Evidence of meeting #48 for Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics in the 39th Parliament, 1st session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was amendment.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Tom Wappel
Is that question for a particular person, Monsieur Vincent, or for both witnesses?
Prof. Amir Attaran
The document was disclosed to me, censored, in the process that I described, the timeline that I gave. Do you have a specific question on that timeline?
Bloc
Robert Vincent Bloc Shefford, QC
Who benefited from censoring this document? If subsection 15(1) in no way applies to this report, as you say, who would have benefited from hiding all this information? For what reason would such information be kept from the public or the committee?
Prof. Amir Attaran
I believe I'm not saying anything surprising in saying that the topic of detainees and their treatment in Afghanistan has been an oft-discussed one lately, certainly within the last couple of months, and one that has generated a great deal of public attention. I would also not be saying anything surprising in that much of that discussion has been embarrassing to the government. It is entirely possible that a political motivation exists to prevent the disclosure of a statement by Canada's own diplomats that torture is all too common in Afghanistan at the same time as Canada is transferring detainees to Afghanistan. I believe that would be the political motivation.
I do not have specific proof that it is occurring. That is the work of this committee to discover, and possibly the Information Commissioner as well, and I look forward to seeing what the results are.
Bloc
Robert Vincent Bloc Shefford, QC
The Information Commissioner told us that it wasn't him but rather the minister or the Prime Minister who had the final say on what was blacked out. If there was, in the minister's mind, a paragraph to which subsection 15(1) should not apply and the minister decided that it did apply, it was automatically blacked out and there was nothing else to be said. What do you think?
Prof. Amir Attaran
That could well be the case. I'm not aware of what happened. Obviously a requester is never aware of the deliberations that take place within government about what shall and what shall not be released under the Access to Information Act. From the requester's perspective, it's a black box; we insert the request at one end, and documents--in this case very heavily and, I think, inappropriately censored documents--emerge at the other end. What goes on in the black box is not something I am privy to, but I trust this committee can inquire into that capably.
Bloc
Carole Lavallée Bloc Saint-Bruno—Saint-Hubert, QC
I have two minutes left. So I want to quickly ask some questions.
First, when we see the dedication, resources, time and energy invested by the Conservatives today and previously to prevent us from doing this, it is clear they have something to hide.
The fact that the clause was not indicated next to the censored passages and that subsection 15(1) was invoked, clearly shows that it doesn't apply.
I would like a quick answer, because I have three or four other questions to ask. My question is for each of you. Are you convinced, yes or no, that illegal actions were taken?
Bloc
Prof. Amir Attaran
Whether illegal actions were committed or not is appropriately the subject of a criminal investigation and, if the investigation reveals serious allegations, in turn, a prosecution.
Doing those things is obviously the work of others, but what I can say is that I strongly believe that some of the actions taken by persons--and I do not know who--who processed both my request and Mr. Esau's request amount to the criminal concealment of information under section 67.1 of the act. It will require a criminal investigation to bear out whether my hypothesis is correct or wrong. I do not know, but I do believe an investigation is merited based on what we know at the moment.
Liberal
Conservative
Dave Van Kesteren Conservative Chatham-Kent—Essex, ON
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
And thank you, witnesses. Thanks for waiting so long. We apologize for keeping you that long.
Professor, we're glad you heard the call to the brain drain. We just hope we get some more technical people, which is not to minimize what you're doing. We certainly are glad when people of your position and your record make it their goal to come back home and live amongst us and help us. I know that your work is very important.
I think both of you wrapped up in the last minute, and I don't have a whole lot of questions.
Mr. Esau, if I understand this correctly, we have a culture...and you've been at this an awfully long time. You mentioned Somalia. Would it be safe to assume that when somebody from the press sends somebody an access to information request, especially on something sensitive like that, there is someone just going a little squirrelly on the other end? Is that safe to assume?
Conservative
Dave Van Kesteren Conservative Chatham-Kent—Essex, ON
Is it reasonable to expect then that you might just get somebody who is just going overboard and being a little bit too...?
As an Individual
Well, it depends on the direction that they've received. In circumstances in which an issue is big enough and sensitive enough, teams are often formed, and there's an agreement amongst the teams as to what constitutes something to be withheld and what does not. So in other words, the sections of the act get reinterpreted for application at that time and place by those people. Those teams can either be overly officious, if you will, or they can be very much wanting people to see this, wanting this to have absolutely maximum openness and transparency.
But those teams are not built from the bottom. Those teams are given their marching orders from higher up the food chain, if you follow what I'm saying. You can see from the sheer volume that the patterns and the identification of a whole bunch of requests coming in, say, to National Defence about detainees will need to be dealt with in a concerted way. The concerting happens at a higher level--and perhaps with it, directions on what is to be held and what is not. I don't know.
Conservative
Dave Van Kesteren Conservative Chatham-Kent—Essex, ON
Is it the same old, same old? You said that you were involved with ATIP for a long time with the military. Is it the same old, same old--the same kind of culture that exists there? From the other end, do you find not much has changed?
As an Individual
I think that DND has undergone an incredible change at levels that make a difference. I think it's possible to have relapses. I think we're seeing one. I think the detainee issue has precipitated a falling back into some old ways. I can see that from the people I talk to, from the requests I make, from the answers I get, from what I'm seeing coming out of the department.
I don't have as much experience with Foreign Affairs. I suppose I've submitted about a score--15 or 20--requests to DFAIT recently, and what I'm seeing is what I would consider a very liberal use of subsection 15(1). Whether or not that is motivated by something nefarious or whether it's just people being really anal retentive or what, I don't know, but that's the pattern I've been seeing.
This document on Darfur is unreadable.
Conservative
Dave Van Kesteren Conservative Chatham-Kent—Essex, ON
Yes. Somalia was kind of a black eye, I think, for our military.
Conservative
Dave Van Kesteren Conservative Chatham-Kent—Essex, ON
Have we made some great improvement--or should I just say improvement, you can tell me whether it's great improvement—in the military in that respect? The mistakes we made, have we learned from those?
As an Individual
Absolutely. For National Defence, there are a lot of really good news stories.
I look at the way things were conducted at all different levels in missions like Somalia, and some of the missions in Bosnia, in the early nineties and mid-nineties, and the support that the soldiers got, and then I look at today, and there's a big difference. But I'm not sure the difference is at the higher level--I don't mean within the military, I mean within the governing elite--as to how we want to....
The DND public affairs people are driving people nuts over in Afghanistan because they're letting the reporters go everywhere. I've written stories about just how open they're trying to be over there. I don't want to be seen to be trying to kick something that's down. I think there's a good news story, and I want to help tell it.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Tom Wappel
Thank you.
While this is all very interesting, this is the access to information committee, not the defence committee. I'd like members to confine their questions to access to information issues, and the witnesses to confine their answers to those, except insofar as an example might be raised to discuss access to information evidence.
We now go to Mr. Martin.
NDP
Pat Martin NDP Winnipeg Centre, MB
Mr. Chairman, let me say I recognize the pattern of denial that Mr. Van Kesteren was trying to establish here. He was going for the rogue bureaucrat theory that the Liberals used to try in the sponsorship scandal, saying, isn't it possible that the ATIP coordinator was just a little bit over-zealous or used an abundance of caution? However, the testimony we've heard is that these expert witnesses, at least one of them, believe there was political interference, which is a much different thing.
Mr. Esau—