Thank you, Mr. Chair.
And thank you again, Minister, for joining us.
Particularly because your answers tend to be very fulsome, Minister, I thought I would ask a few questions, ask your officials, the deputy minister and Ms. Morency, to take notes, and then we might actually carry on the discussion afterwards.
I have a series of questions. They're all related to the issue of the item on funding to address challenges in the security admissibility cases protecting classified information, obtaining assurances against torture. There's a line item for $3.4 million, of which $3 million more is needed.
The premise of these questions, so you understand where I'm coming from, is that to understand the costs, and therefore the need for an increase, we need to understand the process, the criteria, and the frequency that assurances are being sought.
My questions very briefly are the following.
One, why are current funds inadequate?
Second, what kind of activity increase is being envisaged, if such activity increase is being envisaged, and in particular to any particular countries where diplomatic assurances are viewed as likely to be necessary more and more?
Third, it's listed under Courts Administration Service, and I'm having a little bit of a hard time understanding what exactly the use of the funds will be in the diplomatic assurances context. What government actors are involved?
Fourth, is there a written policy or are there guidelines with criteria for determining whether assurances are to be sought, and when they're sought, whether they're adequate?
Fifth, are these assurances in our practice now legally binding? All of these have cost implications.
Sixth, the Supreme Court, in Suresh, places a lot of emphasis on monitoring as one component of reliability of assurances. Is monitoring built into our assurance system, and does that have any cost element for this number?
Last, can I be clear that we never use diplomatic assurances in advance of having already assessed whether there's a substantial risk of torture? That is, you can never just use diplomatic assurances; you have to know what the risk is.
Once I know the answers to these questions, I'll understand why we're looking for $3 million, and I understand we might have to get this information later.