Information & Ethics Committee on June 19th, 2007

[Sukh Dhaliwal, Liberal, Newton—North Delta, BC]

Did she have the delegated authority to appear on your behalf?

[Leonard Edwards]

Yes, she does.

[Sukh Dhaliwal, Liberal, Newton—North Delta, BC]

You say that she has the delegated authority. What other responsibilities does she have in her executive position?

[Leonard Edwards]

Well, as the head of the ATIP unit in the department, she is responsible for the oversight of the 17 or so analysts. She has management responsibilities to ensure that the ATIP requests are processed in a prompt manner according to the law, that they are handled appropriately in terms of being distributed to the offices of principal interest, and to maintain a system of follow-up and so forth so that these requests are dealt with in accordance with the act. In addition, she does have the delegated authority to make final approvals with respect to redactions that are recommended by those in the office of principal interest.

[Sukh Dhaliwal, Liberal, Newton—North Delta, BC]

So when she came to this committee, she should have been fully prepared. If you say she has the delegated responsibility, then she should have had those dates with her that I had asked for earlier.

[Leonard Edwards]

I was unaware that the committee had asked her to come with such dates. She came with the material she had at the time.

As a result of the request of the committee, these schedules were produced.

[Sukh Dhaliwal, Liberal, Newton—North Delta, BC]

You mentioned something about the global report in your deliberations today.

I'm certain that you have read transcripts of prior meetings where Ms. Sabourin stated that Mr. Esau's request was initially misunderstood because he had asked for a global report. This is not true. He had requested countries around the world....

Could you comment on this, please?

[Leonard Edwards]

Are you referring to request 605, which was submitted on March 13?

[Sukh Dhaliwal, Liberal, Newton—North Delta, BC]

I'm talking about when he requested the human rights report on countries around the world. Ms. Sabourin said at that time that there was no such report.

Could you comment on this? Why was that misunderstood, or was it done intentionally by your department?

[Leonard Edwards]

Well, I think in the context in which the request was read there was an assumption on the part of the department that he was requesting a global report analogous to the reports that are produced in the United States.

[Sukh Dhaliwal, Liberal, Newton—North Delta, BC]

When he requested it, he clearly stated, “countries around the world”.

Do you think your department had some obligation to clarify with him before saying you didn't have any such report?

[Leonard Edwards]

I think the chronology indicates that this was subsequently done and that in the end the requester received the information he was seeking.

[The Chair, Liberal, Tom Wappel]

Three seconds.

[Sukh Dhaliwal, Liberal, Newton—North Delta, BC]

Next round. Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Tom Wappel]

Madame Lavallée.

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

First of all, Mr. Edwards, thank you for coming here. It is really very nice of you to join us. Last week, 33 people were waiting on you. Following that meeting, a Canadian Press wire reported —these are not my words or those of any committee member—that committee members had been “brushed off by Leonard Edwards”. I am not exactly sure of what “brushed off” means here, but I am fairly certain that it is not very good. CP also reported that some committee members likened the experience to “a slap in the face”. I know what that means. I was not the one who made these comments last week. The fact remains, however, that this is what is written in a CP wire story. I have not checked to see if these comments were published. The reporter goes on to say that you apparently said the decision to appear or not before the committee was yours to make. I was rather surprised to read this wire story.

As I said, 33 people were waiting for you to put in an appearance last week. Many felt that your absence showed a lack of courtesy. When I receive a letter from the minister—a letter that the chairman makes an effort to read to us—advising us to be nice to the people he is sending to appear before us, I have to believe that he is projecting his feelings . Do you know what projection is in psychology? It means accusing someone else of actions that oneself is guilty of. That said, as you know, not only did the main witness who testified on May 27 fail to bring along documents, she had not prepared her testimony either. Rather, it seemed she was prepared to tell us that she had nothing to say. Moreover, she has already promised— and I refer you to t pages 14 to 16 of the transcripts of the May 27 meeting—to explain why the word “torture” was censored. I am waiting for a written explanation. I just want you to know that I have yet to receive one. I have checked with the chairman and an explanation has not been provided yet.

In your opening statement, you indicated that last year the department had received a total of 648 requests under the Access to Information Act. According to page 29 of the Information Commissioner's 2006-2007 report, 600 is not an excessively high number of requests. He mentions a relatively low number of requests for consultation, fewer than 600 per year. He also noted that decision-makers are not inclined to really show transparency and that too much discussion within offices delays the processing of the requests.

If we look at the chronology of events associated with Professor Attaran's request as set out by Ms. Sabourin, we see that on April 17, the release package was forwarded to Alain Latulippe in the Minister's office for review before April 20, 2007. On April 23, a full six days later, a response was provided to the requester. That means that the Minister's office had six days to examine the file. In French, the word “examiner” can mean criticize or discuss. What I am saying here is that one could indeed be inclined to think that there was some kind of political interference. You can contrast my statement with that of Ms. Lilian Thomsen who testified to the committee that the Minister's office was informed at the very end of the process. I do not think that six days before providing a response qualifies as the end of the process.

