I would say this. Once Mr. Justice O'Connor was put in place, it does not surprise me that those who were going to testify and be subject of his investigation would not, outside the inquiry, offer gratuitous comments. I would personally find that inappropriate. Mr. Justice O'Connor was in place; he was investigating this matter; he was going to hear testimony from the RCMP, from CSIS, and so on. That's why he was put in place, to be able to bring everything together in one place and make, we hoped, definitive conclusions around who knew what, when, and what was said by whom, and what the consequences of it were.
I agree that up until the appointment of Mr. Justice O'Connor and the decision to have the inquiry, if the RCMP knew that Maher Arar had been mis-described at any time and in their opinion was an innocent person, it would have been useful if not expected that they would so convey publicly.