Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
On the matter regarding the torture of Maher Arar during his imprisonment, I just want to say that at the time of his rendition to Syria by the United States it was a matter of public record, it was on the U.S. State Department's annual report at the time, that Syria was a country that routinely tortured its detainees--apart from the fact that Syria was listed as a country that was a state sponsor of terrorism.
I'm saying that because that should have set off alarm bells in our own intelligence community with respect to what kind of treatment Maher Arar might have been experiencing during imprisonment in Syria.
Now let me, if I may, follow up on a pattern of questions from before, which is, what did CSIS know and when did they know it, or when did they not know it? I know CSIS to be a serious and professional body, as you mentioned, Mr. Chairman, that takes its security and intelligence-gathering functions seriously. I know that in the context of taking those responsibilities seriously they engaged, by their own acknowledgement, in regular contact with counterpart intelligence agencies, including those in the United States.
I would have to assume, therefore, that they were--and indeed are--in continuous contact with American intelligence agencies, and that therefore the intelligence allegations respecting Maher Arar, or the false and misleading intelligence allegations regarding Maher Arar, would have been the subject of discussion between the American intelligence agencies and CSIS at some point either before his detention, during his detention, after his rendition, or during his imprisonment.
In other words, is it not surprising that CSIS would not have known about the false information, the misleading information that was initially conveyed, particularly when it was on an intelligence-related topic, when they had continuous discussions with American intelligence agencies during that entire period? Isn't it disturbing, therefore, that they have to acknowledge that they found out about this only four years later, when Commissioner Zaccardelli came before this committee?
So my question is, how were they able to carry out their security and intelligence mandate--over which you have oversight--in relation to the Syrian government, in relation to the American government, in relation to the Canadian government, in relation to RCMP officials, in the absence of this crucial bit of intelligence information regarding Maher Arar?