Public Safety Committee on Oct. 24th, 2006

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

That's what I want to know, because a person of interest can be a person which was seen having contacts with terrorist movements, without knowing whether these contacts were to terrorist purposes or whether they were innocent like, for example, someone who goes to rent premises from a landlord. The landlord has obviously had contacts with that person but may very well not be aware that that person is a terrorist. Is that what you were thinking of Mr. Arar or did you think that he could in fact be involved in terrorist activity?

[Wayne Easter]

One of the difficulties, Mr. Chair, is that.... I will say I am disappointed in the Clerk of the Privy Council. I asked the Clerk of the Privy Council for advice or assistance about what is considered to be a national security issue, what is considered operational, and what is considered secret. I'm in a bit of difficulty with which is which in my own mind, even though I went through some documents yesterday, some of which have been declassified and some of which have not.

In any event, I guess I'd put it this way, Serge: the fact of the matter is--and the Americans were informed of this and I did acknowledge this--that we had no evidence on Mr. Arar on which to make an arrest within Canada, if he was here. He was considered to be, as they indicated, a person of interest--and it's mentioned in Justice O'Connor's report--the interest being due to his connection to other subjects who were involved in other terrorist activity.

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

In fact, you did not know that Mr. Zaccardelli was convinced that Mr. Arar was completely innocent of any involvement in terrorist activity?

[Wayne Easter]

No. As I indicated in my opening submission, I was not informed that the RCMP had provided inaccurate information to the U.S. I've outlined that fairly extensively, and I would advise the committe, if they can access any of those documents that I've outlined, to do so. I think you'll come to the same conclusion. In particular, especially when I was going to meet Attorney General Ashcroft, we were very disappointed, angered, and frustrated at the United States and how they had treated Mr. Arar. He should have been sent back to Canada.

Attorney General Ashcroft certainly never said to me, “But I've been informed that Canada has provided us with misinformation.” He never raised that with me. I know the man, and I know he certainly would have raised it with me if I'd have--

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

I am going to be forced to ask you a subjective or hypothetical question.

Would you have had knowledge of it if Mr. Zaccardelli thought that Mr. Arar was innocent? Would your attitude in government have been very different with your minister colleagues in the steps you would have taken to have him freed from Syria?

[Wayne Easter]

I don't think now is the time to get into hypotheticals, Serge. The fact is, the best report on this matter, the individual with more information than anybody else from all the sources, is Justice O'Connor. Justice O'Connor maintains the “person of interest” approach throughout his document. He outlines some of the errors, but I think it would be inappropriate for me to get back into hypotheticals of what would have happened if.... The fact of the matter is, they didn't.

[The Chair, Conservative, Garry Breitkreuz]

Mr. Comartin, for seven minutes.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Easter, for being here.

On that last point, it seems to me Justice O'Connor was quite critical of both the RCMP and CSIS for not taking part in letting that letter go from DFAIT. I'll just make that as a comment.

I would ask you to turn to page 28 of the report, the volume on analysis and recommendations. You already referred to page 29. In the second-last paragraph at the bottom, it starts, “On October 3, 2002...”, and there's material blanked out there. Are you able, recognizing the constraints you're operating under in terms of national security, to tell us whether you were the person who requested that information referred to in that paragraph?

[Wayne Easter]

No, I was not the person who requested that information, but I would point out, on your first comment, Mr. Comartin, that yes, Justice O'Connor is critical of the RCMP and CSIS not recommending the letter. He also states in this report that he understands why they did, basically. I'll try to find that.

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

I agree with that; don't bother. I agree with that characterization, but he's still critical. He understands the constraints you're operating under, so let me go to that point. At that period of time, if we accept your evidence today, you were still operating as the minister under the impression that Mr. Arar--again, I'm referring to the quote that you gave from the report on page 29--was still labelled in the minds of the RCMP as an Islamic extremist. You have never been told, up to the time of that letter, that this assessment by the RCMP had changed. Is that correct?

In the minds of the RCMP, at the time of that letter it was your belief--not necessarily theirs, because I think we know now that it was not their belief at the time, but they didn't tell you that--that Mr. Arar was an Islamic fundamentalist, or extremist, using their terminology.

[Wayne Easter]

No, because the information provided to me--and I would have to go back to the documents to be absolutely sure--stopped at person of interest. It did not include Islamic terrorist.

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

So throughout the entire period of time that you were minister and responsible for the RCMP, you never saw any documentation that characterized Mr. Arar as an Islamic extremist?

[Wayne Easter]

Not up until, as I indicated earlier, I would say November 2003.

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

So after the whole--

[Wayne Easter]

This is the difficulty, Mr. Chair, that we don't have the documents. It would have been possibly in July, but I don't think so. I think it was November before the words “Islamic extremist” came to my attention from the RCMP.

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

When did you first become aware that this information was incorrect? Was it when the O'Connor report came out, sometime during the hearings? When did you first become aware that this classification of Mr. Arar was in fact false?

[Wayne Easter]

During the O'Connor inquiry....

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

By reviewing documentation, or because of evidence that came out of that...?

[Wayne Easter]

It was because of evidence that came out.

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

I would just like to close off other avenues here. In terms of the chain of command, in terms of communications, is it possible that the RCMP, the commissioner or senior members, communicated to deputy ministers within the Solicitor General's office information that didn't come to you regarding this particular issue?

[Wayne Easter]

I think it's probably.... It is possible.

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

Have you discussed with your deputy ministers whether they had information communicated to them that this information on Mr. Arar was false or misleading?

[Wayne Easter]

No, not recently.

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

How many deputy ministers would there have been during this period of time when the Arar case was going on?

[Wayne Easter]

Only one with me.