Thank you, Mr. Chair. I think an opening of ten minutes, or perhaps not quite that, should adequately do it. I have prepared an opening statement.
First of all, thank you, Mr. Chairman and committee members, for the opportunity to appear before the committee.
During my tenure as Solicitor General of Canada, as I pointed out in testimony before the commission of inquiry, I was engaged in a number of the initiatives that Justice O'Connor has identified in his report, the most critical being a more secure and mutually agreed upon code of conduct with respect to the sharing of information with foreign governments and agencies, most critically the United States.
From my review of the evidence presented to the committee, the specific reason for the committee's request for my testimony surrounds evidence presented by the Commissioner of the RCMP on September 28 of this year. I will try to speak directly to that matter.
The commissioner testified to the following, and I'll quote directly from the evidence of this committee. At page 3 of the evidence, the commissioner stated:
I personally became directly involved in the file after Mr. Arar was detained and sent to Syria.
The commissioner went on to state, still at page 3 in the testimony:
...I found out that investigators were speaking with American officials while he was in detention. As part of that discussion or that correspondence with RCMP officials, I learned that in this process they tried to correct what was labelled as false or incorrect information with regard to Mr. Arar.
Apparently, according to the commissioner, there had been an effort by the RCMP to correct the information prior to the deportation of Mr. Arar, which would place the time sequence between the end of September and very early in October.
At page 4 of the evidence of the committee, the commissioner made the following statement:
When we learned what had occurred, we had discussions with the minister to inform him of the situation....
I must assume that the commissioner is referring to the discovery of what has been described as false information having been conveyed to officials in the United States.
I'd like to address this latter point insofar as it applies to me as Solicitor General at the time. Given that the commissioner in testifying before this committee did not provide, insofar as I am aware, any specific timeframe within which this information was conveyed to me as minister, I will speak to what I have established from a review of the record and discussions with staff who would have been present at any such meetings.
However, I would begin with a quote from Justice O'Connor's report as providing context for the following. At page 29 in the analysis and recommendations of the report, Justice O'Connor writes, referring to Project A-O Canada:
while the Project pointed out that it was unable to indicate links between Mr. Arar and al-Qaeda, it did not go further and correct the inaccurate information already provided to the American agencies about Mr. Arar, including the label of Islamic extremist.
I would advise the committee that I had the opportunity of examining again the documentation that had been available to me as Solicitor General, and I did that yesterday. I have reviewed the relevant briefing materials that had been prepared for me, which included briefing notes and House book cards.
While I'm not at liberty to reveal the specific contents of the documents in question, I would advise the committee that the material in question has been available to Justice O'Connor, and I did testify to the contents of the material before the commission, for the most part in camera.
As an aside, Mr. Chair, the dilemma for MPs on this committee I think makes the argument for a parliamentary oversight committee with the power to access national security documents, cabinet documents, and so on, under certain conditions as recommended to government by a committee that I and a number of you around this table sat on.
If there's ever an instance of when MPs, under certain conditions, need to access those documents, I think it's this one. We're all at a disadvantage when we're dealing with documents that some of us have seen and some of us can't see.
However, if the committee is able to gain access to the following documentation, the issue as to whether I as Solicitor General was apprised of the errors--and of the false information having been conveyed to the United States authorities, with a concerted effort undertaken to correct such information--will be made abundantly clear to you. I was not so informed. I will state that again: I was not so informed.
I have identified that prior to my assuming office on October 22, two briefing notes had been prepared for the Commissioner of the RCMP. Justice O'Connor makes reference to the one of October 9, 2002, on page 177 of volume I of the factual background material. Justice O'Connor makes no reference to any errors or corrective measures.
In the briefing note of October 18, 2002, made reference to by Justice O'Connor at page 498 of volume II of the factual background material, there again is no reference to the commissioner having been informed of any errors or corrective measures being taken.
Thus, upon assuming my office, the record, insofar as I have examined the briefing notes prepared for the commissioner, provides absolutely no indication that the information that had been conveyed to the United States was incorrect.
