Mr. Speaker, I am delighted that Mr. Arar received his well-deserved resounding exoneration. Mr. Arar and his family were victims of severe systemic flaws.
The Prime Minister has said that he will not apologize to Mr. Arar but rather leave it to the courts. However, when Mr. Arar was first arrested in 2002 the Prime Minister had no hesitation in jumping to conclusions and repeating the unfounded accusations about Mr. Arar. He and his party not only believed the allegations against Mr. Arar but they also criticized the previous government for trying to get him released.
At that time the Prime Minister called Mr. Arar a suspected terrorist citing that the government was hitting the snooze button on security. The member for Calgary—Nose Hill at the time attacked the government for failing to pick up on Mr. Arar's quote, “al-Qaeda linked sooner”.
It gets worse. The current Minister of Public Safety went further by calling for a public inquiry into why the government--