House of Commons Hansard #123 of the 40th Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament's site.) The word of the day was report.
Committees of the HouseRoutine Proceedings
The Speaker Peter Milliken
Order. There is now time for questions and comments on the remarks made by the hon. Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons. I therefore call for questions and comments, the hon. member for Ajax—Pickering.
Mark Holland Liberal Ajax—Pickering, ON
Mr. Speaker, my question for the hon. member is clear. We have had a report by Justice Iacobucci and by Justice O'Connor. We have a report stemming out of the RCMP pension scandal. We have a report from the Senate committee on anti-terrorism. Now we have a report from the House of Commons Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security calling on the government to ensure that the human rights of Canadian citizens are protected. Particularly given the fact that whether or not it is Mr. El Maati, Mr. Almalki, Mr. Nureddin or Mr. Arar as a Canadian citizen who faced torture as a result of mistakes made by Canadian officials, why on earth would the member move a motion to stifle debate on how we can ensure those errors never happen again?
Tom Lukiwski Conservative Regina—Lumsden—Lake Centre, SK
Mr. Speaker, as the member opposite clearly knows, and as we all know, and I do not think this is a surprise to members opposite, the concurrence motion request by the NDP is nothing more than a blatant attempt to shut down whatever process we had in place to try to bring forward enabling legislation. This is nothing more than a political attempt to shut down the government in its attempts to bring forward enabling legislation to allow the provinces to deal with issues of harmonization.
This is not something that the NDP brought forward today because it was on its agenda for debate. Not at all. This motion was brought forward in a political procedural attempt to shut down the government's attempt to facilitate the request by the provinces of Ontario and British Columbia. The member knows that. He should be ashamed to try to prove otherwise.
Don Davies NDP Vancouver Kingsway, BC
Mr. Speaker, I have never heard anything more false in my life.
Unlike that member who just spoke, I sit on the public safety committee. I sat through the hearings and I sat through the writing of that report. My motion for concurrence in that report, to do the right thing in this country, has been on the order paper for months. For that member to have the audacity to suggest that this is a procedural trick tells me a lot more about what is in his mind than what is in ours.
Three Canadian men have been tortured. Three Canadian men were thrown in Syrian and Egyptian dungeons and tortured. Will the government do the right thing and apologize to those men and pay them compensation, like justice demands in this country?
Tom Lukiwski Conservative Regina—Lumsden—Lake Centre, SK
Mr. Speaker, I can barely contain, I want to say my amusement, but it is far too serious to speak of amusement on this.
The member stands up with righteous indignation and says this is such an important issue for him personally that he had the report on the order paper for months. If it was so important, why did he not bring this concurrence motion before now? He only brought it in today to stop the government's initiative, to delay government orders. There is no other reason. He knows it; I know it; everyone in the House knows it.
Paul Szabo Liberal Mississauga South, ON
Mr. Speaker, if the member would reflect on his comments I think he would find that he is basically suggesting that the member who moved the concurrence motion does not somehow have the right to do so. It is in fact under our Standing Orders. It is part of the process that we have.
The member would also know that within a couple of hours we will be moving on, as we would normally do after routine proceedings, to government business in which the government will move its motion. This is not going to interfere with the ability of the government to propose its agenda. This is actually about respecting the rights of members and showing respect for committees and their work.
This is an important issue, regardless of how long it has taken to get before the House. This motion seeks a vote on whether the full House concurs in and supports a report of one of our standing committees.
Tom Lukiwski Conservative Regina—Lumsden—Lake Centre, SK
Mr. Speaker, the member for Mississauga South is quite correct in one aspect, that it is a right of a member to bring forward a motion for concurrence. I do not deny that. I am talking about the motivation behind why he brought it forward today. The member himself admitted that he has had this motion on the books for months. Why did he not deal with it earlier if it is that important to him?
I would also point out to the member for Mississauga South, who said this really does not stop anything from happening and we will still have a vote today, quite correctly, that the plans were to dispense with the government's initiatives this morning so that we could get to Bill C-56 this afternoon, which is entirely within our purview to do, so that we could hopefully dispense with that bill and get it down the hall to the Senate.
