Public Safety Committee on May 7th, 2009

[The Chair, Conservative, Garry Breitkreuz]

I call this meeting to order.

This is the Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security, meeting number 20. We are continuing our review of the Iacobucci and O'Connor inquiry reports.

We would like to welcome our witnesses this morning. We have the Office of the Privacy Commissioner, represented by Ms. Jennifer Stoddart, the Privacy Commissioner. She will introduce the people she has with her. As an individual we have Mr. Paul Cavalluzzo.

I understand you have agreed that Mr. Cavalluzzo will go first.

We usually allow approximately 10 minutes for an opening statement. After you've made your opening statement, we'll go to questions and comments.

Without any further ado, we'll go ahead.

[Paul Cavalluzzo, Counsel, As an Individual]

Thank you.

Mr. Chair and honourable members, thank you for giving me the opportunity of discussing with you the Arar report, which was presented by Justice O'Connor in September 2006, and part two was delivered in December 2006.

In that regard I acted as his commission counsel in the Arar inquiry, which was conducted over a period of two and a half years. In the limited time I have today in my presentation, I want to focus on the recommendations that were made by Justice O'Connor in parts one and two.

Now I'll give a little background.

As you know, Maher Arar is a Canadian citizen who was stopped at the Kennedy Airport in New York City in September 2002, where he was flying through on his way back to Montreal. He was detained by American officials for 12 days and was subsequently removed to Syria, which is the country of his birth. He was interrogated, tortured, and held in inhumane conditions in Syria for close to one year. On October 5, 2003, he was released and returned to Canada.

To this time, he has never been charged with any offence by Canadians, Americans, or the Syrians. In January 2004 the federal government called a public inquiry because of the political pressure that had been building up in respect of the role of Canadian officials regarding the treatment of Mr. Arar in the United States and Syria.

The public inquiry had two parts. Part one was the factual inquiry, wherein Justice O'Connor looked at what happened and reported on the role of Canadian officials in respect of Mr. Arar's treatment. Part two was the policy review, wherein he was called upon to recommend an independent arm's-length review mechanism for the RCMP in respect of its national security activities.

Now, as far as part one is concerned, the what, why, where, and how, just focusing on the main conclusions, an important part of part one was the information sharing that was conducted by Canadian authorities and in particular by the RCMP. After reviewing all of the evidence, Commissioner O'Connor concluded that the RCMP provided American authorities with information that was inaccurate, unreliable, misleading, and that certainly viewed Mr. Arar in a very negative sense. You must contemplate the context of this. This is a year after 9/11, where the American authorities obviously—as was put by one witness—had a great deal of adrenalin as far as alleged terrorists were concerned.

It was also found that the front-line investigators gave the American authorities, the FBI, information on Mr. Arar that was misleading while he was detained in the United States and while the Americans were interrogating him.

Now, as far as his stay in the United States is concerned, there was no evidence that Canadian officials played any role in the decision of the American authorities to detain Mr. Arar. However, the evidence was clear that American authorities relied upon misleading information that was given to them by the RCMP and that no doubt played a role in his detention by the Americans.

As I said before, after about 12 days they removed Mr. Arar to Syria. Even though they had the option of sending him 200 miles to the border outside of Montreal, they preferred to send him 3,000 miles to Syria because of their view that they didn't want Mr. Arar walking on the streets of Canada.

In Syria, as I said before, it was found that Mr. Arar was tortured and was kept in inhumane conditions for close to a year, and unfortunately, even though Canadian officials, consular officials, had access to Mr. Arar on eight occasions during that time, it was not recognized that he was being tortured at that time because of the manner in which the interviews occurred. Syrian officials were present during the interviews, and unfortunately because of lack of training they did not recognize that he was being tortured.

Upon his return to Canada in October 2003, unfortunately, a lot of information was put out about Mr. Arar that was misleading, that violated national security principles because it was confidential information, and it was made to look as if Mr. Arar was somewhat dangerous and somewhat of a terrorist. Unfortunately, that leaked information has never been reviewed in terms of a criminal prosecution. To this day nothing has happened.

