Public Safety Committee on Jan. 30th, 2007

[Serge Ménard, Bloc, Marc-Aurèle-Fortin, QC]

Mr. Elliott, I am aware of the fact that there were several issues. This is why I asked you which one was the most important. If I understand correctly, in your opinion, the most important issue was to find out exactly when he was informed that the RCMP had made mistakes.

[William Elliott]

That's certainly an important question. It is the area in which I found his testimony unclear when I heard his testimony.

[Margaret Bloodworth]

Perhaps I can add something, Mr. Ménard. I actually believe that whatever he felt was not clear, he should have come back and clarified. So I'm not sure I would....

I don't have his testimony in front of me, so I can't pick out one example, but I would say that as a general principle, for any of us who appear, if there's anything we've said that has been unclear, or, when we go back, we say, gee, we didn't really mean that, we made a mistake, then we should clarify that. I'm not sure I'd pick out anything said before a parliamentary committee and say, oh well, that doesn't matter; yes it was unclear, and it wasn't really a fact, but you shouldn't clarify it.

So I think that may be why we're having a little trouble with the question. I don't think we'd pick and choose in that way.

[Serge Ménard, Bloc, Marc-Aurèle-Fortin, QC]

However, I asked Mr. Elliott to make his own choice. It happens to be my opinion as well. This is the most important issue.

At the end of the interrogation, Mr. Zaccardelli was given an opportunity to correct what he had said about the time when he was informed about the mistakes made by the RCMP, and he did not do so. Do you believe that the true version is the one that he gave on December 5 and not the one that he spontaneously provided on September 28?

[William Elliott]

As I indicated earlier, I take at face value what the commissioner said.

[Serge Ménard, Bloc, Marc-Aurèle-Fortin, QC]

When?

[William Elliott]

On December 5.

[Serge Ménard, Bloc, Marc-Aurèle-Fortin, QC]

On September 28, I said to Mr. Zaccardelli that I was disturbed when I heard him say that he knew that the individual was innocent but that he had left him to rot for over a year in one of the worst jails on this planet.

What would the natural response to this question have been if, while Mr. Arar was in Syria, Commissioner Zacardelli had not yet been advised of the errors made by the RCMP and if he had discovered these facts only when he read the O'Connor report?

[William Elliott]

I'm sorry, I don't understand the question.

[Serge Ménard, Bloc, Marc-Aurèle-Fortin, QC]

Do you not understand the question? On September 28, Mr. Zaccardelli said that he had been aware of the facts shortly after Mr. Arar's arrival in Syria, whereas on December 5 he stated that he only learned about this through the O'Connor report.

[The Chair, Conservative, Garry Breitkreuz]

Okay. Is that--

[Serge Ménard, Bloc, Marc-Aurèle-Fortin, QC]

On September 28, I told him that I was disturbed by the fact that he was aware at the time that this man was innocent, but that he had left him to rot in jail. Naturally, he should not have replied that he apologized for having misled us, but he should have said that he only learned about the RCMP's mistakes when he read the O'Connor report, do you not agree?

[The Chair, Conservative, Garry Breitkreuz]

We're over time, but do you want to respond to that, Mr. Elliott?

[William Elliott]

I guess I have difficulty being asked to...including without the benefit of the transcripts of Mr. Zaccardelli's testimony. But even with them, I'm uncomfortable being cast in a role of deciphering, examining, and making conclusions--including it being based on a comparative analysis--with respect to his testimony.

He said one thing, he said it was unclear, and he came back and said another thing.

[The Chair, Conservative, Garry Breitkreuz]

Mr. Comartin.

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

I have to say to you, Mr. Elliott, that it wasn't unclear, it was just wrong. He told us he knew about it on this date. In fact he didn't know about it, based on his second round of testimony, until some three or four years later, when the O'Connor report finally came out. That's not a clarification, that's an outright mistake on his part.

But back to questions. I think the frustration I have with this process is that I don't see any change within our intelligence services in terms of responsibility for reporting up to the deputy ministerial level and, more importantly, to the ministerial level.

It's quite clear from the testimony we got from former ministers McLellan and Easter that in that period of time, and in particular near the end of the time of Mr. Arar's incarceration, they and Mr. Graham, the foreign affairs minister, were asking very direct questions, some even coming from the Prime Minister's Office, that, look, this man is being held--we're hearing more and more--improperly, illegally, but we're not getting information from within the RCMP that false information had been given to the Americans that might have precipitated his incarceration.

