Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
First of all, I would like to express my sincere sympathy to Ms. Basnicki for all her suffering.
You are very eloquent and sincere as you acknowledge your limited legal knowledge. If it is a consolation, I can tell you that I have practised law since 1966, that I was Minister of Justice and that I had a very hard time understanding those various bills. I had to read them several times to understand all their implications. I believe you will need to have some trust in us.
I would like to say to all the witnesses that having read this government bill, I believe it could be successfully challenged before the Supreme Court of Canada. For the time being, my goal is really to try and improve it in order for it to pass the Supreme Court test, should there be a challenge. The Supreme Court recognizes that we need a special process, that we need to use unusual standards of evidence, but also tells us that our process should be as close as possible to that of criminal trials.
I am going to ask some pointed questions; here comes the first. I understand that you are all opposed to the use of evidence obtained through torture. However, I noticed that the witnesses before us, in their written briefs, talk specifically about statements obtained through torture.
What is your opinion about material evidence? Let me give you a practical example. Let us say that in a country like Syria, a major leader of a terrorist organization is arrested and, after him being subjected to torture, a secret hiding place containing information on the network he is heading is found in his home. In this hiding place were found code names, ways of communicating with people and identifying them. Clearly, the tape or the information would speak by themselves.
Do you believe that under such circumstances, this material evidence should be considered by the judge hearing the case?