As far as the recommendations of part one are concerned, Justice O'Connor made 23 recommendations. I'll focus on the most important ones.

The first one is on information sharing. Obviously Canada must continue to share information with our foreign partners, but he said that surely we have to screen such information for relevance, reliability, accuracy, and to ensure it complies with our privacy laws.

He also said the RCMP individuals or investigators who are involved in national security must be better trained. They might be great police officers, but that does not mean they're competent to conduct a national security investigation.

He also stated that the RCMP should never provide information to a country with a poor human rights record if the information will cause or contribute in any way to the torture or inhumane treatment of a Canadian held abroad. In other words, Canadians should not be complicit in torture.

The other point he makes in terms of torture is that if we are going to accept information from a country with a poor human rights record, we have to look at the political and the human rights implications of that; and if we are going to accept such information, we had better ensure and assess its reliability, because by definition, such information is usually very unreliable.

Moving to part two of the mandate of the Arar inquiry, which was to make policy recommendations concerning a review mechanism for the RCMP, Justice O'Connor concluded that the existing mechanism for review of the RCMP activities is totally inadequate, for a number of reasons.

Over time, the amount of information sharing the RCMP does has increased immensely. The RCMP now has increased police powers, particularly in the area of national security. A number of practices, such as integrated policing along with other partners, require a more effective review mechanism.

He said that because of the secret nature of national security activities or investigations, it's difficult to monitor that by a complaints-based approach, because people, Canadian citizens, really don't know, for the most part, whether these activities are violating policies and the law and so on.

As a result of that, he recommended that the new review mechanism have the authority to initiate a review of RCMP activities in the national security area on its own. This would be very similar to the power that currently exists with respect to the security intelligence review committee with respect to CSIS operations.

Once again, this kind of power is necessary because these national security investigations are beyond judicial scrutiny, for the most part.

The other important enhancement in terms of a review mechanism that he recommended was that the new review body should be given broad investigatory powers, similar to the powers of a public inquiry. He reviewed the interrelationship between the present CPC and the RCMP and found that it was ineffective because of the limited access to RCMP information the CPC had.

He recommends that this new body have the authority to determine what information it needs to effectively fulfill its mandate. This would involve the power to subpoena, the power to compel testimony, and so on.

The new body, which he called the Independent Complaints and National Security Review Agency for the RCMP--ICRA is the acronym, I guess--would have jurisdiction to review all of the RCMP's activities, not only its national security activities. He said that it's a judgment call, but it's better to have one body reviewing all of the activities of the RCMP, because we need a body that is expert in police work and law enforcement, and so on, and there may be jurisdictional problems if you created separate bodies to review its national security activities and its other activities.

Because of the highly integrated nature of most national security investigations--and the Arar inquiry was a good example of that; we had to review the activity of the RCMP, of CSIS, of the CBSA and so on--he said that other agencies that are involved in national security should be subject to review as well, such as the CBSA, DFAIT, and so on.

Finally--I see my time is running out--he recommended the creation of an overall committee, an independent committee that would be composed of the chair of the new RCMP body, SIRC, the CSIS body, the CSE commissioner, and an independent person, which would review all of the national security review that is done by these bodies, as well as being the place where a citizen would go to file a complaint. Any national security complaint would be filed with this new committee, which would determine which of the three bodies should be involved in its review and also make recommendations concerning national security review policy in the future to the government.

I could go on, but I think it's better to leave more matters for questions.

In conclusion, I would suggest that if we do ever get this kind of effective mechanism for a review of national security activities, there will no longer be a need for these expensive public inquiries and ad hoc inquiries that we have had over the last five years. It's going to be a restructured body, not a completely new bureaucracy, and in our view it'll be effective, efficient, and most importantly, will respect our human rights.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Garry Breitkreuz]

Good, thank you very much.

