Public Safety Committee on Dec. 5th, 2006

[Commr Giuliano Zaccardelli]

No.

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

Have you looked at the specific exchanges that went on at that time?

[Commr Giuliano Zaccardelli]

I did look. That was my first entry into the file—looking at that exchange. That's contained in Justice O'Connor's report. He clearly states that. The members themselves, when they provided that information in 2002, were providing it not with the objective of correcting anything, because they actually didn't know that any errors had been made; this is one of the issues. They were simply responding to an American request as to whether they could arrest him or whether we could detain him. They simply gave him what we considered Mr. Arar to be in Canada, regardless of the mistakes, the mislabelling that had taken place.

The members only testified to the question of possibly having a corrective effect when they testified in front of Justice O'Connor. They said, if the Americans were unsure of what we had on him, what we told them at that time should have clearly put them in the knowledge that we couldn't arrest him or do anything with him.

[The Chair, Conservative, Garry Breitkreuz]

Go ahead.

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

Do you know, today, who the people were, within your force, who put Dr. Mazigh and Mr. Arar on that customs list?

[Commr Giuliano Zaccardelli]

I don't know the specific name, but I know the people who prepared that list.... It's important to remember that the list contained a number of suspects who were clearly identified by the RCMP in an investigation as Islamic extremists. Mr. Arar and Ms. Mazigh were add-ons to that list. So a number of people on that list were legitimately classified as Islamic extremists. The mistake was that when they added on Mr. Arar and Ms. Mazigh, they didn't indicate that those two were only persons of interest; they didn't distinguish that. There is an individual in the RCMP who actually did that, but that person—and Justice O'Connor accepts that testimony—did not believe they were doing anything wrong when they put that person on the list. That's why that issue never was briefed up, along with the other mistakes that were made.

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

Even after the fact, they never came to tell you? When it became so obvious to any Canadian citizen in this country how damaging that was to him, they never disclosed it to you?

[Commr Giuliano Zaccardelli]

But they didn't realize it. No, it never came up—only when Justice O'Connor brought it all together.

[The Chair, Conservative, Garry Breitkreuz]

We have to wrap up this final round of questioning.

Mr. MacKenzie is next, please, for seven minutes.

[Dave MacKenzie, Conservative, Oxford, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Commissioner, for being here.

I understand that yesterday, Commissioner, you attended a public function and spoke about the Arar case. I'd just like to read to you one quote from there, talking about the inaccurate information:

This was not recognized by the RCMP at the time, and senior officials, including myself, were not informed until the Commission of Inquiry completed its work. All the above information is documented and detailed in the Justice O'Connor's report.

My friends opposite have talked about the differences, and I would read to you a couple of other quotes from September 28, from the record. One of your answers was:

As I explained to Mr. Cotler, this happened at the same time. It is when I was inquiring into what happened in Mr. Arar's case that I learned that our investigators were trying to correct the false information that had been conveyed to the U.S. authorities. It is at that time that I was made aware of the correspondence between the Americans and the RCMP investigators. This is then that I found out that false information had been conveyed concerning Mr. Arar.

And then on to Mr. Ménard again:

Mr. Chairman, as I have said, I learned that a mistake had been made, that the information concerning Mr. Arar was false, after Mr. Arar was imprisoned. At the same time, I learned that the investigators had made an effort to correct that false information, but it was after Mr. Arar was imprisoned.

Then you went on to say, again in answer to Mr. Ménard:

When we learned what had occurred, we had discussions with the minister to inform him of the situation and we began to notify the authorities of what had happened in this case.

I think Canadians legitimately would question what's happened here. I know you've indicated that after reading Mr. O'Connor's report, but I don't see what Mr. O'Connor's report has to do with either one of these situations.

I think it was pretty clear to the committee—and I understand why our friends opposite are upset—that on September 28, you were very clear about when you learned what you learned and some of the information that was passed. Can you tell us how that difference comes about today?

[Commr Giuliano Zaccardelli]

Sir, the difference comes about today because, since my testimony on September 28, I have read and reread and reread again. I have tried to inform myself, as best I could.

I realized after my testimony that my testimony was not as precise and as accurate as it could have been, and that I had made a mistake. Therefore, I did two things. I tried to come back before the committee as quickly as I could, and I informed myself by reading the report as many times as I could and by talking to other people about it.

