Information & Ethics Committee on May 17th, 2007

[The Chair, Liberal, Tom Wappel]

You have a good sense of timing.

I'm going to call on Mr. Tilson and give him a full five minutes.

I want to remind the committee that we're coming up to the two-hour mark, as we talked about with Mr. Martin. This is very interesting testimony. If either witness can stay longer and it is the will of the committee, we could proceed or simply call it a day, bearing in mind that we've been going at it non-stop for seven hours. Given the testimony, I'm willing to put that question after I hear from Mr. Tilson and give him his full five minutes.

If there are no points of order, I'd like to go to Mr. Tilson, and then we'll deal with what I've just said.

Mr. Tilson.

[David Tilson, Conservative, Dufferin—Caledon, ON]

Thank you.

Professor Attaran, can you tell us the date that you requested, under the Access to Information Act, the report that's before us, which is the Foreign Affairs report entitled “Afghanistan 2006: Good Governance, Democratic Development and Human Rights”?

[Prof. Amir Attaran]

That was in the chronology I gave in my main testimony. Just to reiterate, I requested it first on January 24 and--bear with me, please--March 29 was the second request, yes.

[David Tilson, Conservative, Dufferin—Caledon, ON]

Can you give us the precise wording? Do you have your application with you? Can you give us the exact wording that you gave? On both those dates.

[Prof. Amir Attaran]

Yes, all that correspondence has been given to the clerk.

[David Tilson, Conservative, Dufferin—Caledon, ON]

Could you tell me, sir? I don't have that.

[Prof. Amir Attaran]

Yes. Bear with me, please.

Why don't I read my January 24 letter to you?

[David Tilson, Conservative, Dufferin—Caledon, ON]

I'm interested as to what your report says you asked for, sir.

[Prof. Amir Attaran]

Yes, that's in it.

[David Tilson, Conservative, Dufferin—Caledon, ON]

I don't need a whole letter.

[The Chair, Liberal, Tom Wappel]

Go ahead.

[Prof. Amir Attaran]

Yes?

[The Chair, Liberal, Tom Wappel]

Yes. It's short.

[Prof. Amir Attaran]

This is a letter to Jocelyne Sabourin:

Dear Madam:

Pursuant to the Access to Information Act, I enclose five dollars and request the following:

Please provide copies of DFAIT's annual human rights reports from 2001 to the most recent for these countries: 1) Afghanistan, and 2) the United States of America. I am aware from the report of the Arar Commission

--and I cite a specific page--

that DFAIT has released such annual human rights reports in the past to the Canadian NGO community and request that consideration.

With thanks for your kind assistance,

And it's signed by me.

[The Chair, Liberal, Tom Wappel]

We do have that, Mr. Tilson. It will be duly translated.

[Prof. Amir Attaran]

That was the first request.

[David Tilson, Conservative, Dufferin—Caledon, ON]

Yes.

[Prof. Amir Attaran]

The second request of March 29 I don't have the original request with me here, so I'm going to read from the confirmation I got back from DFAIT. And I trust their confirmation is verbatim accurate, but if it is not, that would be the reason. On that occasion, I requested as follows: “Please furnish the DFAIT human rights report on Afghanistan entitled 'Afghanistan 2006: Good Governance, Democratic Development and Human Rights'”.

[David Tilson, Conservative, Dufferin—Caledon, ON]

That was March 29.

Mr. Esau, can you give me the same information?

[Jeff Esau]

Again?

[David Tilson, Conservative, Dufferin—Caledon, ON]

Yes.

[Jeff Esau]

Sure. On March 14, they received my request that was worded: “A copy of DFAIT's 2005-2006 annual or semi-annual report or the 2006-2007, if it has been drafted, on human rights performances in countries around the world.”

[David Tilson, Conservative, Dufferin—Caledon, ON]

Did you request a report on March 7?

[Jeff Esau]

No.

[David Tilson, Conservative, Dufferin—Caledon, ON]

Okay. My final question is to Mr. Attaran.

You indicated that certain individuals in departments told you they saw the report. Is that the clean report or is that the report with blacked-out portions?