Public Safety Committee on Nov. 28th, 2006

[Dave MacKenzie, Conservative, Oxford, ON]

What information did we pass to the Americans? That's the simple question.

[Anne McLellan]

We did in fact talked about the information that was provided to the United States. The problem here, of course, is that it was only later, in Mr. Justice O'Connor's report, that it came to my attention that there had been inaccurate information provided. By the time I became minister, nobody was describing Arar—and Mr. O'Connor documents this—as an Islamic extremist. Based on what Mr. Justice O'Connor discovered, they had corrected the information by that time, so nobody was describing him as an extremist to me.

[Dave MacKenzie, Conservative, Oxford, ON]

But I think my friend is suggesting the RCMP considered him an Islamic extremist.

[Anne McLellan]

At some point, but as Mr. Justice O'Connor pointed out, that information was corrected.

[Dave MacKenzie, Conservative, Oxford, ON]

Do we know if that information ever went to the Americans from the Canadian side? Did our officials describe him to the Americans—

[Anne McLellan]

What I know is what Mr. Justice O'Connor said. He had the opportunity to bring together everybody involved in this piece, to hear from everybody, both in public and in camera. Therefore, I think Mr. Justice O'Connor tells us and provides us with the best information in relation to what was conveyed to the United States.

[The Chair, Conservative, Garry Breitkreuz]

You'll have to wrap up. Thank you.

We'll go back to the Liberal side, and Mr. Holland.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I think the issue is one that, in fairness, you can't answer. That's part of the problem, but we're belabouring the point. The problem is that there is deep concern with the fact that the RCMP would have sent information to the United States that indicated that Maher Arar was an Islamic extremist and potentially a terrorist, and the fact that they then would not have shared that with you, with Mr. Easter before you, or with other government officials. That's the concern.

I think what you're telling us is that they didn't, and—

[Anne McLellan]

No, they didn't.

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

—all evidence backs that up. That's the concern of committee members, and I don't think you probably can answer a lot more on that, other than to say that it leaves some very disturbing questions about why that occurred.

I'm wondering if we can go back to the issue of oversight for a second. In the wake of this, there were two actions that were taken. One was to establish the commission of inquiry to have Justice O'Connor look at this and prepare his reports in two phases, as he's doing. The second item related to oversight and ensuring that Parliament had a greater role.

[Anne McLellan]

Right.

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

Can you elaborate upon that a little bit and talk about what other actions were taken in terms of the oversight of security and intelligence, and specifically of the RCMP?

[Anne McLellan]

As I mentioned in my comments, when I became minister I was given the specific mandate to look at whether additional oversight was required for the RCMP in its role as it related to national security. I took that challenge up, and as we worked through how we might go about determining what additional oversight might be required, it became apparent that the best person to offer us advice, in all likelihood, would be Mr. Justice O'Connor, because he would have worked through a specific example, potentially, where oversight might have been lacking. We thought it made an awful lot of sense not only to give Mr. Justice O'Connor the factual Arar inquiry but then, flowing from it and in more general terms, tap his expert knowledge concerning what additional oversight was required.

It's quite clear, although we don't have his second report, that he will recommend an independent oversight mechanism of some sort. We looked at.... For example, the public complaints commission exists, but my own view is that as presently constituted, with its present mandate, it has neither really the mandate nor the resources to do what is required by way of additional oversight as it relates to RCMP activities in the area of national security. So whether you increase its mandate and give it more resources or whether you create an independent body.... I think it's pretty clear that Mr. Justice O'Connor talks about an independent review body. I presume he means not the public complaints commission but some additional body.

Consider SIRC. I think SIRC has worked generally well for CSIS, and SIRC is an aggressive body that takes its mandate seriously, that is well resourced to do what it does, and I think has developed substantial credibility, not only here but abroad, in terms of providing oversight for the activities of CSIS. I would think, based on what I've read of O'Connor so far—he talks about an independent review mechanism—that's probably the way he is going to go, although we all await that.

I would agree with it. In the area of national security, as he says, the lines blur a little bit, as hard as one tries to prevent it from happening. The lines blur between what is intelligence-gathering and what is traditional criminal investigation and law enforcement.

Consequently, an oversight mechanism in relation to those activities that are fairly described as being of a nature concerning national security makes sense for the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. Leave the public complaints commission to deal with oversight and review, as it relates to traditional criminal investigations and law enforcement; create an additional body, in all likelihood, for oversight as it relates to national security.

