Mr. Speaker, I rise to respond to the questions put to the House by the hon. member for Cumberland—Colchester—Musquodoboit Valley regarding ongoing investigations into Canadian involvement in Mr. Arar's imprisonment.
I respect the member's views and appreciate his concern with respect to this particular case. As hon. members know, the government took immediate action to begin implementing the 23 recommendations outlined in Justice O'Connor's report.
As a result of Justice O'Connor's recommendations, we have put in place new protocols and signed a new memorandum of understanding to establish guidelines on information sharing between the RCMP and CSIS, and also between Canada and our allies.
Our goal is to move forward and continue to make the changes that are needed to prevent what happened to Mr. Arar from happening again.
The Government of Canada, following the findings of the Commission of Inquiry into the Actions of Canadian Officials in Relation to Maher Arar, apologized to Mr. Arar last January. Furthermore, it was this government that negotiated compensation for Mr. Arar and his family.
The government accepted all of the recommendations made by Justice O'Connor in his “Report of the Events Relating to Maher Arar” and is implementing each and every one of them. This includes the recommendation that the Government of Canada register a formal objection with the Government of the United States concerning its treatment of Mr. Arar and Canadian officials involved with this case.
Immediately following receipt of Justice O'Connor's report, the Minister of Public Safety wrote to the United States Secretary of Homeland Security, Michael Chertoff, on September 21, 2006, asking for his support in ensuring that United States agencies were aware of the commission's findings and that appropriate steps would be taken to amend U.S. records accordingly.
In addition, the Prime Minister spoke to President Bush and the former minister of foreign affairs wrote to the U.S. Secretary of State to register Canada's objections to the actions of the U.S. government in the Arar case.
More recently, on October 24 before the United States House Committee on Foreign Affairs, United States Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice admitted some deficiencies in the handling of Maher Arar's case.
While the government is encouraged by the comments made by the secretary of state regarding Mr. Arar's case, further action has been taken in the hopes that the United States government will continue to take action in order to fully address this matter. Immediately following Secretary Rice's appearance before the United States House Committee on Foreign Affairs, the Minister of Public Safety wrote another letter to Secretary Chertoff, encouraging the United States government to take appropriate steps to ensure that Mr. Arar's name is removed from all relevant lookout lists.
This government has taken a significant number of steps to ensure this does not happen again. It has implemented a number of recommendations that were made. This member needs to look forward and not backward.