I don't think it is miscommunication. We have very different mandates.
The mandate of Foreign Affairs with respect to consular services is to assist Canadians when they're in distress abroad, including people who are arrested and detained. That mandate means that we have to preserve that information and we have to act to use that information only in the best interests of the client. We're not a law enforcement agency.
I think the O'Connor commission particularly made us all aware as civil servants that the mandates our departments have been given by Parliament under the acts of Parliament are ones that give us specific responsibilities. When those mandates come together, for example, in this case both in protecting Canadians when they're abroad but also looking after the public interest, then we have to have the procedures that help us to understand how those mandates can both be respected. It's a complex business.
When we pass on information to the RCMP, for example, we provide the context in which that person may have been found guilty of a particular crime in a foreign jurisdiction. We provide caveats as to how that information can be used. You can imagine there are many foreign jurisdictions in which the due process is not what we as Canadians would regard as due process. We want to make sure that we protect the privacy of the individuals while at the same time looking after the broader interests of Canadians in being protected from those who might do harm to them.