Public Safety Committee on Jan. 30th, 2007

[William Elliott]

You asked me a direct question, whether I was surprised, and I answered that question. My impression of the commissioner's testimony was that it was not as clear as it could have been.

[Omar Alghabra, Liberal, Mississauga—Erindale, ON]

It was very contradictory in nature. I know he was trying to say he was misunderstood, but there's a difference between him saying that he knew something went wrong in 2002, and then saying, on December 5, when he came here, that, no, he didn't.

Again, I'm really flabbergasted by the fact that nothing had happened, or so it appears. If something had happened, we'd like to know what was done, after the testimony of the commissioner, to clarify...even until November 2, because the committee received no communication from the commissioner or the department between September 28 and November 2 about clarifying that so-called misunderstanding.

[Margaret Bloodworth]

I can't speak to what communications there were with the committee, but like Mr. Elliott, I certainly was well under the impression, well before that, that the commissioner wanted to go back to the committee and clarify.

And I must say, I would not have considered it appropriate for me—and I suspect Mr. Elliott feels the same—to call the commissioner in and say, “Well, tell us what you said before the committee and what you're going to say again.” I think we might have been subject to an accusation that we were trying to shape his testimony.

It seems to me that if he was not clear before the committee, the appropriate place for him to clarify that was to come back to the committee, and I agreed with the idea of him going back.

[Omar Alghabra, Liberal, Mississauga—Erindale, ON]

Ms. Bloodworth, this is not an exercise to assign you guilt or anything. What we're trying to do is find out why the government didn't—

[Margaret Bloodworth]

I'm just telling you my views.

[The Chair, Conservative, Garry Breitkreuz]

I'll have to interrupt for a minute.

Your time is up, Mr. Alghabra. I'm sorry, you're going to have to come back in the next round.

We'll go to the Bloc now.

Ms. Mourani, do you have any questions?

[Maria Mourani, Bloc, Ahuntsic, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I thank you for appearing before us.

Earlier, you said that the documents that Mr. O'Connor received for his investigation had been expurgated for security reasons.

In your opinion, is the report that was published yesterday, namely the O'Connor report, the same as the one that was given to the Prime Minister or is this an expurgated version?

[Margaret Bloodworth]

It's the same report, but there are indications in the report where Mr. Justice O'Connor has put a few stars indicating there were some redactions. And there was a confidential report, yes, where he dealt with all of the national security information, including information that he went through and agreed was national security confidential. But the report you have is the same one that the Prime Minister got.

[William Elliott]

Mr. Chairman, perhaps I can clarify certain issues.

I referred to documents being redacted or portions of documents being blacked out, but those very same documents, in their unredacted form, with no blackouts, were provided to the commissioner. So he got all of the information. On some of the 21,000-and-some documents that he got, he did receive two versions of those, a complete version and a version on which certain information was blacked out.

[Maria Mourani, Bloc, Ahuntsic, QC]

Thus, as I understand it, a confidential version was provided, and some parts of this version were not included in the so-called public version. Is this what you mean?

[Margaret Bloodworth]

In the public version of the report by Mr. O'Connor, there are a few places, not a lot, where he has a few stars--I think that's what he used--to mark information that was removed, and he referred to that in his report. That's the 0.05% of the information I talked about on which Mr. Justice O'Connor and the government agreed to disagree. He said that he'd removed it at the request of the government, even though he'd believed it should be in.

So in that sense, there is some information. It's 0.05%, I think, of the whole report. That's what I was talking about. The government knows what that information is and the public doesn't, so in that sense there is a difference, if I can put it that way.

[Maria Mourani, Bloc, Ahuntsic, QC]

How does one decide whether or not information should be published? What were the criteria for blacking out the percentage of information that you mentioned? Of course, this was in the interest of national security.

Nevertheless, Mr. O'Connor said that he did not see any national security problem. Is this not what you said?

[Margaret Bloodworth]

Let me first say that there is a great deal of information on which Mr. Justice O'Connor and ourselves, the government, agreed—a great deal that is public, that we agreed could be made public, including material that would not normally have been made public. Then there's a great deal of information that was not made public that Mr. Justice O'Connor agreed should not be made public because of potential damage to national security. In between those two, there was a very small amount of information that we believed was injurious to national security, but—I don't like to speak for Mr. Justice O'Connor, but I think he would put it thus—that he felt the public interest outweighed.

I think that is before the courts right now, so I can't really comment further than this. But just to be clear, on the vast bulk of the information, both what went public and what didn't go public, Mr. Justice O'Connor and the government agreed on whether it was public or not. We're talking about a very small amount on which there was not agreement.

[Maria Mourani, Bloc, Ahuntsic, QC]

I am trying to understand the criteria for deciding whether or not a certain piece of information presents a national security problem. How are these things decided?

[William Elliott]

I think, Mr. Chairman, the question in part relates to the grounds on which national security claims of confidentiality are made. In general terms, those claims are made when it is felt that the release of information to the public would be prejudicial to Canada's national security, to our national defence, or to international relations.

In general terms, that would include, for example, information about vulnerabilities; it would include information received from a foreign government in confidence. Those are just a couple of examples of the categories of information that might be prejudicial to national security.

