Public Safety Committee on March 5th, 2009

[Paul E. Kennedy]

I won't characterize or respond to comments, but I will, on a systemic issue, indicate...and I've indicated that before in public speeches. One of my objectives is we're impartial, we're constructive, we're remedial, and our objective is to restore and maintain the public confidence of the RCMP. One of the reasons you need a strong and credible review body is that a lot of the comments the police make now are being perceived as self-serving. It doesn't mean they're inaccurate; it just means that this is the cynicism that exists in society today. You need a strong oversight body that can come in.

I've gone out there on a very highly controversial case where I've found that the use of force resulting in death.... It was Ian Bush in B.C. I went out there, and about 50 journalists were obviously very aggressive with me because I found the shooting was justified. But I am credible, I'm independent, I've had access to it. So their credibility is going to flow from my credibility. If you attack my credibility, you're attacking a tool that the public and the government needs to assist the RCMP to maintain and restore its credibility.

[The Chair, Conservative, Garry Breitkreuz]

That's a good comment, sir.

We'll go to Ms. Mourani, please.

[Maria Mourani, Bloc, Ahuntsic, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I am going to continue with Ms. Pollack about the matter we were discussing just now. You said that you recognize that the Canadian Security Intelligence Service sometimes uses information obtained by torture. First, do you feel that this has been rectified, or does it continue to be done in certain cases? Second, do you feel that using information obtained by torture represents a kind of torture subcontract?

I do not know if you have any information on the Omar Khadr case. Last summer, in July, we saw videos in the media and on the Internet of young Omar Khadr in tears during interrogation. He said that he had lost his eye and his feet. It was intelligence agents, if I am not mistaken, who were telling him that, no, he still had his eye and his feet were still on the end of his legs. That is what one of the men there said.

We are told that, during that interrogation, one of the agents present was from the Canadian Security Intelligence Service. I have a copy from the Internet. You can tell me if it is a good copy or if the report of the interrogation, put on line by lawyers, I think, is false—it looks authentic to me.

What do you think of the attitude of the intelligence agents in the video towards this young man, a minor in 2003 when he was interrogated. He seemed to have wounds, evidence of torture, that is, on his body. A federal court in Canada has apparently said that Omar Khadr had been tortured by his American guards.

Do you feel that it is normal for the Canadian Security Intelligence Service to do nothing to protect a Canadian national? Is that common? Have you heard about it?

[Susan Pollak]

I don't want to pre-empt the work of the committee. You may not have been aware that we did announce some months ago that we were launching a review of CSIS's involvement in the matter of Mr. Khadr. We've kept an eye on the situation for a number of years now. The videos you have referred to certainly led to a lot of public questions similar to your own. So we have taken it on board and we have a review under way. I really wouldn't want to go beyond that in responding to your question.

[Maria Mourani, Bloc, Ahuntsic, QC]

When do you think that you will be submitting your report, approximately?

[Susan Pollak]

It's in process, so we expect it to be completed within this year's reporting cycle. It would therefore appear in the next annual report.

[Maria Mourani, Bloc, Ahuntsic, QC]

We will talk about it again. Fine.

In light of the fact that the Canadian Security Intelligence Service sometimes uses information obtained by torture, do you think that this is a kind of a torture subcontract? Do you think it continues to be done, or has CSIS corrected its methods?

What exactly is happening?

[Susan Pollak]

The mandate of CSIS is to investigate threats to Canada's security. We live in a big world with a lot of terrorist threats that don't respect borders and that move around quite freely. In such a world, it's very important that our security intelligence service enter into arrangements to exchange information with foreign states. Some of them are nicer than others. CSIS recognizes this fact. It is now more attentive than I think it has ever been in the past to the need to examine the human rights records of the organizations and countries with which it enters into these arrangements and to ensure that it limits its exchanges, to whatever degree seems appropriate—I'm sort of speaking for the service here—given the facts for each country. Since Justice O'Connor's report was published, they have beefed up their own internal analysis of the human rights records of the countries they exchange information with, and they take better care to....

