Public Safety Committee on Nov. 29th, 2007

[Dave MacKenzie, Conservative, Oxford, ON]

And the origins of this bill started in that timeframe, I'm told.

[Warren Allmand]

Not really. We did have some kind of a provision. I can recall being asked. It was on criminal matters, on people involved in organized crime.

[Dave MacKenzie, Conservative, Oxford, ON]

Isn't the bill still there?

[Warren Allmand]

No, I think the bill has changed on several occasions. If you read the judgment of Chief Justice McLachlin, you will see that at one stage certificates were reviewable by SIRC. Then that was taken away. Then with the Anti-terrorist Act of 2002, the review was reduced still further.

[Dave MacKenzie, Conservative, Oxford, ON]

This bill, with all due respect, is also to keep out espionage people--people with criminal intent to come to this country--and terrorists.

So when you suggest that we use the Criminal Code--

[Warren Allmand]

No, you could use criminal-type procedures under the Immigration Act.

[Dave MacKenzie, Conservative, Oxford, ON]

I think you were saying that this could be in the Criminal Code, that if these were Canadians, we would do this, this, and this.

[Warren Allmand]

Yes, if they were involved in a conspiracy to commit terrorism.

[Dave MacKenzie, Conservative, Oxford, ON]

Would you not agree, though, that what we're talking about are people who are coming to this country and represent a danger to our society? Maybe they haven't committed an offence here, but we're saying, “You're not welcome in our country. The Canadian values are different from those you may have espoused somewhere else, or what you intend to bring to this country.”

The real intent of this legislation is not to get to the point where the criminal act occurs in this country; it's to prevent those people from coming into Canada with the intent of committing the criminal acts after they get here.

[Warren Allmand]

If that's the case, if they are a real danger, then let it be proven. Are we going to allow security certificates to be given on the type of information that was given in the case of Arar, where the RCMP identified him and his wife as extreme Islamists associated with al-Qaeda, when that wasn't the case at all?

[Dave MacKenzie, Conservative, Oxford, ON]

But that's one case, though.

[Warren Allmand]

I can tell you, as a former Solicitor General, I could give you many other cases in which I received false information. When on checking back later, if I didn't know the individuals that were being targeted, just by chance they would have been denied their rights. So what we need is a system where if you're going to be accused of being a dangerous person, let us see the evidence so that we can respond to it.

[Dave MacKenzie, Conservative, Oxford, ON]

Mr. Arar was not part of a security certificate. That's a different issue.

[Warren Allmand]

But it's the type of information that led to his imprisonment in Syria for a year and the torture. It's the type of evidence that's being presented that's not tested. Untested evidence is contrary to our principles in the rule of law.

[Dave MacKenzie, Conservative, Oxford, ON]

I appreciate the lawyer's position. I understand that fully. But if I'm an average Canadian out there...and when you say the real intent is to get the truth, I think a lot of average Canadians would say, “If we want the truth, then that individual should also testify”. That's not one of the principles of our law, but I know--and I have spent a lot of time in criminal courts--the accused does not testify. The accused doesn't have to say “I didn't do it”, or “I did do it”.

It seems to me you don't show a great deal of sympathy to the people who have been victimized by some of these folks, and I understand that that's the role you're playing here. That's fair enough. But when you say that people can't go home to their families, or they can't share things, when I see the other witness at the table who does not have those options either, not of her doing--

[Warren Allmand]

I think Canadians should be protected against terrorism, but you don't protect Canadians against terrorism by ignoring our Bill of Rights and our Constitution. The Bill of Rights and the Constitution are supposed to protect us, not be suspended so that we can get at people without proving the case against them.

I'm all for getting those people out that you're talking about, and protecting Canadians, but it should be done in a way in which they have the right to defend themselves against false, faulty, and mistaken evidence.

[Dave MacKenzie, Conservative, Oxford, ON]

I think that's what this bill is about.

[Warren Allmand]

Well, it's not doing it.

[Roch Tassé, Coordinator, International Civil Liberties Monitoring Group]

May I, Mr. Chair?

As an average Canadian myself, I would feel a lot more protected if those allegations were proven to be true. Right now, on mere allegations, you deport the person assuming the person is a real threat. We're not protecting me by setting that person free in the world. We have an obligation toward international allies to prosecute terrorist suspects. Therefore, we need a level of evidence that actually proves that this person is a risk, not merely deported under flimsy, untested evidence. I don't feel protected at all when that person is being deported. If that person turns out to be a real terrorist, I would like them to be accused, charged, and jailed in Canada, for my protection.

[Ziyaad Mia]

Mr. MacKenzie, to be clear and on the record, the Muslim community in this country are Canadians. We're proud to be Canadians. We share many of the values of this country. Our values are not any different from Canadian values.

I wanted that on the record so there's no misunderstanding.

I opened with unequivocal condemnation of violence against any civilians, but al-Qaeda, unfortunately, is not the only group, and terrorist groups aren't state terrorists, we know. I was born in South Africa under a state terrorist regime, and there are many other examples. We won't go through them.

We're not going to change the whole world by going after this thing and watering down our fundamental values. I'm not here to be an academic lawyer looking at the charter that was drafted as some idealistic document. Clearly, the criminal law standards, the adversarial process--he can tell you more than me because he's the expert--is not here simply to protect criminals. The fundamental process in our system, the adversarial process, is to find the truth so that we're all safer.

At the end of the day, many of these men have said, “Show the evidence. Let's have a go at it, and if I've done something wrong, then I'll be punished.” That's all they're asking. At the end of the day, it's not only a turnaround of you coming.... Some of these people have set up lives here, and it's not a matter of it being easy to ship them off to torture.

The issue about criminals and someone showing up at the border and being turned back is significantly different from people who have children here, who have lives here and are established, and those are the kind of people we're trying to turn away.

[Warren Allmand]

Mr. Chairman, I want to say in answer to Mr. MacKenzie that we support all the human rights in the universal declaration, including the right to life, which is basic. So of course we're against terrorism that would destroy or attack human life. But you don't pick and choose in human rights provisions. You don't just support one article and forget about the others; you support them all. That's what the Vienna conference on human rights said, that all human rights are interdependent and should be taken together.

[The Chair, Conservative, Garry Breitkreuz]

Mr. Mayes.

[Colin Mayes, Conservative, Okanagan—Shuswap, BC]

I was just going to say that this doesn't just cover terrorism; it also covers organized crime and espionage. It's not just terrorism, so let's not get sidetracked and just focus on that.

[The Chair, Conservative, Garry Breitkreuz]

Okay.

I thank our witnesses for their appearance before the committee today. We appreciated it.

We will meet again this afternoon.

This meeting stands adjourned.