One thing I wanted to mention is that extradition is an area that's very heavily litigated, so the thought that somehow people's rights are being ignored ignores the fact that it's very heavily litigated. It's also gone to the Supreme Court of Canada for a subject matter opinion more often than lots of other areas of the law, so we have a lot of guidance from the Supreme Court of Canada. To suggest that the Minister of Justice is running wild, doing whatever he wants to do, and can get away with it because he has this massive discretion....The discretion is to operate within the realm of the law. If he's stepping outside of what the law requires, then he's going to be overturned by the courts.
On many occasions we have been given guidance by the Supreme Court on how to deal with particular aspects of extradition, so although the law sets out the terms, we've had the standard of review determined by the Supreme Court and we've had how to deal with defences in foreign countries determined by the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court explained how we are to address determining double criminality, what the rules are with respect to surrendering a Canadian citizen in the event that they're sought for extradition, what we do with refugees. Not the Supreme Court, but the Ontario Court of Appeal provided us with guidance on how to deal with indigenous persons who are sought for extradition. This is not some wild free-for-all. There's considerable judicial oversight, and we've been given a lot of guidance by the Supreme Court that has helped to put in place this system in a way that protects the rights of others.
I also want to mention, because it seems to have been suggested that we have a system in Canada that provides for no rights for anybody compared to other systems, that Canada has one of the most rigorous extradition systems in the world, if not the most rigorous, and we're familiar with this because we deal with all these other countries. Lots of countries have a very pro forma approach to extradition. You just say, “We want this person for this particular offence. They've been charged, and we have a treaty”, and off you go. Among European countries, there's a “no evidence” rule, so they just extradite among each other without any requirement for any evidence to support extradition. I'm not sitting here telling you we should do it that way; I'm just telling you that it would be wrong to suggest that the Canadian extradition system is some kind of Wild West of extradition and that around the world everyone else has greater rights. We have one of the most robust extradition systems in the world.