I don't hear, from the testimony we had from Mr. Day and Commissioner Zaccardelli, and now from you today, any change that would say to me that if we had mid-level or line staff who had the same situation as we had in that year when Mr. Arar was in custody, that they would still not hold that information back from the upper echelons of their respective agencies.

Can you give me some assurances that this would not happen again?

[Margaret Bloodworth]

Let me take a try at it.

I would say that Mr. Justice O'Connor did explicitly find that Mr. Arar was appropriately a person of interest in the inquiry. So he did make that...about the RCMP, who were the ones investigating.

More generally, I would say that CSIS is a very centralized organization by the nature of its being an intelligence organization. They do report centrally. They control their information centrally and they report all investigations. In fact, there's a very elaborate system, one level for proving them within the service, but then warrants are approved by the minister, and so on. Any liaison relationship they have is approved by a couple of ministers. So there's a very elaborate system within CSIS with regard to overall control of and accountability for what they investigate.

With the RCMP, one of the recommendations Mr. Justice O'Connor made was that their national security investigations post-9/11, when they had increased the amount they were doing, were not centralized enough. They were still being run too much like, if I can put it this way, ordinary police investigations, which is often at the district or command-post level, because that's how criminal investigations unfold. His recommendation, with which the government agrees and I personally agree, is that when you're dealing with national security, it is appropriate that it be more centralized. The RCMP have actually moved to do that, and therefore it's more centralized in the RCMP.

Now does that guarantee there will never be another error? No. Obviously we are organizations of human beings, and there may be errors. Does it help greatly to mitigate what happened here? Yes, I believe it does.

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

I have to say to you that I don't have the same sense of confidence.

Just specifically, in the report there was a reference to a Rose Mutombo. She was one of the early people who questioned and stopped Mr. Arar. She refused to cooperate. She's in Massachusetts, or at least she was at the time of the report.

Was any attempt made by the government...? I believe she worked for the RCMP. There were attempts made by the commission, but I don't see any reference in Mr. Justice O'Connor's report as to whether any attempts were made to get to her.

The reason I'm asking about her is that, quite frankly, I don't think we're ever going to find out who the despicable people were who consistently leaked that information against him after he came back unless we get a whistle-blower, and I'm wondering if she's one of the potential whistle-blowers.

[Margaret Bloodworth]

I honestly don't know whether there were any efforts. I can certainly agree that I believe, and I would concur with Mr. Justice O'Connor, that people who leak...it was a breach of their trust. Unfortunately, in my experience the people who are willing to breach their trust are not usually inhibited from lying about doing so.

So I agree with you; unfortunately, it's very difficult to find the people who leak.

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

Have there been any steps within the department, the agencies, to encourage...? I have to believe, Ms. Bloodworth, that other people, who weren't part of leaking this, in fact know who did leak the information. Has there been any attempt to encourage them to come forward?

[Margaret Bloodworth]

I'll turn to Mr. Elliott, because he...but I believe there have been two administrative inquiries. Then there was a criminal investigation.

I'm at a loss as to what further we can do about this, really.

[William Elliott]

The Commissioner of the RCMP--and many others before the commission and certainly the commissioner himself--talks about the negative consequences of leaks and how they are a breach of our fundamental values. That certainly is a message that has gone out, and I would hope it will influence individuals and organizations with respect to appropriate behaviour.

If I may, Mr. Chairman, I'd like to touch on Mr. Comartin's earlier question. With respect to things being done to enhance accountability and reporting, I'd again refer to all of the ten recommendations addressed to the RCMP by Mr. Justice O'Connor. Those recommendations, as we touched on, are being acted upon. They include the centralization of information holdings, the strengthening of policies and procedures, the enhancement of training, the clearer definitions of rules and responsibilities, and heightened responsibilities with respect to reporting. The last recommendation relates to review, which leads into the part two report.

All 23 recommendations, but the 10 that deal specifically with the RCMP and further enhancements for review, should go a long way to decrease the likelihood of events occurring in the future as happened in the past.

[The Chair, Conservative, Garry Breitkreuz]

You're a couple of minutes over. Are you done, Mr. Comartin?

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

I do have one more question, Mr. Chair.

I just want to know the status of the lawsuit that Mr. O'Connor has brought against the--

[The Chair, Conservative, Garry Breitkreuz]

Can you pose it very quickly? We'd like to wrap this up.