After assuming the office of Solicitor General, the first occasion upon which I was made aware of the Arar file was when it was presented to me in a House book card. The House book card is prepared for ministers by officials of their relevant departments and agencies in anticipation of questions in the House. The RCMP prepared this specific card. It's dated October 25, 2002. As well, there was an updated card dated November 15, 2002. There was no reference to errors in information, no reference to false information, and no reference to any corrective efforts having been made by the RCMP with respect to any of the information that may have been shared.
On June 26, 2003, my office requested from the RCMP a briefing note on the Arar file. In the briefing note prepared by the RCMP for the Solicitor General, dated June 27, 2003, there is no reference to the RCMP being aware of having provided erroneous or inaccurate information to the United States, nor is there any reference to efforts by the RCMP at corrective measures of any kind related to information conveyed to United States authorities.
In a briefing note prepared for my office, dated July 10, 2003, in preparation for a meeting I was to have with United States Attorney General John Ashcroft, there again is no reference to inaccurate information or corrective measures that the RCMP had undertaken with United States officials.
One would assume that the Solicitor General would have been made aware if senior officials in the RCMP had been aware that erroneous information had been conveyed to the U.S., or that U.S. authorities answering to the Attorney General would have made him aware of the errors that allegedly resulted in the detention and deportation of Mr. Arar. Attorney General Ashcroft, had that been the case, would undoubtedly have raised that point with me, since part of my purpose for meeting with him was to express my displeasure at what had happened to Mr. Arar at the hands of the U.S.
So I certainly feel very confident, and really believe, that given the relationship I had with Attorney General Ashcroft, if I were going to the U.S. and basically giving the Attorney General hell for the handling of Mr. Arar and his deportation to Syria, he would in no uncertain terms have said to me, “But Wayne, you provided us with misinformation.” And that never happened, Mr. Chair.
The actions I undertook as Solicitor General with respect to the case of Mr. Arar were based upon the advice provided by officials with the RCMP and CSIS. If errors are made and corrective measures are required or taken, it is the expectation of any minister that they will be informed of those situations.
Mr. Chair, I think all of you on this committee, as I do, recognize that there is some difficulty with the information flow as it relates to the Solicitor General and the RCMP, because we don't operate the same way as they do in the U.S. Solicitors General are not informed of operations. That's the nature of the job. However, as it relates to security matters with CSIS, you in fact are. So the Solicitor General does not get into operational matters as such.
As Solicitor General, I was operating on the fact that Mr. Arar had been and remained a person of interest. I am in complete accord with the following statement found on page 69 of Justice O'Connor's report:
I have no reason to believe that it was not appropriate, throughout the relevant time period, for the RCMP as a law enforcement agency to continue its main investigation, in which Mr. Arar came to the investigators' attention from time to time.
On pages 18 and 19, Justice O'Connor further refers to Mr. Arar as “properly a person of interest” in two other contexts.
I will make one final point, and that relates to information held by the United States on Mr. Arar. On page 156 of Justice O'Connor's report, he states:
The question arises as to whether the American authorities relied upon information provided by the RCMP in making the removal order. Without the evidence of the American authorities or access to the classified addendum to the removal order, I cannot be sure what information they used.
On page 14 of the evidence on September 28, 2006, the Commissioner of the RCMP, in testimony before this committee, stated that
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.
In conclusion, Mr. Chair, as it relates to Justice O'Connor's report and his recommendations, I might say that I do believe Justice O'Connor wrote an excellent report. I advise people to read not only the parts that are somewhat sensationalized in the media, but to read the whole report. There's a lot of information in that report.
As I've said publicly, I do agree with the recommendations that Justice O'Connor made. We'll see what he does in his second report, but based on my experience, I certainly believe that there does have to be a different oversight agency for the RCMP.
It was recommended by the McDonald Commission that the RCMP get out of national security matters. As a result of 9/11, they started getting back into security matters. Therefore, I think it does require a different kind of oversight body. In fact, we were working on that during my term as Solicitor General, but it never came to be completed. But I will say this. It does require a different oversight that is somewhat closer to the CSIS arrangement, but maybe something in between. I'll just conclude on that point.
Thank you, and I'm open for questions.