My question for you, sir— because you are the Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs— is as follows: did you read, or see the report drafted by a certain Mr. Bloodworth before it became public? This report contained references to torture. We read in the Globe and Mail how Afghan prisoners were treated. On closer examination, one might be inclined to think that Canada was violating the Geneva Convention. Did you set eyes on this document before it was released to the public?

[The Chair, Liberal, Tom Wappel]

Mr. Edwards, before you answer, just so the record is clear, we were provided with the information that the author was Catherine Bloodworth, who consulted with Rory O'Connor, and the document was approved by Richard Colvin. All of those people are based in Kabul, Afghanistan.

[Leonard Edwards]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

The questioner asked whether I had read the report that was written by Ms. Bloodworth, and my answer is yes, I have read the report. I read it about six weeks ago, subsequent to the filing of the request for access to it. That's the answer to your question.

The issues involved in that report are of course of a confidential nature. I can't engage in a discussion about what that report contains. I can talk about what the redacted version contains, but I can't talk about what the original version contains.

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

Hypothetically then, if a document reporting on the torture of Afghan prisoners had existed and had been submitted by Canada to Afghan authorities, as a general rule, it should not have been passed on so quickly, in keeping with the organization chart, before you had an opportunity to see it and before someone could point out to you that Canada may have violated the Geneva Convention. Is that what you are saying?

[Leonard Edwards]

Mr. Chair, in answering that question I have to say that an assumption is being made by the member of Parliament that Canada is responsible for torture. First of all, I don't think that's an assumption that can go unchallenged, but it's not something I'm here to really talk about.

What happens when these reports come into the department is they are used for various purposes. They are used to inform memos to the government and to the minister with advice on different issues. They are used, as I said, to inform us in coming up with representations and votes at the UN Human Rights Council or UN committees on human rights. They are used to help form positions on government policy.

In that respect, all of the content, whatever that content would be—and you have speculated on what that content might be—would all be filtered into the advice that goes forward to the government.

[The Chair, Liberal, Tom Wappel]

Thank you, Madame Lavallée.

Just so we're clear on this, I think what Madame Lavallée was asking was that if such a report contained information that prisoners who were being controlled by Canada were turned over to authorities and that they subsequently alleged torture, would that report not be brought to your attention immediately?

[Leonard Edwards]

It would be up to the officers involved with the report to bring it to my attention. I would hope they would do so, yes.

[The Chair, Liberal, Tom Wappel]

Thank you.

Go ahead, Mr. Martin.

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

First of all, I'd just like to perhaps frame things, Mr. Edwards. You were asked to come here today. Well, actually, you weren't asked to come here, but people working for you were asked to come here originally. You made up our minds for us that we didn't need to hear from them; we needed to hear from you. I don't like that, personally, and I'll state that for the record. When we call witnesses, you don't get to decide if they have something valuable to share with us. We'll decide that.

Having said that, you're called here today to talk about the administration of and the compliance with the Access to Information Act by DFAIT. Essentially that's what we called you here for.

I hardly know where to start. Let me begin by saying, Mr. Chairman, that it should be common knowledge that day after day after day in the House of Commons opposition party members would ask the Minister of Foreign Affairs and the Minister of National Defence if they had any knowledge of or were aware of any mistreatment of Afghan detainees. In various forms and combinations that question must have been asked 25 times.

Now, your testimony and others' testimony to this committee is or has been, first of all, that no such information exists. That was the original answer given to that question by your department. I have a letter here—actually, testimony of this committee—signed by Jocelyne Sabourin, March 22, to say that “no such report on human rights performance in other countries exists”. Yet another access to information request to the NDP's defence critic, Dawn Black, says clearly that in 2006, DFAIT requested human rights reports from 111 countries. It goes on further to say:

The human rights reports are not normally copied to the Minister of Foreign Affairs, nor is the Minister briefed on their content....

I guess my first question to you then is this. If your minister has been asked 10, 12, 15 times in the House of Commons about the human rights situation of the detainees in Afghanistan, would it not be your job, or somebody in your department, to make him aware of these human rights reports that you've been getting for the last five years? Even if it's not common practice to make him aware of these annual human rights reports citing specific torture of detainees, isn't it your job to make him aware so that he can stand up in the House of Commons and be forthright and honest about what Canada knows?

[Leonard Edwards]

Well, I will go to your first point. When they come in, these reports are not, as you said, made available to the minister. They haven't been drafted with that in mind. They are drafted and prepared to provide information to the department more generally on human rights conditions in countries. Now—