The question you're raising actually should make us all think about the worst-case scenario that Canada has experienced since 9/11, which was the Maher Arar case. It is important that we understand the lessons from that case and other lessons from 9/11. Here we had Canada sharing information with the United States and later on with Syria, which led, according to the commission of inquiry, to Mr. Arar being tortured by Syrian authorities. How can you mitigate that?
First of all, Canada does not have complete control of this issue. Of course that's a question of bilateral relations and bilateral agreements between countries, but Canada can certainly make its position known and prescribed in agreements by making sure that, when Canada shares information with another country, the information to be shared is identified and the purposes for which it is shared are identified, and here I do not mean on a transactional basis. It would be too cumbersome to have agreements on a transactional basis. That's not what we're recommending, but we are recommending that there be umbrella agreements that provide more specificity than the act itself on what type of information in a given context will be shared and for what purpose the information will be shared. That's one set of criteria.
As to potential sharing by the country with which we have an immediate agreement to a third country, that should also be part of the agreement with the second country. It should be provided that, in the case of Mr. Arar, an agreement between Canada and the U.S. would provide that the United States would not be able to share information with a third state unless certain conditions were met. I think that would be an important safeguard.
Will the United States or a second country always comply with this agreement? Well, that's a question of bilateral arrangements between countries. Normally, in these situations, countries try to live by their commitments. Is there an absolute guarantee that this would be so? No, but normally these commitments are agreed to, so it would be important, in an agreement like that, that the potential of sharing with a third country, particularly, as you say, one where human rights protection may not be robust, is covered in the agreement with the second country.