We'll now turn it over to Ms. Stoddart. You can introduce your colleagues and make your opening statement. Go ahead.

[Jennifer Stoddart, Privacy Commissioner of Canada, Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, honourable members.

I'm here as the Privacy Commissioner of Canada, and the relevance to the topic we're discussing today is that under the Privacy Act my organization has the authority to take complaints, to investigate, and to audit the personal information practices of more than 250 agencies and departments, including the RCMP, CSIS, and other national security agencies, such as FINTRAC.

Accompanying me today is Chantal Bernier, who is assistant commissioner for the Privacy Act. Madame Bernier was formerly assistant deputy minister in the Department of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness. And with me as well is senior adviser Mr. Carman Baggaley, who accompanied me when I appeared before the inquiries of Mr. Justice O'Connor and Mr. Justice Major.

I believe all the honourable members have two documents that my office provided to you last week. The first piece is an overview, a backgrounder, of national security and surveillance laws passed in several countries since 2001, and it shows how much the social and political terrain has shifted dramatically after 9/11.

I'd like to talk a bit about how privacy laws apply to national security agencies.

In the various cases you were reviewing, this application is all too clear. The men who became the subjects of the inquiries that you were studying, as we just heard, suffered terribly, but as well as all the other harms they endured, the first violation was to their privacy.

To begin with, as Mr. Cavalluzzo has quoted, Justice O'Connor noted that inaccurate and misleading intelligence about them was compiled. That means their personal information, in terms of the Privacy Act, was shared inappropriately. Finally, this information was used to justify their detention, deportation, and subsequent torture.

Privacy rights under Canadian law are not simply about who is allowed to collect information. Privacy laws also set out who is accountable for protecting that information, ensuring it is accurate and limiting its disclosure to third parties. The findings of the O'Connor and Iacobucci reports call into question the practices of Canadian security agencies in all these areas. Both reports underscore how critical it is for officials in these departments to properly manage the collection, validation, sharing and careful review of the exchange of personal information.

Commissioner Iacobucci concluded in his inquiry that inaccurate information was collected on the individuals in question, that inaccurate information was shared with other states, and that safeguards for these files were not properly observed. Misleading, inaccurate, or out-of-date information was kept on file and shared too broadly, with few or no caveats on the use of that intelligence.

Privacy practices in government must be better defined, and sensitive information must be protected. This has never been more urgent than in light of the national security challenges we face. To address this question, the second piece that we have provided to this committee presents our views on how oversight, privacy practices, and data protection in government could be improved.

While I have several suggestions for your consideration, if I can leave you with one over-arching message, it would be this—in an era of networked intelligence and surveillance, Canada needs a networked approach to oversight and review. Proper oversight and accountability for national security provide a vital check for Canadians' privacy rights.

In our recent history, rights and security are often pitted one against another. Margaret Bloodworth, who was Canada's former national security adviser, noted this tension just prior to her recent retirement. She said that safeguarding the privacy rights of citizens while also securing their physical security is not simply a question for the Canadian intelligence community, it is the question. It is the question, the single greatest issue that they must confront. I'd also add that security and privacy are not, as we often say, mutually exclusive. We need not, nor should we not in Canada, trade one for the other.

As you have heard from other expert witnesses, a fundamental question for national security in the 21^st century is data governance. In a fully wired, networked world, how does any organization exercise quality control and oversight? Given the complexity of inter-agency, inter-jurisdictional, international, inter-sector intelligence operations—who can exercise that level of global review?

A recent report from the Office of the Auditor General in March 2009 on intelligence and information sharing stressed this point, that review bodies “must look beyond individual agencies to reflect the integrated nature of national security activities”. These are the main points that I hoped to raise in our submission.

Now I'll just take you quickly through the recommendations. There are seven of them.

