Evidence of meeting #47 for Justice and Human Rights in the 44th Parliament, 1st session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was extradition.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Randeep Sarai
Thank you.
I want to thank all three of you.
We'll begin our first round of questions. Since we started late, I'm going to do five-minute rounds and then four minutes and then two minutes, so we can be back on track.
We'll begin with Mr. Brock for five minutes.
February 6th, 2023 / 5:05 p.m.
Conservative
Larry Brock Conservative Brantford—Brant, ON
Thank you, Chair.
I'd like to thank all of the witnesses for your attendance and your participation in this study.
Turning matters over to you, Professor Currie, with respect to the Halifax conference, were any members of the federal government in attendance?
Professor of Law, Schulich School of Law, Dalhousie University, As an Individual
They were not. This was.... I guess you'd call it a gathering of like-minded people who had previously expressed an interest in extradition reform. I don't think it was a secret. It was publicly known about meeting, but there were no attendees of the Crown.
Conservative
Larry Brock Conservative Brantford—Brant, ON
Following the conference and prior to release of the recommendations in 2021, were there any consultations with any members of the federal government with respect to the details of those proposals?
Professor of Law, Schulich School of Law, Dalhousie University, As an Individual
Not prior to its publication, no.
Conservative
Larry Brock Conservative Brantford—Brant, ON
Following publication, can you elaborate on what discussions you had with the federal government?
Professor of Law, Schulich School of Law, Dalhousie University, As an Individual
We sent a copy of the report to the Prime Minister, and that report was copied to a number of ministers, certainly the Minister of Foreign Affairs and the Minister of Justice. I can't bring the rest to mind, but there were several.
A number of us had conversations with interested parties, certainly with politicians, I think, federally and provincially. I'm certainly one who talks about extradition to anybody who will listen.
Conservative
Larry Brock Conservative Brantford—Brant, ON
Thank you for that.
Did any member of the federal government express a willingness to advance any of these proposals for improving the Extradition Act?
Professor of Law, Schulich School of Law, Dalhousie University, As an Individual
Advance them...? In what sense, sir?
Conservative
Larry Brock Conservative Brantford—Brant, ON
In terms of accepting the recommendations and making suggestions to the department.
Professor of Law, Schulich School of Law, Dalhousie University, As an Individual
No. Certainly, the Minister of Justice was aware, and it was really an awareness-raising exercise. Any conversations that we had, to the best of my recollection, were along the lines of “Here is a proposal. We think law reform is called for.” The response was always, thank you very much.
Conservative
Larry Brock Conservative Brantford—Brant, ON
All right.
In an ideal situation, the government may or may not move forward with all of your recommendations, or this committee itself may ultimately produce a study that makes those recommendations on your behalf. Failing that, if you had to identify, say, your top three proposals that would significantly alter the landscape of the existing Extradition Act—bearing in mind the principles you've touched upon and elaborated upon, and also the issue of charter compliance—what would you suggest would be those top three proposals that this committee and this government should seriously look at?
Professor of Law, Schulich School of Law, Dalhousie University, As an Individual
I think changes to the committal process are the number one priority. That is really where Dr. Diab's case rests in terms of the demonstrable problems. I'd highlight that as part number one.
There are a number of changes that could be made. Certainly, any exculpatory evidence in the hands of either the Canadian Crown or the foreign state should be disclosed to the defence. We propose that the presumption of reliability around the record of the case that's sent by the foreign state be removed. There's a package, I guess you'd say, of issues there.
Second, a number of the bases for refusal in the act are allocated through the Minister of Justice. The minister is empowered to refuse on certain grounds, such as if the person will face double jeopardy or undue oppression. Some of those questions are inherently legal questions, and we think are not necessarily appropriately allocated to the minister, who's acting in an explicitly political capacity as well as a legal capacity.
I guess that would be number two.