In effect, proceedings on government orders are being delayed by three hours, thereby delaying Bill C-56, an initiative to bring employment insurance benefits to self-employed Canadians.
If the member wants to stand up and defend why he is in agreement with delaying the fact that we want to get that bill passed through the House and to the Senate as quickly as possible, let him stand and defend his position on that.
Committees of the HouseRoutine Proceedings
Edmonton—Mill Woods—Beaumont Alberta
Conservative
Mike Lake ConservativeParliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Industry
Mr. Speaker, I would just like to, if we could, maybe give the hon. parliamentary secretary the opportunity to explain again for the enlightenment of those Canadians who might be watching these proceedings on television what this concurrence motion actually does in terms of stalling the government's agenda, in terms of the important legislation that Canadians are looking for on EI measures and maybe on criminal justice measures that might be discussed at a future date, because of course when we eat up three hours of time on a political game here that the NDP is putting forward—
Committees of the HouseRoutine Proceedings
An hon. member
They don't come into effect until 2011.
Mike Lake Conservative Edmonton—Mill Woods—Beaumont, AB
Maybe the hon. member wants to stand up and actually use his time when it is his turn rather than just heckling me.
Maybe the parliamentary secretary could just enlighten Canadians who might be watching this on the parliamentary rules, how this works and how this procedure is being used by the NDP to delay the government's agenda.
Tom Lukiwski Conservative Regina—Lumsden—Lake Centre, SK
Mr. Speaker, I thank my hon. colleague for the question. It is a good question.
Quite frankly, even if we had adjourned debate on the concurrence motion, this concurrence motion still would have come to a vote sometime early in the new year. We are not quashing the rights of any members to deal with this and have a vote on the concurrence of that report.
What it does do, what the NDP has effectively done, is delay the government's opportunity to bring forward legislation by three hours. We are nearing the end of our parliamentary session before we break for Christmas and for New Year's.
We want to get some of the legislation that Canadians are so concerned about, such as Bill C-56, the ability to give self-employed Canadians employment insurance benefits, down to the Senate to try to get it enacted as quickly as possible. The NDP and their colleagues opposite are delaying that attempt by this government to help Canadians.
Yvon Godin NDP Acadie—Bathurst, NB
Mr. Speaker, I have never seen so much hypocrisy in my life.
They are saying that we are delaying for three hours, but I want the parliamentary secretary to get up on his feet and tell us, when will the EI benefits take effect? If he wants to tell the truth, he will tell us it is not until 2011, one year from now. They will only get the benefits a year from now.
These three hours will not make any difference to any independent worker who needs EI, because it will only be in one year from now. That is the truth of the matter.
Why does he want to put the EI bill in front of what we are dealing with right now, which is so important to Canadians?
Tom Lukiwski Conservative Regina—Lumsden—Lake Centre, SK
Mr. Speaker, I am quite surprised, actually, with an experienced parliamentarian like my hon. colleague from Acadie—Bathurst in respect to the fact that he knows as well as I do, or at least he should know, that contained in Bill C-56 is the provision that those self-employed Canadians who want to gain EI benefits have to opt in, but a year has to go by before they are able to do that.
Every day that we prevent this legislation from passing is one more day that self-employed Canadians are denied EI benefits. We have to get this done. We want to get this done before year end, so that come January 1, 2010, people can start opting into this program. The member should know that.
Mark Holland Liberal Ajax—Pickering, ON
Mr. Speaker, perhaps as this concurrence motion was sought to be cut short by the Conservatives, I could read from Kerry Pither's book, Dark Days, about the actual implications of what we are debating.
I would put that there is no matter that could be more important to debate in the House than one pertaining to innocent Canadians who suffered torture, according to a commission of inquiry conducted here in Canada, because of mistakes that were made by security officials, and our attempts to ensure that it never happens again.
If members have lost that fact, let me read from Ms. Pither's book. Talking about Ahmad El Maati, it says:
The sound of prisoners being electrocuted didn't stop, either. “[They were] only a few feet away and across the hall. And what scared me most was I [knew] that maybe my turn was next. I was living constantly with this fear that I would be next, I would be next, I would be next.”