Who makes the decision? As I said, in the context of the inquiry, there were decisions taken at several levels. From the government side, initial positions with respect to national security and confidentiality were taken by a working group of officials. Ultimately, some matters went to deputy ministers and the heads of agencies, and then to the government.

Again, speaking more generically—and Mrs. Bloodworth had indicated that the matter, with respect to the O'Connor report, is before the courts—there's a specific role for the Attorney General of Canada with respect to that process and the application of claims to national security confidentiality.

[The Chair, Conservative, Garry Breitkreuz]

Thank you. Very good.

We will now move over to Mr. Calkins.

[Blaine Calkins, Conservative, Wetaskiwin, AB]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I'd like to thank our guests for appearing before committee today. I'm going to change direction here a little bit.

From my perspective, and knowing what my constituents have told me in regard to this matter, they want some progress made so that something like this doesn't happen again in the future. I think everybody would agree that some of the things that have happened in the past have dismayed a lot of Canadians. It's important, from my perspective and our government's perspective; we want to get it right. We've been very clear about our support for Justice O'Connor's 23 recommendations.

I would like to get your feedback on the status of the implementation of those recommendations, from the times you were involved in this, and your feedback on the progress that's being made on those recommendations from part one of Justice O'Connor's report.

[Margaret Bloodworth]

Perhaps I could start, Mr. Calkins, and then I'll let Mr. Elliott fill in with what I might omit.

I think all of us who read Mr. Justice O'Connor's report would say it's a very constructive and helpful report. If you look at his recommendations, a vast majority of them are forward-looking, about things we should do to improve our system.

There were some specific things, and I'll start with those. He recommended that the government do something with regard to compensation—I don't think he was quite that direct—and that was resolved last week when the Prime Minister announced the settlement with Mr. Arar and apologized to Mr. Arar and his family on behalf of the Government of Canada.

It wasn't a specific recommendation, but he made a comment suggesting that he favoured a review of the cases of Mr. Almalki, Mr. El Maati, and Mr. Nureddin. That is under way by former Justice Iacobucci. He talked about making objections to Syria and the United States, both of which have been made.

In terms of the departments involved, he made a number of recommendations having to do with Foreign Affairs training their consular staff with regard to further awareness about torture and how to recognize it, and about making more widely known and more widespread among government agencies, including CSIS and the RCMP, their human rights reports. That is already under way and has been done.

He made a number of recommendations about the RCMP in terms of centralizing their national security investigations, which they have done, and instituting further training, which they have done. Some of that may still be under way. In fact, if you're interested in the details, probably the current commissioner of the RCMP could speak in more detail. But they have done a lot of work in that regard.

He also made some recommendations to CSIS about some of their training, and they have instituted those as well. In addition, CSIS and the RCMP have updated their memorandum of understanding as to how they deal with one another on national security cases.

That's a general overview, Mr. Calkins.

Bill, is there anything I missed that you want to add?

[William Elliott]

I might also mention the Canada Border Services Agency. There are recommendations that touch on their areas of responsibility—for example, with respect to lookouts. They in fact have prepared a new lookouts policy.

I would say that overall there's been significant progress in implementing the recommendations. A number of those recommendations I would describe as being evergreen: there will be an ongoing requirement for policies to be reviewed and adapted. There certainly has been significant activity under each of the 23 recommendations brought forward by Mr. O'Connor.

[Blaine Calkins, Conservative, Wetaskiwin, AB]

That's very good.

I have a little bit of time left, and I'll be as brief as I can, Mr. Chair.

It's very encouraging to hear that we're making that progress. Of course situations change over time. We always have to be vigilant, and I'm sure that's happening.

From a perspective of knowing how we're doing, it's often constructive to compare ourselves with what other countries are doing in regard to national security. I'm wondering what your personal perspectives and opinions are on how we're doing with our national security activities compared with other nations that have similar issues.

[Margaret Bloodworth]

That's a large question to answer in a short period of time.

[Blaine Calkins, Conservative, Wetaskiwin, AB]

I suppose it is.

[Margaret Bloodworth]

I guess I would say that overall there are some things we do as well or better and some things we don't do as well.

Let me give you a concrete example, which is probably all I can do in the time available. I think we have lessons to learn from the British on how security agencies and the police work together. Indeed, CSIS and the RCMP did send a delegation over to talk to MI5 and the Special Branch on that. That's because the British have been dealing with Irish terrorism for many years and have learned some lessons. There are still some lessons we can learn from them on that.

I think CSIS is an excellent intelligence organization. I've had foreign counterparts tell me that they have a great deal of respect for what they do. I think CSIS would say they have a very young workforce. They've recruited a lot of new agents in the last five years, and experience will help in getting them even better.

So it's a mixed bag. I think we've done many things quite well, and we have a lot of things we still have to work at to do better on.

[The Chair, Conservative, Garry Breitkreuz]

Thank you.

If we had another hour or two, I'm sure you could elaborate on that list.

[Blaine Calkins, Conservative, Wetaskiwin, AB]

I don't know, I might have the permission from committee members to allow this to go on....