First of all, we recommend adopting an integrated approach to security review that allows for more coordination and more cooperation on investigations and reports across the system. This is the network approach recommended by Justice O'Connor. In my experience and in the experience of my office, this has worked to great effect. We do joint investigations with provincial privacy commissioners' offices. We do collaborative reporting with the Office of the Auditor General, for example. All of the review community, in my opinion, could benefit from similar powers.

Second, I think we have to address the privacy practices within security agencies. The approach of departments and agencies to information sharing and data management has to change. Without proper attention to internal controls, new layers of oversight will not address front-line problems. Enhanced training around the theory and the practice of privacy, fair information practices, and data protection could affect great change here.

Third, appoint chief privacy officers across the government, but in particular for departments and agencies where collection of sensitive personal information is widely required by their mandate.

Fourth, provide the Commission for Public Complaints Against the RCMP with the resources and legal authority required to exercise more meaningful review. I believe Mr. Cavalluzzo has spoken quite completely to this question.

Fifth, request that the Treasury Board and ministers issue new policy requirements for departments and agencies on privacy. Robust information-sharing agreements through privacy impact assessments, well-developed privacy directions, and guidance must become part of how these organizations operate. We cannot have the informal, unstructured, and basically ungrounded sharing of information anymore.

Six, reform—as I have said before several other committees of the House of Commons—the Privacy Act, which dates back to 1983. In light of all that we have learned, I believe government departments must be held to a higher standard of privacy protection, information handling and data protection. I have recently put forward 10 “quick fixes“ for government's consideration which could tighten controls on international information sharing, require departments to test the necessity of the information they collect and allow the Federal Court a wider role in reviewing violations of the act.

Seventh and finally, we urge Parliament to increase the resources and involvement of this House committee and its counterpart in the Senate. These bodies can provide active oversight of national security agencies and their operations. By pooling expertise, coordinating reviews, and sharing information, existing mechanisms for parliamentary review could be augmented.

Briefly, Mr. Chairman, I'd like to leave you with a few final thoughts.

While Canada's system of review and oversight functioned throughout the 1980s and 1990s, the stresses on the system after 9/11 have become tragically apparent. This needs to be addressed. When networks of intelligence sharing are global, oversight cannot remain rigid and localized. While I recognize that there's no silver bullet fix given these complex issues, I'm also keenly aware that there are very real human consequences that spring from poor information handling and governance. My office deals with them daily through our complaints process.

Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, for your time and consideration. My office staff and I would be happy to answer your questions.

[The Chair, Conservative, Garry Breitkreuz]

Thank you very much for your opening statements.

We don't have much time, so we'll move immediately to the Liberal Party.

Mr. Holland, please, for seven minutes.

[Mark Holland, Liberal, Ajax—Pickering, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you very much to the witnesses for taking the time to appear before committee today.

I'm going to start, if I could, with a real concern I have around information sharing. This was really a simple recommendation of Justice O'Connor's report, but what we have heard as we've gone through this process is really no assurance that anything has changed or that Justice O'Connor's recommendations have in fact been implemented.

Mr. O'Brien from CSIS was here and indicated that information was still being shared with countries with poor human rights records. We know that in Justice Iacobucci's report, he indicated that those same practices that were of such concern in the case of Mr. Arar were ongoing and continuing. We had a commitment from the minister stating that he would give a ministerial directive on sharing information with states that use torture, and that it would be forthcoming, and we haven't received it.

This is frustrating, because at the end of the day, the government's chief reason it gives is that we have the Air India inquiry going on, and they don't want to do anything until the Air India inquiry is complete. I'm just wondering if there is anything you feel that inquiry could possibly add to the recommendations already made on the caveats that should be in place with respect to Canadians sharing intelligence with countries that have poor human rights records, particularly countries that are known to torture.

I'll start with Mr. Cavalluzzo.

