then by the security service, mislabelling mistakes and so on. I could tell a lot of stories to the committee of personal instances when we ran into problems of mislabelling and so on. We tried to correct them, but that was a different period of time.

Public Safety committee  No. The big call in those days, when I was Solicitor General, was for the potential unionization of the RCMP. We spent several years on it. There was a strong push, especially by the RCMP in Ontario. The big issues in the RCMP were for unionization. We finally set up, when I was Solicitor General, the “div rep” system.

Public Safety committee  The question you ask is related to an understanding of the religious practices of different religious groups in Canada, particularly Muslims. Judge O'Connor said that the A-O Canada group that was investigating was not properly trained and did not have the experience to do the investigation for this type of work.

Public Safety committee  O'Connor did not find that, and he looked at everything. He found, for example, once A-O Canada had labelled Mr. Arar and his wife as extremist Islamists associated with al-Qaeda, and that information was shipped to the United States, the Americans receiving the shared information relied on it.

Public Safety committee  The agency that's been proposed for review by Judge O'Connor would do two things: it would receive complaints and investigate them, and it would have the power to initiate audits. I agree with Alex that the agency's being there with full powers would have a deterrent effect. As Shirley Heafey pointed out, in Calgary, because the police know that they are so ineffective, they cooperate and they have a high approval rating.

Public Safety committee  Well, no, you need the implementation of the 23 recommendations, plus the comprehensive review body. The International Civil Liberties Monitoring Group, like Amnesty International, proposes something stronger than what O'Connor proposed. We felt they needed a comprehensive oversight review body that could look at any of the agencies that might be involved in joint operations.

Public Safety committee  Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, today I am representing the International Civil Liberties Monitoring Group, a broadly based Canadian coalition that came together after September 11, 2001, to monitor the impact of the new anti-terrorism legislation on human rights and to advocate against abuses.

Public Safety committee  Mr. Chairman, I want to say in answer to Mr. MacKenzie that we support all the human rights in the universal declaration, including the right to life, which is basic. So of course we're against terrorism that would destroy or attack human life. But you don't pick and choose in human rights provisions.

Public Safety committee  I can tell you, as a former Solicitor General, I could give you many other cases in which I received false information. When on checking back later, if I didn't know the individuals that were being targeted, just by chance they would have been denied their rights. So what we need is a system where if you're going to be accused of being a dangerous person, let us see the evidence so that we can respond to it.

Public Safety committee  But it's the type of information that led to his imprisonment in Syria for a year and the torture. It's the type of evidence that's being presented that's not tested. Untested evidence is contrary to our principles in the rule of law.