Afghanistan Committee on April 21st, 2010

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

You have 30 seconds for final comments.

[Bob Dechert, Conservative, Mississauga—Erindale, ON]

In terms of elected Canadian officials in 2005, who would have known about the terms of the arrangement before it was signed? Who do you think would have overseen it?

Do you think the Minister of Defence at the time and the Minister of Foreign Affairs at the time would have known about the terms? Would they also have known what the British and Dutch were doing?

[David Sproule]

I'm pretty sure the Minister of Defence would have been familiar with the agreement we were about to enter into. After all, his Chief of the Defence Staff signed the agreement on behalf of Canada. Our ministers are always carefully briefed about issues at that level of importance.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Thank you very much.

That pretty well concludes our time. We were scheduled to go until 5:15.

I certainly want to thank you for your testimony today.

I think it was very well expressed by all parties and all members of this committee that we want to thank you for your service to your country. I can only imagine receiving a phone call that would say you're being transferred and you're going to Afghanistan.

On behalf of Canada and on behalf of the government, we want to thank you for your service in a very difficult part of the world. We thank you not only for your service to Canada, but for your contribution to peace and democracy building.

The other thing I would like to mention is that you sometimes may have felt you didn't get the chance to fully answer a question within the time that was allocated. If you ever want to submit another answer to supplement what you have already stated or to add other information, our committee would certainly welcome it.

Thank you very much.

We're going to suspend for one minute. We will then move to committee business, which will be in public, and we'll entertain a couple of motions from Mr. Hawn and Mr. Bachand.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

I call the meeting back to order.

At the conclusion of most of these meetings, the committee generally has an opportunity to thank our witnesses for their testimony. They're doing that right now.

But we do want to move to committee business. The bells will start ringing in about 15 minutes to notify us of a number of votes this evening.

Mr. Harris.

[Jack Harris, NDP, St. John's East, NL]

I have a point of order, sir. At our last meeting, a document was presented through the witness. There was a point of order raised that the document should be given to the committee. The clerk of the committee indeed contacted us afterwards and asked for a copy to be distributed to the committee. I indicated through staff that I wanted to raise this before the committee and discuss it before anything was done with it.

The document was not translated in both official languages, but I would perceive it to be a document that members of the committee would not want to have tabled in public. It contains information that I am satisfied would have been blacked out if it had been received from the government through a normal transaction.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Mr. Harris, I'm going to let you continue, but I will remind you that we are not in camera. We're in a public meeting.

[Jack Harris, NDP, St. John's East, NL]

I understand. I'm not going to say anything.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Thank you.

[Jack Harris, NDP, St. John's East, NL]

I appreciate that, Chair.

For example, it lists in the document the names and dates for all the individuals who were arrested. It details the search and indicates the ammunition, weapons, etc., found in various places. I'm satisfied that would be regarded by the military as being of operational importance and they would not want it to be disclosed. It has other information that I'm satisfied would not be in the interests of this committee to have disclosed.

I have a suggestion. I'd be happy to hear what others have to say about this. As members well know, in my question of privilege, I put forth the notion that the committee should be instructed to develop a procedure to receive the type of evidence that we need to know about. When we have uncensored documents such as this one, I really don't want to table it here.

On the other hand, there are things in this document that I put to these witnesses today. There is a statement saying that “based on the above, it's recommended that” so-and-so, so-and-so, etc., “be transferred to the National Directorate of Security, NDS, for further questioning”. That's what it says. I think it's important for us to consider it.

The question is, how do we deal with this document? That's why I'm raising it.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Yes. I thank you very much, Mr. Harris.

When documents are referenced before our committee.... We received a document today from Mr. Bachand, finally, and I'm under the impression it is one that has been tabled in the past. But when a member is working off a document, it's fair for the committee to know what document it is they're working off.

In reference to the document that you bring forward, I look at the document I was given. I guess it would depend on one's definition of “document”, because I see a piece of paper with writing on it, and information on it, translated into our other official language, but there is no letterhead and there is nothing else that would give one to believe this was any official document.