[Paul Cavalluzzo]

Just as a private citizen, I read somewhere where a government minister said that all of the recommendations in part one, which would include what you're talking about, have been implemented. I don't know if they have or haven't, but certainly as far as waiting for the Air India inquiry is concerned—and once again I'm speaking as a private citizen—I don't think it would be of assistance, as far as the issue you are talking about are concerned. What we're talking about here is dealing with countries with very poor human rights records, and realistically, as some witnesses have stated before us, in order to get information in respect of particular parts of the world we have to engage with partners that do not have great human rights records. If that's the case, then I think the decision to enter into that kind of a relationship should be a political one. It should not be made by a police agency or a security intelligence agency. I think that's a political question, and all Canadians should participate in that debate.

If we are going to have such a relationship, which realistically I think we have to, unfortunately, then we have to be very careful in terms of the information we send in respect of Canadians. We have to ensure that the information will not in any way be used in respect of human rights abuses. And in respect of information we receive from these agencies, we have to be realistic enough to know the public record, and the public record is that they engage in torture. If we get any information from these foreign agencies, we have to be realistic to understand that it's subject to torture and is likely unreliable, and we had better do a very good reliability assessment on it before we act on that information.

The kinds of issues I've just reviewed really are not part of the Air India inquiry, and there would be no need to wait for the recommendations of Justice Major to deal with those issues, which are very important.

[Mark Holland, Liberal, Ajax—Pickering, ON]

Before you respond, Ms. Stoddart, maybe I'll just add a couple of comments, to go into the recommendations you made, which I think are very good. Unfortunately a lot of them aren't new. We've seen a lot of them. So in the context of your response, could you address your recommendations and whether or not you feel there's any reason whatsoever that these recommendations should be held off for another inquiry?

I think Mr. Cavalluzzo made an excellent comment with respect to that. If a lot of these are implemented, particularly if the public complaints commissioner has the legislative power to actually be able to investigate, there won't be the need for all of these expensive inquiries that are going to be making the same conclusion.

Again, for the clarity of committee, on the recommendations you made, do you feel in any way that these have to be held back for another inquiry, such as the Air India inquiry?

[Jennifer Stoddart]

I think, as the honourable member pointed out, these are fundamental principles that are simply being reiterated and positioned for you, ideally, in the network world of modern intelligence sharing. I would think and hope that we could go forward with the necessary review and mechanism agency development without necessarily completely waiting for the results of another inquiry.

However, I would point out, because we appeared and made two submissions to the inquiry on Air India, that what it brings to this discussion is the fact that we have to look at the network world of security intelligence now, and we can't think it's just a matter of maybe the RCMP and the particular cases, and the two previous ones.

What we're also looking at in the Air India Inquiry, I believe, is how national intelligence infects--sorry, it should be “affects”, but perhaps “infects” in some way too—commercial domestic transport: the supervision of our airports, the supervision, for example, of airport personnel. So it brings into the picture the other agencies that are part of the national security world that I think we cannot ignore. And Transport Canada has a role to play. FINTRAC, which does money laundering review, is another part.

So I would say we have to be able to create a model that leaves a place for this kind of development. But I think my colleagues may have—

[Mark Holland, Liberal, Ajax—Pickering, ON]

Don't misunderstand me--and maybe you can just answer it this way--I think there's an important role for Justice Major to play and important recommendations for him to make. I just don't think the reiteration of the recommendations that you stated here or the reiterations of the recommendations we've heard as a constant refrain over the last four years are something we need to hear again to implement.

Would you agree that the recommendations you're making here and that we heard in Justice O'Connor's report, echoed in Justice Iacobucci's report, echoed in the pension scandal report, are things that we should go ahead and do, and that other things will come out of Justice Major's report that are separate and aside from this that we could act upon once we receive his conclusion?

[Jennifer Stoddart]

They may be separate and aside, but they're also connected, as I pointed out. Yes, we can go ahead, but we have to leave a place for the important recommendations and what will come out of that report.

[Mark Holland, Liberal, Ajax—Pickering, ON]

You wouldn't hold back going forward on these recommendations.

[Jennifer Stoddart]

I think they've been on the table for a long time.

