The provision of assistance to Canadians detained abroad is a discretionary service. There's the service standard of 24 hours, and then, depending on the region where the person is detained, there's ongoing contact at regular intervals, with more frequent contact required when the region is judged to have harsher conditions.
As well, if a person is particularly vulnerable, the policy allows for more frequent contact. We expected that sort of assessment to be done and documented on the file, particularly for vulnerable cases. In our opinion, that can only be done in those cases in person. For us it was very important that this contact be made in person and that an assessment of the person's vulnerability be made so that the assessment can direct the provision of services, whether those be over health concerns or other vulnerabilities that the person may have.
We did not find that this was documented on the file. We also didn't see the required level of oversight, the quality control to ensure that it was done.