After being there for about ten days, it was his turn.
Ahmad was led into an interrogation room where four or five men were waiting.
“Whether you tell us the truth or not, we're going to torture you anyway,” said a man whose voice Ahmad would come to know well.
Hit from behind, Ahmad was forced to his knees, then grabbed by the hair and his head yanked backed as the men slapped and kicked him. Then the electric shocks started. The men stood behind him, prodding him with a rod. “It's difficult to describe the feeling,” Ahmad says. “You feel your soul is coming out of your body, and your heart's going to stop and you lose control of yourself and screams come out unconsciously.”
This time they started with his hands, shoulders, legs, and stomach. Later they aimed for his genitals. Afterward, Ahmad saw the device being used: a black rod, about a foot long, with a handle on one end and a point on the other.
These sessions sometimes lasted for several hours at a time.
Unfortunately, this is but one account in the book. There are many others. It is impossible for us to imagine the horror that these men would have faced. Perhaps even more tragically, today, the government still refuses to give them an apology, give them redress in the form of compensation, and most importantly, allow them to clear their name.
Perhaps not quite as bad as that torture they would have faced in those terrible dungeons in Syria is for the cloud of suspicion to continue to hang over them today. What they ask for more than anything else is the right to have their name cleared, a right that should be afforded to them immediately. Second, if one were to talk to the innocent victims, they would say to make sure that it never happens again.
If we did not know the answer to how to stop this from happening again, the government could be forgiven for not acting. However, the reality is that we have had report after report, commission of inquiry after commission of inquiry, and committee report after committee report detailing in the clearest possible terms the actions that must be taken.
Whether it was the report of Justice Iacobucci, who was not given the power to make recommendations but made clear conclusions, including the innocence of three of the men whose stories I will tell in a moment; whether it was Justice O'Connor's recommendations, which were clear and which years ago the government promised it would implement, yet we stand here today with those recommendations still not acted upon; whether it was the Senate committee report on anti-terrorism; whether it was the report that flowed out of the RCMP pension scam; or whether it was the report done yet again by the public safety and national security committee of which I am a member, which was tabled in front of the House and in which we simply asked for the right to debate today, again and again the answers are apparent and obvious and the government refused to act.
Worse, the government has shown contempt for oversight. Not only did it show contempt for this issue by trying to stop it from being debated in the House today, but one can take a look at the limits placed upon the RCMP public complaints commission. It is bad enough that the RCMP public complaints commissioner does not even have the power to force people to give him information. If he goes to senior RCMP officers and asks for files or information, they have to be given to him voluntarily. That is still the case today, even after all the recommendations that have been made.
It is bad enough that he can only act upon complaints, that he cannot act proactively, that he has not been empowered to go there. It is bad enough that there are many agencies which he is not allowed to investigate and where no oversight exists at all. Imagine, for the Canada Border Services Agency, that no independent oversight exists. Imagine, for immigration, that no independent oversight exists, so the government continues to allow this situation that has been identified to continue.
It would be bad enough for those recommendations to be ignored, but it was not enough for the government. It also slashed the budget of the public complaints commissioner's office. At a time when he needed more resources to ensure the integrity of our national police force, his budget was slashed.
The government's excuse here is to say that it has to wait for more reports. All those reports that I mentioned apparently are not enough. We also have the Braidwood inquiry. We also have Justice Major's report coming out on Air India. We have to wait for those. What could be more preposterous than to just keep waiting for a report to reiterate the same things over and over again? How many times does the government need to be told that something is essential to do before it takes action on it?
Certainly, I could understand if the government would do as it promised and implemented Justice O'Connor's recommendations, that again were followed up by so many different reports and inquiries, and say that it was going to build upon them, but to suggest that it will not do these self-evident things because it needs to wait for another report is nothing but an excuse.