[The Chair, Conservative, Garry Breitkreuz]

Thank you.

We'll move to Monsieur Ménard.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Cavalluzzo, we were looking forward to meeting with you because we believe that you are familiar with the recommendations from Justice O'Connor and the reasons that led him to make them.

I understand that the part having to do with reparations for Mr. Arar was respected diligently. As far as we are concerned, the most important part of your recommendations deal with the future, recommendations that were made to avoid similar injustices occurring the future.

You have seen what the government has done since the tabling of your report. In this kind of recommendations for the future... We all recognize that not everything was done, but what is the most urgent thing that needs to be done?

[Paul Cavalluzzo]

I really can't comment whether the recommendations have been implemented. Once again, I'm speaking on my behalf as commission counsel and not on behalf of Mr. Arar. From my perspective, leaving aside part two, the most important recommendations he makes in part one relate to the two things I talked about.

One is information sharing. We see the effects of mislabelling individuals, particularly in foreign countries that are very aggressive as far as terrorist activities are concerned. Inaccurate information, once it's given, is very difficult to take away and remove from the file. Being called a terrorist today is like being called a communist in the 1950s. Once you're labelled a terrorist, it's very difficult to remove that description. On the information sharing, we have to ensure that there are policies in place to ensure the information is reliable and accurate, and that it complies with other laws.

The other important recommendation, which I discussed earlier and I think should be implemented as soon as possible, is the issue of the relationship between Canadian agencies and foreign agencies with poor human rights records. My own view is that any violation of human rights should be dealt with immediately. These are human rights. And if we're aware that foreign countries are abusing the rights of Canadians, we have to ensure and have in place policies that can deal with that situation--and effectively deal with that situation.

Unfortunately, in respect of Mr. Arar's case, there was a great deal of confusion, where different agencies of this country were acting at cross purposes. DFAIT was doing one thing, the RCMP was doing something else, and CSIS was doing something else. We need a coordinated and coherent approach when Canadians are being detained abroad. We have to implement these policies as soon as possible, because this is not a problem that is eliminated at this point in time, as we can see in respect of other situations that are going on today.

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

Concerning the first part, which deals with training for officers so that they use correct, precise and rigorous language, Mr. Zaccardelli assured us that training had been provided very quickly.

In our opinion, one of the major recommendations calls for broadening the authority of the agency that is responsible for oversight of the RCMP. In addition, it was recommended that this authority be exercised by an organization that would integrate more elements, an organization that would oversee the activities of the RCMP, the Canadian Security and Intelligence Service and other organizations.

Should such an organization also oversee the activities of the Department of Transport relating to risk management and the drawing up of a no-fly list? The Canada Border Services Agency needs to have security intelligence to manage both immigration and customs. I think that wasn't mentioned in the O'Connor report. Would you go as far as that?

A recommendation that an integrating organization be in charge of overseeing the activities of the RCMP, CSIS and other entities is certainly very important.

[Paul Cavalluzzo]

Yes, unquestionably, that is an important recommendation made by Justice O'Connor. He recommends that the new RCMP body also have jurisdiction over the CBSA, which was involved in the Arar case. SIRC, the Security Intelligence Review Committee, would have jurisdiction not only over CSIS but also over Transport, CBSA, FINTRAC, and one other agency.

When a problem like Mr. Arar's occurs, Justice O'Connor foresees a complaint being filed with this new committee, and this committee would say, which body or bodies—because we have a number of Canadian entities involved in this—should review this situation? If you don't have review of some of these agencies involved in national security, then you're going to have an accountability gap. As lawyers say, you have to follow the trail, and the trail normally leads from agency to agency to agency.

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

Do you believe that we should wait for the report from the judge who is investigating the Air India attack before we establish these structures?

[Paul Cavalluzzo]

As a private citizen and not speaking on behalf Mr. Arar, I would note that Justice O'Connor delivered his last report in December 2006. We are now in 2009, and it seems to me that we have to act effectively. It's up to the government, but I have my own views on that.

