Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I hope that I will have been worth waiting for.
I am honoured to be invited to address this committee and of course would be very pleased to answer any questions that members have after my opening remarks.
From the beginning, concerns were raised about the legal processes that were put in place under the Extradition Act, and specifically about the fairness of those procedures.
The Supreme Court of Canada itself raised concerns in its 2006 decision in the United States v. Ferras and put in place legal tests that were meant to ensure fairness. However, concerns remained, demonstrated most poignantly by Dr. Diab’s case, as you've heard.
In 2018 I had the honour of chairing a colloquium, hosted by the MacEachen Institute at Dalhousie University in Halifax, on the topic of reforming Canada’s extradition laws, policies and practices. The colloquium was attended by people from across Canada who had expertise in extradition, international law, constitutional and criminal law, policy and human rights. It included Professor Harrington and Mr. Neve, who are also appearing here today.
We produced a draft document that highlighted problems with extradition in Canada and proposed solutions, on which we received further input during a subsequent meeting hosted by Professor John Packer at the University of Ottawa.
The end result was a document entitled “Changing Canada’s Extradition Laws: The Halifax Colloquium’s Proposals for Law Reform”, which I will refer to as the Halifax proposals. It was published in 2021, and it is in materials that were circulated to you in advance of this hearing today.
The document is 20 pages in length and covers a lot of ground, and I wouldn't be able to review it in detail for you. What I want to flag for the committee, however, is that the Halifax proposals are a serious and detailed plan for the reform of Canada’s extradition regime, formulated by people whose motivation is to improve the way these laws work and to protect the fundamental rights of Canadians.
I and the other authors of the report sincerely hope that it can be a helpful part of meaningful parliamentary scrutiny into this issue, as begun by this committee today in these hearings.
The idea is not that tinkering is required but rather that a broad inquiry be made. At the heart of it is the proposition that Canada’s laws, policies and practices around extradition need to be scrutinized and reformed in accordance with three general principles: first, fundamental fairness; second, transparency; and, third, a rebalancing of roles. By a rebalancing of roles, I mean that the roles of the courts and the government need to be rebalanced, and that we also need a rebalancing of charter protections and administrative efficiency.
I want to emphasize that, while much of the reform agenda that we propose would involve amendments to the Extradition Act, the ambit is much wider than that. The Halifax proposals dig into pretty much the entire scope of extradition matters in which Canada plays a part. You've heard a selection of proposals that are included within the report and very much resonant of it from Professor Harrington, who was of course one of the attendees at the Halifax colloquium.
The Halifax proposals, though, look at the court procedures for the extradition hearings that take place here in Canada, as well as the process by which the Minister of Justice makes the final decision on extraditing each case. However, they also make recommendations on the international aspects of extradition, including Canada’s practices in signing and administering treaties with other countries; Canada’s role in ensuring fair treatment of individuals once they are extradited; and how the entire process needs to adhere to Canada’s international human rights law obligations. They further look at the role of the international assistance group and make suggestions for how that office could play its role differently and how it could be restructured to facilitate that different role.
I will conclude by suggesting that the world of extradition has traditionally been quite murky and below the public’s radar, and troubling problems have been allowed to grow. The more Canadians have heard about cases like Dr. Diab’s, the more disturbed they have become. This committee’s inquiry represents a historic opportunity for Canadians to have input into a process that affects the rights of Canadians and others and to ensure it's administered in a way that is fair and that comports with the principles of fundamental justice.
Thank you.