What every one of us in the House knows is that after Justice Major tables his report, or when the Braidwood inquiry is done, we will be told there is another report or another commission of inquiry that needs to be conducted. Why? It is because under the Conservatives' watch, even when we knew what needed to be done to ensure that future tragedies did not occur, another one will because they refuse to take action. There will be another commission of inquiry to look into that, and that will provide yet another excuse for inaction, yet more time will go on.
Some of the cases that we talk about are well-known, such as Maher Arar and the extraordinary and terrible situation that he went through, which finally and eventually did lead to an apology and compensation, but let us also take a look at some of the other cases.
We know about Mr. Dziekanski of course, who was tasered at a Vancouver airport. There is an inquiry going on about that right now. We know about the pension scandal, but maybe we could take a moment to look at three of the individuals who were identified through Justice Iacobucci's report, and who were cleared.
With regard to Mr. El Maati, Justice Iacobucci determined that the way the RCMP and CSIS inaccurately labeled Mr. El Maati contributed to his detention and torture.
With regard to Mr. Almalki, in addition to finding that information-sharing with the U.S. and sending questions to Syrian interrogators likely contributed to Mr. Almalki's torture, Justice Iacobuuci found that Canadian officials were linked with Mr. El Maati, in communication with American, Syrian and other foreign agencies before his detention, without taking steps to ensure those labels were accurate or properly qualified, without attaching caveats and without considering the potential consequences for Mr. Almalki.
With regard to Mr. Nureddin, Justice Iacobucci determined that CSIS labeled Mr. Nureddin as a human courier and facilitator in the transfer of money to members of Ansar al-Islam in northern Iraq without first taking adequate measures to ensure the accuracy and reliability of the information or to qualify it as appropriate, and that this likely contributed to his Syrian detention and torture.
These cases are tragic and when we hear the stories and we read a book like Ms. Pither's, and we hear about the horrible circumstances they were put through, what I think is so unimaginable to Canadians when they are exposed to it is that the solutions are here now and the government continues to refuse to act. It is something that I have to admit I am utterly confounded by.
I am confounded by it not only because of its implications for further abuses for other Canadian citizens, and because of the fact that it does not put the safeguards in that we need to ensure that Canadian citizens never face this type of situation again, but we also have to reflect upon its implications for our national security agencies themselves and for the RCMP.
We are lucky to have, in the RCMP, some of the finest men and women we could ask for serving us across this country.
I have had the opportunity to go to detachments in urban and rural areas and meet some amazing people who are doing incredible work, whose clear motivation is to protect their communities and to give back. However, they are deeply frustrated. They are frustrated because they recognize that at the top levels the RCMP is in need of reform.
They recognize that if those changes are not made, it tarnishes the name of their organization and, in turn, tarnishes the good work they do. All they ask is that they have leadership that is equal to the courage and valour they show every day. All they ask is that the organization is as exemplary at the top as it is at the bottom.
The government is refusing to make these changes and they ask, why? They ask why, when the answers are so self-evident, so clear and repeated so strenuously. It is not just for the protection of Canadian human rights but I would also suggest for the protection of our police force and its integrity overall.
We need to ensure that tragedies do not occur again, that when mistakes are made or it is found there are weaknesses in our system they are repaired, not left to fester and tarnish, that we do not repeat the same mistakes again and again, doomed to repeat the same failures.
In that regard, I am going to go through the recommendations that were placed in the report delivered by the Standing Committee for Public Safety and National Security.
The first and most self-evident is to implement immediately the recommendations of Justice O'Connor. It is impossible for me to believe I am still saying this in the House all these years later, particularly when the government has promised so many times to implement these recommendations, but many of the key and most important recommendations are still not implemented. That is utterly unacceptable and the committee unanimously called for those recommendations to be implemented immediately.
The second is that there be regular updates on the status of both implementing Justice O'Connor's report and responding to the conclusions of Justice Iacobucci's report, regular reports on the progress of the government. The government has been unbelievably secretive in even telling us what it has and has not done.
One of the first and most difficult tasks for the committee was to take a look at the 23 recommendations of Justice O'Connor and try to figure out what action the government had taken. Even as a committee of Parliament, it had a huge amount of difficulty getting answers on what, if any, action it had taken. It has to break that secrecy.
