Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I am very pleased to have heard you here today, as well as elsewhere, previously. I much appreciate the considerable work that has been done. I understand that your aim must be similar to ours. I understand that security certificates are necessary. I also understand why the source of certain information cannot be revealed. Indeed, this might put the lives of people having infiltrated these organizations in danger. Furthermore, it is possible that security agencies not wish that people be aware of their investigation methods.
We see this in criminal cases. A good many accused who belong to criminal organizations plead not guilty, despite their intention to admit to their guilt, because this allows them to find out how the police managed to infiltrate their organization. This can be admissible in the case of ordinary crime, but I understand the desire to not reveal investigation methods when terrorism is involved.
There is a third reason. We receive a lot of information from different countries. Some of them have the same principles as us, others not. The latter often relay information to us on condition that we not make this information public.
In fact, a security certificate could, in the case of any country that does not share our principles, be a purely arbitrary gesture on the part of the Minister, declaring that any sovereign country has the power to welcome to its territory whomever it wishes and to exclude from it those foreigners who represent a danger. Our desire was that this decision not be arbitrary and that it be subject to some form of judicial review in the context of which evidence must remain secret. This judicial review is not a trial, but I believe, just like you, that this legal procedure must be as close as possible to fair treatment, as in the case of a trial. My impression is that the recommendations you have made to us are precisely of this order.
I will be quite blunt with regard to one aspect. You believe that the decision rendered with regard to the party involved should not be based on information obtained through torture. We could have an example, in Canadian law, of information obtained by the police in ways... Let us get straight to the point. When an accused makes a statement, this statement must be made freely and voluntarily in order for it to be admissible as evidence. However, I do not believe that we are deprived of any material evidence that the police may have found, even in the case of a statement which would be inadmissible as evidence. If the statement of an accused is inadmissible as evidence because promises or threats were made to him or her, but that he or she for example stated that the weapon involved in the crime could be found in such and such a place, I believe that the police continue to be allowed to go in search of the crime weapon and to present it as evidence, what we call “physical evidence“. That is the way it was when I practised law, but it does happen that things change in the course of 15 years.
For you, does this rule pertaining to evidence obtained through torture apply just as much to physical evidence as to statements made by people under torture to their torturers?