[Maria Mourani, Bloc, Ahuntsic, QC]

Do you consider that information obtained by torture is reliable? For example, let us take Mr. Khadr's interrogation when he accused Mr. Arar of having been in Afghanistan. Mr. Arar subsequently denied the allegation and presented evidence to show that was not there, he was somewhere else.

Do we not see there, indirectly, a demonstration of the fact that, when a person is tortured, he is ready to say anything to stop the torture and that information obtained in that way is not reliable? In a way, this casts into doubt the analysis that is done in the name of national security.

[The Chair, Conservative, Garry Breitkreuz]

Can you respond very briefly? We're way over time.

[Susan Pollak]

I will respond very quickly by repeating what the former director of CSIS said, which is that they never accept any information at face value, whatever its origins, without corroborating it from other sources. That really is the role of CSIS to do that, and it's not for us to assess the reliability of information.

[The Chair, Conservative, Garry Breitkreuz]

Thank you.

Mr. Harris, are you ready to go, or would you like to catch your breath?

[Jack Harris, NDP, St. John's East, NL]

No, I'm fine. Thank you very much, and I apologize for having to leave for a few moments.

My question is for Ms. Pollak. Let's say that in the minds of Canadians your organization is the watchdog of CSIS, with the mandate, to use the words of Justice O'Connor in describing the mandate of SIRC, to look at CSIS with respect to “compliance with law, policies, ministerial directives and international obligations and for standards of propriety expected in Canadian society”. I think that's a good, broad definition of the work people expect you're doing.

We've talked about the complaints process, where individuals come forward, but as a watchdog, to use that metaphor, could someone like Mr. Abdelrazik or any other Canadian expect that if your agency became aware of, for example, what I see in the Globe and Mail today—a strong indication, if not proof, that CSIS may have been involved in Mr. Abdelrazik being arrested and maltreated in Khartoum—it would be something that your agency would, of its own motion, start sniffing around, but not bark as a watchdog, very quickly to find out on behalf of Canadians and Mr. Abdelrazik, or someone in his circumstances, if our obligations are being met and something wrong is not going on? Is that something you do on a regular basis?

[Susan Pollak]

Absolutely, and in fact I'd like to give you a few examples.

[Jack Harris, NDP, St. John's East, NL]

Please do.

[Susan Pollak]

In the case of Maher Arar, we launched a review. It was not a complaint; it was exactly what you're talking about. Of our own motion, we launched a review inside SIRC of CSIS's role in the matter of Maher Arar months before the government established the commission of inquiry. Our work was well down the road before that commission was set up.

So that's one example where we did so.

[Jack Harris, NDP, St. John's East, NL]

So what would you do if—

[Susan Pollak]

We're doing it with Mr. Khadr, too, as I just mentioned to your colleague.

[Jack Harris, NDP, St. John's East, NL]

And on an immediate basis, you would take that in hand and do an investigation. Would that then result in—

[Susan Pollak]

We don't call these investigations, because unlike our complaints we don't necessarily call witnesses or subpoena people. It's a different process, but we do still have the full access to all of CSIS's documents, including all of the exchanges of information they've had with other agencies or other countries. So we feel we can get a very clear picture of their involvement in these matters.

[Jack Harris, NDP, St. John's East, NL]

And as Mr. Kennedy talked about in his own presentation, would a case like Mr. Khadr's or Mr. Abdelrazik's cause you to undertake an audit—let's call it that—of the activities of CSIS beyond those particular cases and into how it handles situations of that nature generally?

[Susan Pollak]

Yes, it could do.

[Jack Harris, NDP, St. John's East, NL]

Has that happened as well?

[Susan Pollak]

I believe that after we completed the review of Maher Arar—I may be out of sync here, but my memory tells me—we did a broader review of foreign intelligence-sharing arrangements.

[Jack Harris, NDP, St. John's East, NL]

Thank you.