Information & Ethics Committee on May 29th, 2007

[Carole Lavallée, Bloc, Saint-Bruno—Saint-Hubert, QC]

We're talking about Mr. Attaran's file, about his access to information request. We were at the following stage: Ms. Jennifer Nixon had sent the request to the Human Rights Division. It was done through anonymous e-mail, but supposedly an administrative assistant took care of this. That individual—I imagine we'll find out the name eventually—passed it on to another individual whose name I'm asking you for.

[Jocelyne Sabourin]

The e-mail was sent to the general mailbox because that's how these things are done. Under our process, directors and directors general are responsible for gathering and providing the documents that are relevant to the request.

We received the documents from the program. This file, meanwhile—

[Carole Lavallée, Bloc, Saint-Bruno—Saint-Hubert, QC]

I'm sorry. Who sent you the documents? You said that you received them from the program.

[Jocelyne Sabourin]

We received the relevant documents from the director.

[Carole Lavallée, Bloc, Saint-Bruno—Saint-Hubert, QC]

What is her name?

[Jocelyne Sabourin]

Her name is Gwyn Kutz.

[Carole Lavallée, Bloc, Saint-Bruno—Saint-Hubert, QC]

Fine. Thank you.

[Jocelyne Sabourin]

Thus we received the documents and they were passed on to Gary Switzer for his consideration. He examined the documents, he—

[Carole Lavallée, Bloc, Saint-Bruno—Saint-Hubert, QC]

At that point in time the report was not censored. You received the report in it entirety. Fine.

[Jocelyne Sabourin]

We examined it. The program makes some observations and recommendations with respect to the sensitivity of the documents or the content of the documents and we then take those comments into consideration when we are doing our examination.

[Carole Lavallée, Bloc, Saint-Bruno—Saint-Hubert, QC]

Was Mr. Switzer responsible for censoring?

[Jocelyne Sabourin]

Mr. Switzer made a recommendation to me with respect to that document.

[Carole Lavallée, Bloc, Saint-Bruno—Saint-Hubert, QC]

You haven't provided us with any dates for each of these requests. I would like to make an official request that you write to us again and provide us with a calendar including the date on which you received your request, who you sent these to and what the outcome was.

At first, you did not respond to Mr. Attaran. Between January 27 and the time he laid his complaint with the Information Commissioner, I do not know what you were doing but he feels that you were refusing to respond, that you had told him that the document did not exist. Under the act, when you do not respond, that is equivalent to saying that the document does not exist. You look like an experienced woman, you're familiar with the Access to Information Act. Can you explain why you did not respond?

[Jocelyne Sabourin]

Thank you very much for the question. Ms. Thomsen referred to this at the beginning of her opening remarks, that is, that the department was having difficulty in meeting the deadlines contained within the act.

[Carole Lavallée, Bloc, Saint-Bruno—Saint-Hubert, QC]

That was in 2006, not in 2007. You said that you were managing to respond in time to 80% of requests.

[Jocelyne Sabourin]

We did achieve 80%, which is very good, because that means we answered in—

[Carole Lavallée, Bloc, Saint-Bruno—Saint-Hubert, QC]

It is not very good. The act requires that you respond in a timely manner to 100% of the inquiries, Ms. Sabourin. A figure of 80% is not good. The act requires a response rate of 100% within the prescribed time limits. So you should stop smiling and congratulating yourselves.

[Jocelyne Sabourin]

May I continue?

[Carole Lavallée, Bloc, Saint-Bruno—Saint-Hubert, QC]

Please do.

[Jocelyne Sabourin]

Thank you.

It is true that there is room for improvement. Mr. Attaran's request was probably part of the 20% for which my office was unable to provide an answer in time.

So I acknowledge that we did not measure up in the case of this request. I would like to apologize publicly to Mr. Attaran for the delay in processing this request. I cannot give you any other reason for it.

[Carole Lavallée, Bloc, Saint-Bruno—Saint-Hubert, QC]

Have you—

[The Chair, Liberal, Tom Wappel]

Thank you, Ms. Lavallée, your eight minutes are up.

Mr. Martin.

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I will try to build off the previous questions of my colleagues and not be repetitious, but I am puzzled about why you didn't come here with complete files and records on both of these inquiries. You delayed your presence here by two weeks so that you would have time to prepare. Our argument at the time was.... And I was very frustrated that you said no to our invitation to attend, because frankly, it doesn't take a lot of preparation to tell the truth about what happened.

I'm very frustrated that now, two weeks later, you're not here with the very files that we're asking questions about, because I have specific questions about specific dates. Now I don't know how to go about this.

Let me just summarize what our problem is here. Time after time after time, the Minister of Foreign Affairs and the Minister of National Defence stood up in the House of Commons and denied any knowledge of any Afghan detainees being mistreated or tortured. Over and over again, “we have no knowledge of that”, “we have no record of that”, “nobody ever told us of any prisoners being treated badly or we wouldn't have handed them over to the Afghans”. That's what our frustration is.

Then we learn that for five consecutive years in a row they were getting very specific information that extrajudicial executions, disappearances, torture, and detention without trial have been a consistent problem, from 2002, 2003, 2004. So they were lying to us.

So you can't blame us for thinking that this information from the access to information was blacked out to save embarrassment to the government--nothing to do with national security. That's what's going through our minds here, and that's what our frustration is.

So my question is, list for me again the names of the people who would have contributed first to denying the existence of the reports at all, and secondly, who helped you black out which lines and choose the excuses. List all of them, all of those names. And I wish you had your files here because you probably would have it documented in those files. I can see you writing in a foolscap notebook now. But tell us, please, to the best of your recollection, who was involved with blacking out these paragraphs and the misinformation that no such documents exist.

[Jocelyne Sabourin]

First of all, I'd like to say for the record that we did get an access to information request dealing with the 2006 Afghan reports and the other human rights reports, and that we did not deny the existence of the human rights reports in Afghanistan. They were all duly processed.

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Excuse me. As a point of clarification, on what date did the office of primary interest notify you that these documents existed? Can you tell me the date that you received information back from the office of primary interest?