And therein lies a problem. We're quoting from a piece of paper with accusations, allegations, with a bunch of writing, and we're holding it up as if it is some official type of document. You know, that's--

[Jack Harris, NDP, St. John's East, NL]

I understand that, sir, but with respect, let me tell you that I have practised law for 30 years and the procedure for introducing documents in court--and this is not a court--is that if the witness cannot identify a document or cannot say anything about the document, then that's the end of the story. But if the witness recognizes the document...and in this case it was a detainee transfer report and he said he had translated dozens of them and he identified it. If the document is identified, then you can introduce it as an exhibit. Now--

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Well, that's fine, except this isn't--

[Jack Harris, NDP, St. John's East, NL]

--it wasn't translated in two official language, and there was this other problem with it, so it wasn't done that way. So the question is, what do we do with it now? I agree that what you saw was only the quote that was read into the record so everyone knew what was being read into the record. But he did identify this document as a detainee transfer document.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

It makes it very difficult to go back and really assess whether or not it is an official document. I mean, papers are running around all over the place, but to reference something as a document, or an official document, to give one the idea that is a highly official document, and then just see a piece of paper with writing on it, it's tough.

I'm going to go to Mr. Rae on this point of order. I think it is a legitimate point of order. Then we'll come back to Mr. Dechert.

[Bob Rae, Liberal, Toronto Centre, ON]

I don't want to prolong the discussion, because I know there are other motions. I just think that what's different about this and a court or whatever is that other members are entitled to see a document that's being shown to a witness. We have to be able to ask the witness questions. We have to be able to assess the credibility of the witness. Whoever introduces a document may ask us to read the first three sentences and then forget to read the last seven sentences, which say something different. We have to see the whole document, and that's the principle, I think.

I usually agree with the chairman and I think the chairman's rule is the right one. If you're going to introduce a document, you have to show it to everybody so everybody can see what it is, and then the witness can say this is what it is. Otherwise, we're in the dark. On this one, I think what we need to do, frankly, if you're concerned about the information in the document, then before you share it with the rest of us, you should redact it yourself. How's that?

[Some hon. members]

Oh, oh!

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

All right. Thank you very much.

Mr. Dechert.

[Bob Dechert, Conservative, Mississauga—Erindale, ON]

Mr. Chair, just quickly, I want to reiterate that I concur with your decision on this. I also agree with what Mr. Rae just said.

Directly in response to what Mr. Harris said, my recollection is--and I think that if you check the record you'll find this--what Mr. Malgarai said last week was that “I don't necessarily recognize that document, I don't know if that's a document I translated, I just translated things like that”. That was my recollection of what he said. He did not identify that specific document.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Yes, we do have the quote here: “...I don't know if this is a document at all”. He was asked, “Did you translate this document?” He replied, “I might have. I have translated similar documents to this”. And then I questioned, “But did you translate this document?” He replied, “I can't tell for sure if I did or not”.

[Bob Dechert, Conservative, Mississauga—Erindale, ON]

No court would accept that.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

I think that solves that.

Go ahead, Mr. Harris.

[Jack Harris, NDP, St. John's East, NL]

It solves it in this sense. I raised it as a point of order because the clerk had asked for a copy of the document and I didn't think it was right and proper for me to pass the document to the clerk for distribution to the committee because of the contents of the document.

I'm not seeking to put it before the committee at this particular point. We wanted the witness to comment on it. I'm satisfied that the witness has given testimony to the committee that this was the kind of document and this phrase appears there.

When we get uncensored documents from the ministers involved, then we'll be able to have a procedure to deal with that, and we may even want to present it again. But I just wanted to raise it because I wasn't willing to pass the document over and I'm not seeking to do so now.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

All right. Thank you.

Mr. Hawn, quickly on that.

[Laurie Hawn, Conservative, Edmonton Centre, AB]

I have a very quick question. It may sound cheeky, but it is not totally intended to be cheeky.

I would be curious as to where you got an uncensored document that apparently contains classified national security information.