Number three would be a look at restructuring the international assistance group and dividing up the functions in terms of which staff, which lawyers, are allocated to fight the case on behalf of the requesting state in our adversarial system. There's nothing inappropriate about doing that, but that branch of the office should be separate from the branch wherein the minister makes the surrender decision, so that's it's not all sort of emerging from a black box.
I would say those would be my top three.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Randeep Sarai
Thank you, Mr. Brock.
We will now go to Ms. Lena Metlege Diab for five minutes.
Liberal
Lena Metlege Diab Liberal Halifax West, NS
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
Welcome to all of our witnesses. I want to say a special welcome to Professor Currie, who is a constituent of mine. Although I've not spoken to him with regard to his testimony today, I did receive a message that he was appearing today.
Let me just thank you and all of the witnesses for all of the work you did in 2021 in the MacEachen Institute to bring forth this very important deficiency in some of the laws we have.
Extradition is poorly understood by the general public in Canada. I have your report here. There are 12 points. Let me go to number nine, in which you say:
There should be government/Parliamentary oversight of the activities of IAG, and the ability for meaningful public scrutiny of its activities and of the extradition process generally. This should involve appropriate transparency and publication of data and information.
Where do you think the proposed oversight should live? How should our committee play that role? Obviously, by your bringing this forward today and our bringing it here, we're starting to play a role, but what else can we as parliamentarians do?
Professor of Law, Schulich School of Law, Dalhousie University, As an Individual
I'm sorry, Ms. Diab, but are you directing that question to me?
Professor of Law, Schulich School of Law, Dalhousie University, As an Individual
Thank you.
Professor Harrington covered a couple of the answers to your question in her remarks.
I wouldn't presume to tell Parliament how to do its job, but there are mechanisms that are already used. I think of the Security Intelligence Review Committee, which oversees the Canadian intelligence apparatus and is the receiver of annual reports on the kinds of activities engaged in by the particular departments and particular government entities.
To echo what Professor Harrington said, I think that's a good starting point. The IAG could be mandated in the Extradition Act to produce an annual or biannual report that provided statistics about the kinds of extradition requests that were made and the status and consideration of cases, naturally removing any privileged and confidential information.
We all know that state-to-state communications are privileged, and I'm certainly not suggesting that the entire thing needs to be blown wide open. I know that's a concern the IAG has. There is a distinction between the communications themselves and the fact of communications. There's a lot information that could be provided there.
As well, I think this committee could certainly recommend to Parliament that the Extradition Act be amended to insert a requirement that data be published on a website. When I say data, I mean not just statistics in this sense but also internal policies and practices. I'll draw the example of the Government of the United Kingdom, which publishes its governmental policies around the international co-operation techniques in which it engages. It openly says, “Here are the things that the home secretary considers”, and that kind of thing, with lists of considerations.
That's the kind of thing I'm talking about and that we are proposing in the Halifax proposals when we say transparency and publication of data and information. It's very helpful and democratically appropriate for Canadians to be able to access this information, again, subject to national security, privilege and international relations.
Liberal
Lena Metlege Diab Liberal Halifax West, NS
I have another quick question. I know the previous witnesses dealt with this, and so did the witnesses here.
The Extradition Act sets out a series of mandatory or discretionary grounds for refusing extradition.
Which one of you three would be able to comment a little bit, in whatever time I have left, about what you think would be appropriate grounds? I know that's been commented on already, but I would like to have a bit more of that on the record.
Professor of Law, Schulich School of Law, Dalhousie University, As an Individual
I'll toss one in.
I'll simply say that I think one ground for refusal should be extreme disparity of sentencing between Canadian criminal law and the foreign state's criminal law. That has been a problem in numerous cases since the new act was brought in.
I'll leave it there and see if my colleagues have other proposals.
Senior Fellow, Graduate School of Public and International Affairs, University of Ottawa, As an Individual
I'll build on that and add into the mix any concerns that the extradition is going to lead to a violation of Canada's international human rights obligations.
Liberal