Evidence of meeting #24 for Public Safety and National Security in the 39th Parliament, 1st session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was information.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Garry Breitkreuz
Mr. Holland, with all respect, give the witness a chance to answer.
Commr Giuliano Zaccardelli
To answer that specific question, no. Nobody from the minister's office had anything to do with that speech, nor did anyone from the PCO.
Liberal
Mark Holland Liberal Ajax—Pickering, ON
Was the decision to give the speech yours and yours alone? Was the speech made in conjunction with or on the behest of anyone? If so, who in particular? Was Minister Day, anyone from his staff or the PMO, or any outside adviser or consultant involved with the decision to deliver that speech?
Commr Giuliano Zaccardelli
The only person who had anything to do with making that speech was me. I was asked by the Canadian Club if I was willing to make a speech. I said yes. I did not consult anybody else in government relative to making the speech. It just happened that the two days, by coincidence, were back to back, because—
December 5th, 2006 / 10:55 a.m.
Liberal
Mark Holland Liberal Ajax—Pickering, ON
Other than the fact that you made them aware you were going to make the speech.
Commr Giuliano Zaccardelli
Yes, it was coincidental. I was trying to get back before the committee. Actually, I believe I had sent the letter requesting to come to the committee before I actually accepted the date. It was only very recently that it was confirmed what date I would be coming here, so it was simply coincidental that the two were back to back, Mr. Holland.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Garry Breitkreuz
The Bloc has given up their time, so, Mr. Comartin, go ahead with a brief question.
NDP
Joe Comartin NDP Windsor—Tecumseh, ON
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Commissioner, when you were here the last time, you led us to believe a certain set of facts. I was critical at that time that you had not reported to your minister. As we now know, you didn't have that information to report. I'm now critical of you and the officials in the department, in the force, in this sense.
As I said earlier, there wasn't anybody in this country who wouldn't have appreciated the significance of those false accusations, especially in the period of time we were talking about, so soon after 2001, after 9/11. Do you not have any sense of responsibility, as the commissioner, to take disciplinary action? Is this not a serious enough case that people did not report those false accusations to you? You found out about them through the O'Connor report. Is this not one of those cases in which simply changing the procedure, which Justice O'Connor, quite frankly, found was pretty good...? That's not where Justice O'Connor's criticism was. It was in the application, or, more specifically, the non-application, of the policies by your front-line staff. Is this not a case in which their immediate supervisors, rather than being promoted—as we understand a number of them have been—should perhaps have been disciplined?
Commr Giuliano Zaccardelli
Mr. Comartin, that's a very good question and I would like to take some time to answer that.
NDP
Joe Comartin NDP Windsor—Tecumseh, ON
Mr. Zaccardelli, I just want to throw this in. Don't give me former Minister MacLellan's answer. I already told her that I didn't agree with her on that one.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Garry Breitkreuz
Could we have your final submission, in the form of a brief response?
Commr Giuliano Zaccardelli
The response may take a little bit longer, but I won't get into whether heads should roll or not. That's for another day.
When we talk about mistakes that were made, first of all, there was a document, the lookout document, that contained the names of a number of people. Those people were legitimate targets of Islamic extremist investigation. Mr. Arar and his wife were added to that list. They should not have been. If they were, they should have been identified. That is the first mistake we're talking about. But in Justice O'Connor's report, he clearly states that after that lookout was put out, Mr. Arar did travel back and forth twice to the United States and nothing happened to him. He also states in his report that he can't determine what use the Americans made of that statement.
The other errors, if we want to call them that, are things like a statement that was made, as I said before, that Mr. Arar sold his house and left for Tunisia “suddenly”, as we described it having been done. Justice O'Connor, when he analyzed that three years later, said we should not have described it as “suddenly”.
There was another mistake when the investigators said Mr. Arar was actually in Washington on September 11, 2001. He wasn't in Washington.
The other mistake was that when he had the so-called meeting here with one of our main targets at that café, the investigators said he came from Quebec City for the meeting. Instead, he was actually here.
Individually, although Justice O'Connor said he didn't believe these were conscious errors on their part—let me just finish, Mr. Comartin—at the end, when he analyzed this, when he did his extensive audit and brought all of it together, he came to the conclusion that those small errors, taken together, could have created an inflammatory impression or created the impression in the Americans' minds that Mr. Arar was a more serious person than we actually thought. I accept that totally.
But then Justice O'Connor says in his report that the investigators didn't do this intentionally. They didn't have the right training. The organization hadn't given them the right training, so Justice O'Connor put what they did in context. I'm grappling with how we deal with somebody who makes an honest mistake when a judge—
NDP
Joe Comartin NDP Windsor—Tecumseh, ON
But doesn't it tell you, Mr. Zaccardelli, that this is what the problem is?
NDP
Joe Comartin NDP Windsor—Tecumseh, ON
That's what the problem is: they did not report it to you. That's where the big mistake was.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Garry Breitkreuz
We'll have to end this. We have to give everybody a chance.
Two minutes.
Conservative
Dave MacKenzie Conservative Oxford, ON
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I'd just like to make this perfectly clear. Mr. Holland, you've tried to put on the record that there was political interference.
I would like the commissioner to make it perfectly clear to Mr. Holland, who doesn't understand the word “no”, that what you said was that you did not receive direction.
He seems to be more concerned about a period of time in September than in 2002, when his minister should have been asking the hard questions.
Was there any political interference? Very clearly, so that he understands.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Garry Breitkreuz
I appreciate your coming before the committee.
I thank the committee for the questions. I'm sure we've all been informed by them.
The meeting is adjourned.