I must say that it is quite discouraging to listen to what you are saying, even though I was prepared for it. Clearly, we insisted on holding these hearings because we knew perfectly well that the rate of implementing these recommendations was 10% to 15%, maybe a bit more. Among the clearest recommendations was to recognize the wrongs done to Maher Arar; again, that was explicit. I agree with you entirely that, just because it was explicit in Maher Arar's case, it does not need to be in the other three cases.
I get the message loud and clear that the most important thing to tackle, the key thing that will have most effect, is to set up a single surveillance organization, as the Iacobucci Report recommended. It is my impression—and, frankly, my reputation is not as the most partisan politician, far from it—that while the present government is in place, little will be done to set up mechanisms for real change. It is my impression that the government feels that the police and the secret services have a difficult and essential task to fulfill—and I agree completely—which, when it comes to getting information from a terrorist, inevitably requires the use of tough measures that cannot be revealed to the public. So we have to make arrangements with countries that do not share the same ideals as we do, but whose police forces are more effective.
I really do not know where to start. I could have hundreds of questions for you. But they are not so much for you as for the government. Government representatives will give us the same answers: they have implemented 90% of the recommendations. But looking at the precise details in these recommendations, it is easy to conclude that almost nothing has been done.
I will ask you one question, though. I really understood the messages everyone sent us very clearly and I hope the government understood them too. But it is my impression that there is no political will to put them into effect.
Mr. Kafieh, you represent, and speak the language of, communities who, I am convinced, should be cooperating with Canadian authorities if we want to protect ourselves from terrorist attacks. You know people who speak the language, who know the habits, who know the milieu, and who, I am sure, would be only too pleased to help the police if the police were at all well-disposed toward them.
Do you think that I am kidding myself by thinking that, in your communities, people might well want to help the police but are reluctant to do so because it is a huge risk to take? Adil Charkaoui, in Montreal, for example, told us something that is not a common occurrence, I hope. His problems started when the police asked him to cooperate and give them information. His reply was that he did not want to take the risk and that he did not have information anyway. The police reaction was to tell him to watch out in case anything happened, and we saw what did happen to him.
I am not sure if your community really wants to cooperate with the police, given those huge difficulties. How do you think you would be received, if you did?