Public Safety Committee on Sept. 28th, 2006

[Commr Giuliano Zaccardelli]

I did not know, Mr. Chairman, that Mr. Arar was not involved with terrorist situations before he was arrested. I learned about it when I reviewed the information. We tried to correct it with the Americans. We let Canadian officials know about that, and we gave them all the information we had. The question is correct. I did not make a public statement. I didn't know everything about Mr. Arar.

[The Chair, Conservative, Garry Breitkreuz]

Thank you.

These are five-minute rounds. We will now move on to Monsieur Ménard.

[Serge Ménard, Bloc, Marc-Aurèle-Fortin, QC]

Commissioner, when you learned that the U.S. authorities had based their decision on information conveyed by Canada you were probably aware of the fact that if Mr. Arar was sent to Syria as someone suspected of terrorism, there was a very strong probability that he would be tortured, weren't you?

[Commr Giuliano Zaccardelli]

Is it a question?

[Serge Ménard, Bloc, Marc-Aurèle-Fortin, QC]

You are saying that you have corrected...

[Commr Giuliano Zaccardelli]

Excuse me, Mr. Chairman, but I did not answer that question.

Do you want an answer?

[Serge Ménard, Bloc, Marc-Aurèle-Fortin, QC]

I said that you knew that there were a good chance that upon arriving in Syria as someone suspected of terrorism, Mr. Arar would be tortured.

[Commr Giuliano Zaccardelli]

Yes, there was information to that effect.

[Serge Ménard, Bloc, Marc-Aurèle-Fortin, QC]

You said that you corrected the false information conveyed to the Americans. Did you ask them if they had other reasons to make such a radical decision to send Mr. Arar to Syria?

[Commr Giuliano Zaccardelli]

The U.S. authorities did not give us any other information. We made requests to the Americans, but they did not give us any other information.

[Serge Ménard, Bloc, Marc-Aurèle-Fortin, QC]

I find it strange. The Americans must have had their own reasons for not intervening later on, for not trying to get Mr. Arar out of that unfair situation which was the result of your information, and for having used such a radical method.

Is this what you thought?

[Commr Giuliano Zaccardelli]

Mr. Chairman, as I already said and as Justice O'Connor said himself, we cannot be 100% sure of the reasons why the Americans made the decision to send Mr. Arar to Syria. According to Justice O'Connor's report, it is not exact to say that they acted only on the basis of information conveyed by Canada.

[Serge Ménard, Bloc, Marc-Aurèle-Fortin, QC]

Precisely, if the Americans had their own reasons, those reasons had to do with your cooperation in that common fight you lead with intelligence authorities in the U.S. In this case, these reasons relate to a Canadian citizen, then to a person of interest for you.

In such circumstance, would it not be normal that intelligence authorities in Canada be informed of the exact reasons why intelligence authorities in the U.S. decided to send someone to a country where he would be exposed to torture?

[Commr Giuliano Zaccardelli]

Mr. Chairman, as I already said, we do not know on what basis the Americans have made their decision. We very clearly know that several attempts have been made by various agencies, and particularly Foreign Affairs, to know what was happening, why Mr. Arar was in prison and how he was treated.

It cannot be said that Canada did nothing. There were a number of attempts and efforts. We accept the comment by Justice O'Connor that we have missed the opportunity to speak in one voice. I also accept that criticism.

[Serge Ménard, Bloc, Marc-Aurèle-Fortin, QC]

Did you ask the Americans what were those reasons?

[Commr Giuliano Zaccardelli]

Mr. Chairman, the Americans did not give us...

[Serge Ménard, Bloc, Marc-Aurèle-Fortin, QC]

Did you ask them why they sent Maher Arar to Syria?

[Commr Giuliano Zaccardelli]

Mr. Chairman, we made representations to the Americans. They said clearly and publicly that they made that decision themselves and unilaterally. We tried to find out why they made it, but we were unsuccessful.

[Serge Ménard, Bloc, Marc-Aurèle-Fortin, QC]

Mr. Zaccardelli, I have some concerns about your statement on that subject even if the beginning of your presentation was very good. I congratulate you for it.

I would not say that it is unavoidable, but I believe that there will probably be other mistakes considering the difficulty of gathering intelligence on terrorist groups and the need to share information between countries.

I would like to make sure that, in the future, when you make a mistake of the kind that leads to unfair consequences, you will be able to agree on a way to communicate rapidly between your organizations in order to put rapidly an end to the ordeal of the person who is victimized by that mistake.

[The Chair, Conservative, Garry Breitkreuz]

Thank you.

The time has actually expired. Do you have a brief comment, sir?

[Commr Giuliano Zaccardelli]

As I said--and it was mentioned by Justice O'Connor--, our investigators have tried to correct the false information with the Americans.

[The Chair, Conservative, Garry Breitkreuz]

Thank you.

We will now move over to Mr. Comartin for five minutes, please.

[Joe Comartin, NDP, Windsor—Tecumseh, ON]

Mr. Commissioner, let's go back to the leaks and--to use Mr. Norlock's words—best practice, the quality of the investigation. You left an impression, and I don't know if you intended to, that part of the difficulty was that most of these leaks were verbal, and it's hard tracking those. But there are also leaks of documents that came out of the files of the RCMP. Has the investigation identified everyone who had access to those files within the RCMP, within CSIS, and within Foreign Affairs?

[Commr Giuliano Zaccardelli]

Mr. Chairman, as I stated before, this is an active criminal investigation, so the committee can appreciate that I cannot comment any further on that. But I can assure the committee that absolutely everything possible is being done and will continue to be done to assure that we have all the information and will get to the bottom of this matter. I want to reassure this committee of that.

[Joe Comartin, NDP, Windsor—Tecumseh, ON]

I'm having some difficulty with the reassurance, Mr. Zaccardelli, and that's not anything personal about you. Given the history of what's gone on in this file, what I see is an obvious conflict within the department. There are very good reasons why these leaks would have occurred from your department, from CSIS, or from Foreign Affairs and International Trade, in terms of protecting their own interests. I'm not asking you to tell me who those people are. I'm simply asking whether you have identified everyone who had access to those files.