Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. It is a pleasure to be back on Parliament Hill.
Thank you for inviting me here today. I want to congratulate you and thank you for following up on the O'Connor report.
I asked Mr. Justice O'Connor to take up the important task of getting to the bottom of what happened to Maher Arar, and why it happened. His exhaustive investigation has served an important public purpose, but most importantly has provided the foundation on which Maher Arar and his family can move forward. It is clear that what happened to Maher Arar should not have happened, and that mistakes were made. While it was not appropriate for me to meet with Mr. Arar personally during my time as minister, I do want to take the opportunity now to express how sorry I am for everything that has happened to him and his family. It is now up to this government to decide how to implement Mr. Justice O'Connor's recommendations and to compensate Mr. Arar.
My involvement with the Arar case began when I become Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness on December 13, 2003. Mr. Arar had been returned to Canada from Syria in September 2003. Prime Minister Martin asked me to get to the bottom of what had happened to Mr. Arar. In addition, he asked me to look at whether additional oversight was required for the RCMP in relation to its national security activities. In fact, that request was in the public documents issued at the time Prime Minister Martin became Prime Minister and the new government was installed on December 13, 2003.
Prime Minister Martin and Foreign Affairs Minister Bill Graham were both very concerned about the conduct of the United States in relation to Mr. Arar, obviously that conduct being the deportation of a dual citizen to Syria rather than his expected return to Canada. To try to prevent this from happening again, discussions began with Mr. Graham's counterpart, Colin Powell, to enter into an agreement to ensure that no Canadian holding dual citizenship would be deported to a third country without consultations at the highest levels with DFAIT and the State Department. That agreement was adopted by Prime Minister Martin and President Bush on January 13, 2004, in Monterey and hence its name, the Monterrey Protocol. I believe the original agreement was confirmed recently by Minister Peter MacKay with his U.S. counterpart, Secretary of State Rice.
During the early part of January 2004, my department and I considered the best way to fulfill the Prime Minister's request that we get to the bottom of what happened to Mr. Arar. We considered the possibility of the Commission for Public Complaints undertaking an investigation. Since there seemed to be some concern as to the scope of the public complaints commission's jurisdiction, we finally decided that a public inquiry chaired by a judge or former judge would be the most transparent and independent process. On January 28, 2004, I announced our government's decision to hold a public inquiry into the actions of Canadian officials as it related to the deportation of Mr. Arar from the U.S. to Syria. I also announced that Mr. Justice Dennis O'Connor of the Ontario Court of Appeal had agreed to serve as a single commissioner. An order in council was issued on February 5, 2004, officially appointing Mr. Justice O'Connor and setting out the terms of reference.
From that point on, it would have been inappropriate for anyone in the government to comment or speculate upon what did or did not happen to Mr. Arar or the reasons therefor. I have read the testimony of my former colleague, Wayne Easter, as well as that of Jim Judd, now director of CSIS, and that of Commissioner Zaccardelli. I have also read Mr. Justice O'Connor's factual findings and his recommendations.
Mr. Justice O'Connor reminds us all of the importance of oversight of the actions of government agencies involved in intelligence gathering and law enforcement. As I mentioned earlier, Prime Minister Martin had called for a review of whether there was sufficient and appropriate oversight of the RCMP in the exercise of its national security role. I know we all look forward to Mr. Justice O'Connor's second report, in which he will provide us with guidance in relation to additional appropriate oversight mechanisms.
In conclusion, let me say, Mr. Chair and members of the committee, that the O'Connor report provides insight not only into what can and did happen to one individual, but I think if Mr. O'Connor's report is taken up—and I know that you're taking it up and that it is the expressed intention of the government to take up his recommendations—it will help us, again, understand the difficulties and the challenges involved in striking the right balance. Obviously the paradigm foundational responsibility of government is to ensure the collective security of its people, but in doing so we must always be respectful and mindful of getting the balance right. I think Mr. Justice O'Connor's report goes some significant distance to providing us guidance in terms of what we need to remember about what we need to inform ourselves to ensure that we're always trying to get the balance right.
With that, Mr. Chair, I will conclude my remarks and look forward to questions and comments from the committee.
Thank you.