Public Safety Committee on Nov. 28th, 2006

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

I just want to pursue that same line of questioning, Ms. McLellan, with regard to this scenario. Assuming Commissioner Zaccardelli was not informed—and Justice O'Connor in his report indicates that the senior officers of A Division were not informed of this misleading information having been given to the U.S. side.... Going back to the question you had earlier about discipline and accountability, we are told that every single member of the A Division has been promoted and that a number of the officers below the senior officers have also been promoted, and none has been disciplined.

In the context of the information I referred to earlier—what was going on in the media in terms of these leaks, and what was being said by the Americans about information coming from Canada—do you not agree that if we're going to change the culture, there has to be some discipline at some level, there has to be some accountability somewhere, if we're going to change that culture?

[Anne McLellan]

Well, I think accountability is key, as I've already said. I think it can take many forms. You don't change a culture. You can change a culture in many ways, one of which is by moving people out and other people in. One is through training, and so on. I do agree that ongoing training is key. We need a culture where protocols are understood and respected, where the necessity for caveats and the testing of reliability become ingrained in any information-sharing exercise. Whether or not that also entails the disciplining of individual members of a unit, or the force, I think is a more difficult question.

I do go back to the fact that Mr. Justice O'Connor concluded there was no intentional action on the part of the RCMP to harm Mr. Arar, and that misinformation was in fact provided, which came about because certain processes weren't followed. But having said that, there was no malice directed toward Mr. Arar. In fact, Mr. Justice O'Connor concluded that no Canadian official was complicit in his deportation.

So I think you can't deal with the issue of discipline of an individual officer or officers without keeping in mind that context. I would say yes, if there were evidence that someone had deliberately misrepresented a situation in order to do Mr. Arar deliberate harm, absolutely, that would be an enormous breach.

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

We're talking about omission here.

[Anne McLellan]

Yes.

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

We're talking, as Mr. Ménard has suggested, about the point that having that information at your level, at Mr. Graham's level, might have made a difference. Having that information available at the ministerial level would have provided you an opportunity to set the record straight, and not further damage Mr. Arar's reputation.

[Anne McLellan]

That's right. Had we known—

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

I don't think we're demanding of our public servants at that level a standard that is unreasonable—in that context.

[Anne McLellan]

No, I agree. If a mistake has been made and if someone's reputation and/or physical well-being is at stake, it is incumbent, I believe, on whoever it is, including ministers and prime ministers and members of Parliament, to acknowledge the mistake and try to fix it as quickly as possible.

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

And without that information being shared all the way up to the ministerial level, it's going—

[Anne McLellan]

Then you can't do that.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, Garry Breitkreuz]

You're done? Thank you very much.

No more questions?

Before we adjourn, I would like to thank you very much, Ms. McLellan, for coming to the committee. We appreciate your testimony. I think there are no further questions.

Before we adjourn, I was asked to make an announcement. Last Wednesday your offices received a copy of correspondence sent to the committee from Jack Kincler, a representative of the Israel-Canada Chamber of Commerce. He's in town until tomorrow with Mr. Rafi Sela, a senior partner with AR Challenges, who, Mr. Kincler informs us, is an expert on matters of homeland security and public safety. He will be presenting today at a conference entitled “Global Approaches to Security and Technology Strategies”. He's offered to meet with interested members of the committee. I thought the best way to handle this is simply to let you know about it. They're interested in meeting you during their visit, or future visits. He has asked me to encourage you to contact him. If you're not able to do it this time, he may be back.

There's no more business to discuss.

This meeting is adjourned.