It needs to be clear and honest about what actions have been taken and exactly where we are in implementing those recommendations. Where recommendations have not been implemented, it needs to explain in clear terms why and what the timetables are to implement them. That is if the government continues to maintain, as it has, that it will implement Justice O'Connor's recommendations.
After I began by reading one of the stories, I hope the government really reflects upon the importance of this third recommendation, which is to apologize to Mr. Almalki, Mr. El Maati and Mr. Nureddin, to help clear their names, and to remove the cloud of suspicion that walks with them everywhere they go. The government should put itself in the shoes of somebody who had to undergo torture in that horrible faraway place, to put itself in the shoes of the men who returned to this country not only having been tortured but still wearing the label of being an extremist or terrorist when not an ounce of it was true. A well-respect justice said that it was without basis, and the government should simply allow them to have their names cleared.
The third point under the third recommendation is to give them compensation. The government says this is a matter before the courts and it cannot act. I remember a similar argument being made in the public safety committee about Mr. Arar. It said, “We can't do anything. We can't apologize. We can't give compensation. This matter is before the court”.
It was not until the hue and cry from the Canadian public was such that it demanded action, that no other alternative was possible. Only when the government was pushed right to that corner did it finally take action. Suddenly, all of those arguments about it being before the court and not being able to do the right thing disappeared, and it did the right thing.
If it could do it for Mr. Arar, then these three gentlemen deserve nothing less. After all they have been through, after all the horrors they have seen, this is the very least the government can do for them. Instead of trying to cut-off debate, instead of trying to stifle discussion on this, the Conservatives should be rising in the House and give the men their due, here, now, today.
It was amazing to me during the proceedings of committee to hear from Mr. O'Brien, a lifetime public servant who worked for CSIS, who said that yes, under certain circumstances, we continue to share information with countries that engage in torture. The government had said, “Oh, no, we do not do that”. Yet, here was somebody on the front lines in CSIS, clearly in a better position to know than anybody else in the country saying, “Oh yes, we still do it. We still trade that information”. He explained to us that it was important to do that because sometimes good information comes from torture.
This belies all evidence which tells us that information obtained by torture is unreliable, but it also belies humanity, because at the end of the day, as we fight for our collective security and our freedoms, surely we cannot morph into the thing we disagree with. When we allow torture, when we condone it, and we do condone it by saying that it is okay, we will get information that comes from torture, we are implicitly saying that it is okay to torture.
In this regard the fourth recommendation is extremely important, and that is a clear, unambiguous ministerial directive that says we will not exchange information with countries that engage in torture. It sends an unequivocal message to those who would use torture as a means either of extracting information or terror, that Canada finds it utterly unacceptable.
The government may rise and say, “Oh yes, we did that”. Through a question on the order paper, we found the ministerial directive of 2009. It does say that assurances should be sought when sharing information with foreign agencies that torture has not taken place, but then it adds a caveat where it says, “When it would be appropriate”. We are therefore saying, “Do not share information on the basis of torture unless it is appropriate”. What does that mean? That means, “If you tortured somebody really good and you got something juicy, then send it over to us, but if the torture did not work out so well and you did not get information that is that salacious, well then you can keep that to yourself”.
We have to end this ambiguity. I do not think Canadians accept, in any quarter, the notion that torture is acceptable. It is up to the government to deliver a ministerial directive that ends all ambiguity, and certainly to ensure we do not have officials with CSIS or other agencies that are on the front line coming before committee and telling us that this still goes on and this still continues.
Finally, one of the things that has been called for by Parliament for a long time is to ensure that there is parliamentary oversight of our national security activities. We are one of the few jurisdictions in the world where that does not exist. The establishment of a national security committee would ensure there are no dark corners in which Parliament is not allowed to look. I think that is essential.