[The Chair, Conservative, Garry Breitkreuz]

Thank you very much.

Mr. Davies, please.

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you to all of the witnesses for appearing before us.

I think any right-thinking, rational person would agree that setting up an oversight body is required in this country. I think the efficacy of that depends on a number of factors, including who makes up that committee and how accountable the committee is to oversight, as well, to ensure that it doesn't conduct its own operations so secretly, or with such limitations, that it just becomes another layer of bureaucracy we can't puncture through.

So I want to know if anybody has any thoughts on the makeup of that committee, particularly whether it should be a mix of civilians and those with expertise. I guess what I'm driving at is civilian oversight. I wonder what you feel the civilian presence ought to be on such a committee. And do you have any comment on how we can make sure this oversight committee is responsible to Parliament, and ultimately to the citizens of Canada, to ensure that we ultimately get transparency and accountability through this structure.

[Paul Cavalluzzo]

Well, I think what is certainly recommended in the Arar report is that the overall coordinating committee in respect of national security be composed of the chair of the new RCMP body, the chair of SIRC, and the CSE commissioner, as well as an independent person who would chair the committee. That independent person, hopefully, would be someone who has a great deal of respect within the community, because as you say, transparency and accountability are important to these review mechanisms, particularly in the national security area, Those are the two important values.

As far as the individual bodies are concerned, I think SIRC is a good model for the new RCMP body. As we know, SIRC is composed of independent people who are normally former politicians or cabinet ministers with a great deal of public policy experience, who have the respect of the public; and as a result of that, what they do gains public confidence. The CSE commissioner is normally a former judge of the Supreme Court of Canada, who obviously has the respect of the community. So I think we need people like that who would gain public respect.

As far as legislative oversight is concerned, I think these bodies should be responsible to this committee, as well as to the Senate committee, on an annual basis, or on call by this committee when you feel something has to be reviewed, so that we have an independent arm of the executive responsible to a legislative committee and ultimately to Parliament, which is, of course, the parliamentary system in which we exist.

Thank you.

[Jennifer Stoddart]

Could I add to that, honourable member, that it's not just who's on the committee, who the committee reports to, but what the committee can do. What are its powers?

I think one of the reasons we have diagnosed that the public complaints committee against the RCMP has not been effective historically is that it depends on public complaints. I can echo that, because I also have complaint investigation powers, but if I only had that in terms of what I could do with my mandate, I would be a lot less effective.

So it is extremely important that this committee can take on initiatives, have audit power, compel production, and define the issues that are going to be reviewed by the committee.

I'll give an example of some of our recent work. In the federal government we have audit power. Following the beginning of the O'Connor inquiry, at about the time we appeared, we began a review of the RCMP exempt banks. Exempt banks are banks where people ask, am I in the bank? Is there a government file on me? And the RCMP don't have to answer. It is secret.

What we did find out in a special report we laid before Parliament was that the RCMP, in spite of what was going on in the Arar inquiry, had neglected to clean out these banks to see whether all these citizens.... There were I think thousands of innocent citizens who found themselves in these exempt banks and therefore possibly could show up on police files as people of interest, but they weren't allowed to know why they were in there.

My whole report was laid before Parliament, and I am sure the members are familiar with it.

But without that kind of power, you cannot go and look in the dark corners to see what might be hidden under the dust.

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

Thank you.

I'll probably direct this question to Mr. Cavalluzzo.

I worked with privacy legislation in my previous life. In my view, the main goal of privacy legislation is to ensure that our private information does not get disseminated improperly to people who ought not to have it. But several times in the testimony I heard a reference to inaccurate, misleading information being disseminated and shared with other countries. What is particularly disturbing to me is that it is not normal, accurate information for which I have a privacy interest that was shared; it was inaccurate information. This was information given by our national police force. They are supposed to be professional investigators.

Can you comment on how that happened?