I am daunted.
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair, and committee members.
Amnesty International very much welcomes the opportunity to share our views and recommendations with you on this very important topic.
Let me begin by highlighting where we start any time we enter into a discussion about national security, and it is to say the obvious but the necessary, which is that respecting and upholding human rights is not an obstacle to protecting national security in any way. It is, in fact, the very key.
That is why throughout the consultations and reforms under way right now we have been urging the government to move toward adopting a human rights based approach to national security which would have three dimensions to it. The first is that the regard for human rights is recognized as a foundational pillar to our security framework; second, that there are human rights safeguards adopted as part of the national security framework; and third, that provisions in our laws and policies that fail to conform to either national or international human rights obligations must be reformed. That human rights approach is what guides our response to Bill C-22.
Review bodies and processes play very important roles in boosting human rights protection in any context. Authorities who are aware that their actions are subject to scrutiny may take greater care not to commit human rights violations. Lessons learned will help avoid human rights violations in the future. Public confidence and trust increases the odds that officials will respect human rights. There may be potential to curtail violations, even while they are occurring, and human rights violations amounting to criminal conduct may be exposed and lead to accountability.
The need for review is particularly great when it comes to government action in the realm of national security for obvious reasons. National security agencies have considerable powers that have the potential for very serious impact across a range of human rights. National security agencies around the world abuse those powers in ways that have resulted in serious human rights violations. The operations of national security agencies are shrouded in secrecy. They make the potential for abuse of powers all the greater, and because of that secrecy, national security agencies are shielded from the full force of other forms of scrutiny that generally bring human rights concerns into the public realm, such as the role played by the media, civil society, and even the courts.
Amnesty International first expressed concerns about significant gaps in Canada's national security review apparatus while we were responding to the case of Maher Arar over 12 years ago. It was obvious from the very beginning that existing review bodies which might have been an option for him or his family had inadequate powers, and they were hampered by not being able to carry out reviews in a coordinated way that examined the ways in which security agencies worked together. There was also no clear means of turning to parliamentarians for review and remedy. There was truly nowhere to turn, and the only means forward became the costly and extraordinary step of convening a public inquiry, which lasted for over two years.
During the Arar inquiry, we urged that national security review in Canada be strengthened in two fundamental ways: first, by instituting a review role for parliamentarians; and second, by establishing a comprehensive national security review process that would ensure all agencies are reviewed by bodies with adequate powers that are able to work together in an integrated fashion.
That is what Justice O'Connor recommended in his 2006 report. Ten years later—it has been a decade—we have Bill C-22, which is very welcome, but it only takes us partway. Amnesty has four key recommendations with respect to Bill C-22 and Canada's approach to national security review more broadly. The first two deal with what is in the bill; the last two deal with what is not.
First, this law must make it clear that national security review is intended to play a key role in upholding human rights. In that regard, clause 8 of Bill C-22 should be amended to specify that the mandate of the committee of parliamentarians explicitly includes reviewing the activities of all departments and agencies that relate to national security or intelligence to ensure conformity with Canada's national and international human rights obligations.
Second, we urge that measures be taken to ensure that the committee has access to the information it requires to conduct not just a review, but a robust review. That is the goal here.
We seriously urge changes to the following provisions: Paragraph 8(b) should be amended to remove the power given to the minister to bar review of activities he or she determines to be injurious to national security. The exceptions regarding the committee's access to information in clause 14 should be significantly scaled back, in particular, paragraph 14(b) with respect to ongoing defence intelligence activities supporting military operations; paragraph 14(d) broadly covering information from which the identity of confidential sources can be inferred; and paragraph 14(e) with respect to ongoing law enforcement investigations that may lead to a prosecution.
Those exceptions are broad and each has the potential to go to the heart of what is often contentious and troubling in the relationship between national security and human rights. There are several important high-profile cases in which robust review could have helped guard against human rights violations, all of which would still be significantly hampered by those exceptions.
Similarly, the overarching power of the minister in clause 16 to refuse to provide information to the committee if it is considered to be special operational information or if the provision of the information would be injurious to national security should be removed. Why? National security review, to be effective, requires full access to all necessary information for the review body in question. That is vital because of the secrecy that surrounds national security agencies and their operations. If the review body cannot examine all relevant information, who can?
Of course there needs to be assurance that the committee will not disclose to the public information that should be kept secret for legitimate reasons. The provisions in clauses 10 through 12 of Bill C-22 provide that assurance, requiring committee members to be security cleared, prohibiting committee members from disclosing information, and removing parliamentary privilege for unlawfully disclosing information. That provides a sufficient legal framework.
Let me end quickly by highlighting two important aspects related to national security review that are not addressed by Bill C-22. Amnesty International urges this committee to press the government to go further with respect to both.
First, echoing the comments from Mr. Doucet, we too want to highlight how important it is to go beyond this important measure of instituting parliamentary national security review and ensure that independent expert review—horizontal review, as Mr. Doucet highlighted—is improved in Canada. The current approach is fragmented; bodies have uneven powers; in some instances there are no bodies in existence with respect to important bodies, and as has been repeatedly pointed out, those bodies are not enabled to work together in an integrated fashion. This is critical and it would be a serious shortcoming and in many respects stands to even hamper the efficacy and work of the parliamentary committee if this is not addressed.
Finally, as I noted in my opening comments, one of the important functions of review in any context dealing with human rights is to lay the groundwork for accountability when violations are exposed. A central component to accountability is ensuring proper redress for individuals who experience human rights violations in national security contexts.
Canadian practice here falls far short of what is required under international law. I consider two particularly notorious instances, both of which have attracted the attention of the United Nations. The first is the three cases that were examined by Justice Iacobucci in the course of his 2006-08 review: Abdullah Almalki, Ahmad Abou El Maati, and Muayyed Nureddin. It has been eight years since that report was released, and there's still no redress for those three men for a series of serious human rights violations to which Canada did contribute.
Second, in 2008 and again in 2010, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled unanimously that Canadian officials had breached Omar Khadr's charter rights, stemming from their interrogations of him at Guantanamo Bay, knowing that U.S. officials were violating his internationally protected rights. Six and eight years after those two rulings, Mr. Khadr has received no redress.
Why do I raise this here? It is little comfort to establish new review processes without confident assurance that wrongdoing that is exposed will be remedied. Parallel to reforming the review process, therefore, steps urgently need to be taken to ensure fair redress for individuals whose rights have been violated through national security operations in the past.
Thank you.