When we dealt with hearings on Mr. Arar in committee, for example, how often did we hear, “You cannot hear that. That is private and privileged information. That is subject to security clearance”. There needs to be a committee that is allowed to look into all of those corners to ensure human rights and Canadian interests are protected at all levels. We have to ensure that those things we value most, our freedoms, our collective securities are protected, but also our right to never be in a situation like Mr. El Maati, Mr. Nureddin or Mr. Almalki, where a Canadian citizen is wrongly sent to a terrible place, facing torture, because of mistakes made in this country.
It is time to apologize to those men. It is time to take action to ensure that it never happens again. The time to do so is today.
Niki Ashton NDP Churchill, MB
Mr. Speaker, clearly the issue being discussed today is one of great importance and really reflects the path our country has been taking as of late when it comes to human rights, when it comes to dealing with torture and, most important, when it comes to correcting the wrong, when it comes to recognizing what has been done wrong and in this case egregiously to Canadian citizens themselves.
I would like my colleague to comment and give us feedback on the work of my colleague, the member for Vancouver Kingsway, on the public safety committee, which has had the chance to delve into this deeper. The government says that it cannot deal with recommendation 3, which is considering the harm to the three individuals in question, because it is in the courts.
Would the member respond to that? It is so clear that we need to deal with this and we need the government to show leadership. In this case, the report before us is very much centred on the experience of these three men and we need to deal with that.
Mark Holland Liberal Ajax—Pickering, ON
Mr. Speaker, one thing that is remarkable to me, in talking to some of the gentlemen who have gone through this horrific experience, is they are not bitter. They are not filled with rage and hate. That is hard to imagine after everything they have gone through.
The only things they have asked for is for us to ensure that the recommendations put forward to ensure these mistakes never occur again be adopted. The government refuses to do that. The other thing they have asked for, more than anything else, is for our help to clear their names so when they walk down the street, people do not give them a second glance, wondering if they are really terrorists and are persons who are extremists. That cloud of suspicion could be lifted from them.
Justice Iacobucci did a great job taking that part of the way, but until the government stands in its place and apologizes to them, until it has said that these men deserve to have their name cleared and are proud Canadian citizens who should be looked at in no other way, they are not given their fair due. That is not very much to ask.
The third thing I ask for, even more than them, is for them to be compensated. The horrors they went through are such that we can never imagine. I encourage every Canadian to read the story of these men, to understand what they went through.
Anyone, after hearing their story, would agree that they are owed compensation. They are owed an apology and they are owed the right to clear their names. It is a scar and a shame that the government refuses to do this.
Brian Murphy Liberal Moncton—Riverview—Dieppe, NB
Mr. Speaker, I ask my colleague to centre his response with respect to the government's accountability to reports tabled. He mentioned numerous times the reports of Justices O'Connor and Iacobucci.
He might also go into the report of Howard Sapers with respect to an issue I brought forward in the House numerous times about Ashley Smith formerly of Moncton and the treatment of domestically detained individuals. There is also the report of Bernard Richard, the New Brunswick ombudsman. There is a plethora of reports before the government. It seems there is an unwillingness to respond to these reports.
Might I suggest for the member that there has to be a non-partisan way to suggest that reports are useful. His suggestion that there ought to be a mediated or alternate dispute resolved, as a way to find compensation for these individuals, was exactly the model used in the Arar matter.
Colleagues of mine, Will McDowell from justice and Julian Falconer from the Plaintiff's Bar, worked very well together in resolving that issue to the credit of the government. Liberal or Conservative, it does not matter. Arar is the perfect example of something that started under a Liberal government and ended under a Conservative government. Did the resolution of it not bring honour to the process, to Canada and bring a modicum of respect back to Mr. Maher Arar? Is it not the example the government could follow in this case?
Mark Holland Liberal Ajax—Pickering, ON
Mr. Speaker, having sat through those hearings, there is no question that when finally an apology and compensation were given to Mr. Arar, it was nearly universally supported by the Canadian public and it allowed Mr. Arar to move forward with his life. These three men deserve no less. However, it should not take that same crisis to push it there.
What is confounding, when we talk about asking for accountability on these reports, is it is more than just accountability, it is also honesty. One begins to get the sense that the Conservatives say that they will implement the recommendations without ever having the honest interest of implementing them. It is a way of deferring the issue. If they came out and just said that they disagreed, at least it would be honest. We could have a honest debate about that and the Canadian public could weigh the relative merits of them not taking the actions recommended or implementing the recommendations.