I recognize that I made a mistake in inferring or leaving the impression that I knew information about those mistakes in 2002, when in fact I couldn't have known. I knew the information in 2006, because from the moment I picked up the report until I testified here, I was absorbed with this report. I clearly made the mistake of inferring that the knowledge I was acquiring from the report, in reading it in 2006, was actually knowledge that I had in 2002. I clearly didn't have it then, and Justice O'Connor clearly states that I didn't have it.

One other point I would make is that if I knew that information at that time, or if any of my senior officers knew at that time, I think Justice O'Connor, in his exhaustive report, would have probably picked that up and pointed it out, because it does become a very important issue. But Justice O'Connor does not.

So as I said, I accept that I was imprecise and made a mistake. My mistake seems to be constant in my answers, but I'm here to try to correct that as best I can.

[Dave MacKenzie, Conservative, Oxford, ON]

But, sir, with all due respect, as a police officer...I recognize that we keep notes and our staff members keep notes. Since September 28 until today, you haven't gone back and verified with anybody what you had said to us then? You're only relying on what you've read in Justice O'Connor's report to say that you made a mistake?

[Commr Giuliano Zaccardelli]

No, I have reread my testimony. Absolutely.

[Dave MacKenzie, Conservative, Oxford, ON]

I mean the notes and the information from whomever. When you said to us that you learned the investigators had passed on wrong information and tried to correct it—and we're talking about back in 2002. Since September 28 until yesterday, when you publicly said you hadn't had the information, did you go back to any of those people?

[Commr Giuliano Zaccardelli]

I'm sorry, I--

[Dave MacKenzie, Conservative, Oxford, ON]

All I'm saying is you were very clear to us on September 28 that investigators had informed you that mistakes had been made.

[Commr Giuliano Zaccardelli]

But that was incorrect because they had not informed me.

[Dave MacKenzie, Conservative, Oxford, ON]

All I'm saying is, have you gone back to them since then and confirmed that they did or they didn't tell you anything, or are you relying on what's in Mr. Justice O'Connor's report?

[Commr Giuliano Zaccardelli]

Well, I have gone back to my senior officers, and none of them was informed. I have talked to my senior officers, and they've verified with me that the reason they didn't brief me was because they were not aware of it. This is consistent with what Justice O'Connor says in his report, that no senior officer was aware. The briefing up didn't take place because the investigators, who were separate and apart...and this was never brought together until Justice O'Connor brought all these small pieces of information together. They didn't believe they were actually making mistakes at the time, and Justice O'Connor accepts that. That's why it was never briefed up.

[Dave MacKenzie, Conservative, Oxford, ON]

Are you saying that no debriefing took place between your staff before Mr. Justice O'Connor's hearings began? That was an issue that was pretty prominent in the news. Typically, we would have debriefings and review it. Didn't that occur?

[Commr Giuliano Zaccardelli]

Well, the debriefings took place between--

[Dave MacKenzie, Conservative, Oxford, ON]

Debriefings between staff--

[Commr Giuliano Zaccardelli]

Yes, there were debriefings about some of that, but I was in the position where I had to be very careful about what was coming out of Justice O'Connor's inquiry, because Justice O'Connor had the mandate to bring all this together, to analyse it. I could not intervene on any one section because then I would run the risk of intervening in Justice O'Connor's inquiry, and we had to wait until we saw the full picture before we could fully analyse it. It would have been irresponsible of me to intervene just after one or two witnesses. You want to wait until the whole picture comes out, which occurred when the report came out on September 18.

[Dave MacKenzie, Conservative, Oxford, ON]

Okay, I understand that, but Mr. Justice O'Connor wasn't appointed to hold that inquiry until late in the day. Between the time of Mr. Arar being released and brought back to Canada and his appointment, were there never senior staff or investigators debriefed as to what had gone on?

[Commr Giuliano Zaccardelli]

No, because the only thing we knew was the fact that he was a person of interest, that we couldn't charge him, and that he wasn't linked to al-Qaeda. The mistakes were not briefed up because the investigators didn't believe they had made a mistake, and that's what they testified to before Justice O'Connor.

For example, there is one point that Justice O'Connor talks about. In the amount of time between when Mr. Arar sold his house and went to Tunisia, there was a five-month gap. The investigators remarked in their notes that Mr. Arar departed suddenly from Canada. Justice O'Connor, in his conclusion, says it wasn't sudden--five months is not sudden--but that's a conclusion he draws at the end of the inquiry. The investigator didn't think that was a mistake. That was one of the inaccuracies and that was the issue here. These disparate little pieces of misinformation or errors were not seen as errors at the time, until Justice O'Connor did the comprehensive audit and brought it together and arrived at this conclusion.