[The Chair, Conservative, Garry Breitkreuz]

This is your final question.

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

The next issue for me, in looking at this, is that we had three separate bodies with different pieces of intelligence that chose to share that intelligence in different ways, both with the government and with other agencies. In the example of the RCMP, they seem to have shared certain information with the government, certain information with CSIS, certain information with foreign governments, such as that of the United States—the information they got from CSIS or from the government.

How do we reconcile this? Obviously we have a real problem here. You have three different bodies with different points of view on the intelligence that's before them and different ways of using that intelligence. Do you think it speaks for the need to have one vehicle through which intelligence is collected and vetted?

Secondly, what about rules around information that comes from states that are known to practice torture, and the fact that the RCMP and CSIS, when looking at that information—particularly CSIS—made an assessment that torture wasn't involved, and yet the person making that assessment had no experience in torture? How do we get past some of those things? Do you have any thoughts on it?

[Anne McLellan]

First of all, as it relates to the receipt of information for countries where we have a reasonable suspicion to believe they use practices such as torture, as Mr. Judd testified, one needs to be very careful about that information. And one should be. I would not say one never uses that information, but I would say you shouldn't use that information unless it is corroborated by other sources you believe, where the corroboration comes from information not derived--or you at least have a reasonable suspicion it was not derived--from a product of torture. So I think corroboration is key, if you have a suspicion there is any intelligence or information you've received that came from the product of torture.

In terms of intelligence, I don't think you can have one agency collecting intelligence. In the world in which we live, intelligence is gathered by intelligence-gathering agencies like CSIS, the RCMP, the Department of Transport, the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade, the Department of Immigration, and so on. They all collect information or intelligence of one sort or another. What you need to do is what we did, what the British have done, what the U.S. is now working toward, which is some kind of integrated assessment body where all that intelligence comes together in one place and you have your key analysts from all those departments, senior people, working together. All the information is on the table. It is shared and it is analyzed and then it goes back to the front lines to, I hope, be able to prevent high-risk individuals, for example, entering the country or being able to cause harm or whatever the case. Hence, we created an integrated threat assessment centre to bring all that intelligence together.

Key intelligence-gathering agencies have to have oversight. CSIS has SIRC. We will see what Mr. Justice O'Connor has to say about what should exist for the RCMP. Ultimately, there should be an oversight committee of parliamentarians that can sit on top of all this, in a sense. If you have some concern about how DND is collecting and using intelligence or whether they're not sharing it with our integrated threat assessment centre—

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

That's the key, exactly.

[Anne McLellan]

—you as parliamentarians should be bringing people before you and getting to the roots of the matter in terms of what's happening, who's putting what on the table. Are people holding back? Are people protecting turf? If so, that could endanger the well-being of Canadians, and you as parliamentarians need to know that. That's one of the roles an oversight committee could play, an oversight committee of parliamentarians.

[The Chair, Conservative, Garry Breitkreuz]

Thank you, Ms. McLellan. You obviously are a teacher and a professor and you make sure we get the full answer with no loose ends. Thank you.

[Anne McLellan]

I'm sorry.

[The Chair, Conservative, Garry Breitkreuz]

I want to follow up on this. Was the O'Connor commission ever instructed to give us feedback on whether there should be parliamentary oversight? You're just talking about Parliament. Did you ask him to do anything in that respect?

[Anne McLellan]

No. That was not a specific question.

[The Chair, Conservative, Garry Breitkreuz]

Why not?

[Anne McLellan]

Because we asked him to look at the specific question of whether additional oversight was required for the RCMP as it related to their national security activities. Mr. Justice O'Connor may--I don't know, I haven't seen his report--talk about the importance of parliamentary oversight as part of his answer to the question. We kept the question very general: What do you think would be appropriate oversight for the force, as it relates to national security matters? He has tipped his hand in a sense, in the first part of his report, by saying he believes an independent review mechanism is important for the RCMP. He may go further--I don't know, Mr. Chair--and talk about the importance of parliamentary oversight and the fact that it would be a complementary cap to any kind of independent review mechanism he might suggest. Certainly there's nothing that precludes him from talking about parliamentary oversight in his second report.

[The Chair, Conservative, Garry Breitkreuz]

Thank you.

Everyone has had an opportunity to ask questions in this first round. Does anyone else have any other questions to pose before we wrap this up? Everybody has had one opportunity.

We'll go to the Liberal side. Mr. Alghabra, are you going to...? Or Mr. Cotler. Which one of you will it be?