Public Safety Committee on Oct. 3rd, 2006

[The Chair, Conservative, Garry Breitkreuz]

Mr. Brown.

[Gord Brown, Conservative, Leeds—Grenville, ON]

The subcommittee reviewing the Anti-terrorism Act is going to be coming forward with the interim report, and that is imminent. There is a time restriction on that going back to Parliament, so that's another issue we need to deal with, and we may need to deal with the interim report very quickly.

[The Chair, Conservative, Garry Breitkreuz]

In that regard, what timelines are you talking about?

[Gord Brown, Conservative, Leeds—Grenville, ON]

The self-imposed deadline for the interim report is the end of this week, and I know we're going to be dealing with it at ten o'clock. If that is coming out of the subcommittee, it can come back here very soon.

[The Chair, Conservative, Garry Breitkreuz]

And when does it have to be reported to Parliament? What deadline are we looking at here?

[Gord Brown, Conservative, Leeds—Grenville, ON]

If the sunset provisions are to remain in effect, Parliament has to pass it in 15 sitting days after the first of January. The subcommittee is going to be bringing forward the interim report that will deal with those sunset provisions now, in the next few days. This committee may be able to deal with it rather quickly after it's been dealt with by the subcommittee, but the subcommittee will continue with its work on the rest of the report after we bring forward the interim report.

[The Chair, Conservative, Garry Breitkreuz]

Do you envision that it would take more than one meeting of this committee to deal with it?

[Gord Brown, Conservative, Leeds—Grenville, ON]

I don't think so. But we are going to need—

[The Chair, Conservative, Garry Breitkreuz]

Let's not book our schedule too full here, but let's allow for some flexibility is what you're suggesting.

[Gord Brown, Conservative, Leeds—Grenville, ON]

We will have to deal with it, so I agree.

[The Chair, Conservative, Garry Breitkreuz]

Okay.

Yes, Mr. Holland.

[Mark Holland, Liberal, Ajax—Pickering, ON]

Just on that item, and I know other items may come up, I would say that particular item would take one meeting. Not that I'm looking for more meetings, but it is possible to schedule a special meeting to deal with it, if we were to find that our schedule was full from dealing with matters pertaining to the Arar affair. There are options like that.

I don't think we should preclude having witnesses we feel are important because we might have something we have to deal with. If we have to deal with it, perhaps what we could do is schedule an extra meeting to ensure that we accomplish both. Certainly it is important that we cover this as well.

[Gord Brown, Conservative, Leeds—Grenville, ON]

Mr. Chair, I would suggest we go ahead and schedule a date in the next few weeks to deal with it, because the interim report will be back. It may be dealt with as early as today.

[The Chair, Conservative, Garry Breitkreuz]

Okay. We'll ask the clerk to schedule that in.

Are there are no more witnesses, then, in regard to the Arar affair?

Mr. Holland.

[Mark Holland, Liberal, Ajax—Pickering, ON]

There are just a couple for the consideration of the committee. One is the ambassador from the U.S. and the ambassador from Syria. Obviously those are....

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

Mr. Chair, why would we have any expectation that they would come before this committee, when both governments refuse to participate at all, in either—

[Mark Holland, Liberal, Ajax—Pickering, ON]

The question is not necessarily whether they would come; I understand that. But I think that—

[The Chair, Conservative, Garry Breitkreuz]

My gut feeling is I don't think I really want to go there. But what does the rest of this committee feel?

[Dave MacKenzie, Conservative, Oxford, ON]

I don't see any point in going there. I think we'd end up with a kind of cat's breakfast out of it all. I don't know what we would want.... I mean, we're looking at what happened, as opposed to putting them in a position they probably don't want to be in, and I don't know what we would gain from it.

[Mark Holland, Liberal, Ajax—Pickering, ON]

I don't have a problem with that. I'm trying to make sure we at least discuss some of these options.

The other one is Shirley Heafey, the former chair of the RCMP complaints committee—this is the individual who received the complaints at the time—to ask what they did with them when those complaints came in.

[Omar Alghabra, Liberal, Mississauga—Erindale, ON]

She's the former, actually; she's not the current commissioner. She was the one who received the first complaint from Mr. Arar.

[Mark Holland, Liberal, Ajax—Pickering, ON]

That's probably the most relevant one, I believe.

[The Chair, Conservative, Garry Breitkreuz]

We can always add to this. As things come up, we can always deal with them. This isn't set in stone in any way. So I think we'll let the clerk work on it.

[Mark Holland, Liberal, Ajax—Pickering, ON]

Just before we continue, are we agreeing, then, on Shirley Heafey?

[The Chair, Conservative, Garry Breitkreuz]

Mr. Comartin.