Instead, what the Conservatives do, as they do in so many matters, both in the Ashley Smith case and so many others, is say, yes, that they will adopt those recommendations. They thank us for them and then years pass by where nothing happens. What they hope is that Canadians will forget and will not follow up and that it becomes an obscure matter of debate some quiet Thursday in Parliament. Even that opportunity to debate is shut down.
It is clear these matters can be resolved. The Arar case is an excellent example of a direction that should be taken.
Jim Maloway NDP Elmwood—Transcona, MB
Mr. Speaker, first, I take issue with the grouchy government member who put on a show for us a few minutes ago. He suggested somehow that we were trying to slow down the legislative process and that we did not really want to deal seriously with this issue. All he had to do was get seven more members out of bed this morning and in here to vote and he would have won the vote. Why cry over spilled milk? He lost the vote. Let us get on with the debate.
The member made an excellent presentation. He pointed out that the government was refusing an apology compensation. Under recommendation 3, the members want those things to happen. However, they also want to make certain the Government of Canada corrects any misinformation that may exist on the records administered by national security agencies in Canada or abroad, with respect to these three individuals.
With respect to Mr. Arar, we all know he is probably on a no-fly list and will stay on a no-fly list in the states and other parts of the world probably until the end of his days.
We want to know why the government continues to drag its feet and pretend that this issue does not need immediate attention, hoping the whole issue will go away with time?
Mark Holland Liberal Ajax—Pickering, ON
Mr. Speaker, the hon. member raises an excellent point. There are not just domestic considerations of these gentlemen walking through Canadian streets and how they are identified, but the implications with foreign governments and other agencies continuing to have inaccurate information about them, therefore, further limiting their freedoms by making it more difficult for them to travel or, in certain cases, impossible for them to travel.
The government clearly has an obligation not only to apologize to them, but, as the member quite rightfully points out, it also has an obligation to clear the record in other foreign jurisdictions to ensure these men have the right to travel freely, as any other Canadian citizen would.
We are very lucky as a nation. When Canadians citizens want to travel abroad, we are given those opportunities. We are very much not limited in where we want to travel. For these men, that is not the case. For some of them, their freedoms in that regard might be permanently curtailed, particularly if the government refuses to act. It is yet another example of the imperative nature of action.
Mario Laframboise Bloc Argenteuil—Papineau—Mirabel, QC
Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak on behalf of the Bloc Québécois regarding the report of the Committee on Public Safety and National Security. This is an interesting debate in the House today. I do not serve on this committee, and so I had another look at this report that was produced in June 2009. I see why there was interest in having this debate here today.
Some of my Bloc Québécois colleagues serve on this committee, including the member for Marc-Aurèle-Fortin. Those who know him know that he is a distinguished lawyer who was the attorney general of Quebec when he was a member of the National Assembly. My colleague from Ahuntsic, a well-known criminologist, also serves on the committee. Anyone who is familiar with her work knows that she has written extensively on the subject of street gangs. She not only tackles the problem of street gangs, but also proposes solutions to the issue. In addition, she has always been interested in human rights issues.
In reading the report, I was able to better understand the intentions of the committee members at the time, why it is being brought back to the House today, and also the Conservative philosophy behind the position they defended in committee.
The report reviewed the findings and recommendations arising from the Iacobucci and O'Connor inquiries. Mr. Speaker, I know that you are familiar with all of these reports, but for those listening, I want to point out that the Iacobucci inquiry was an internal inquiry into the actions of Canadian officials in relation to Abdullah Almalki, Ahmad Abou-Elmaati and Muayyed Nureddin. The O'Connor inquiry looked into the actions of Canadian officials in relation to Maher Arar. These cases were very important in terms of the government's foreign policy and how the Conservative government and the Government of Canada treated Canadian citizens who experienced difficulties with foreign authorities. That brings me back to the committee's analysis and, most importantly, its findings and recommendations.
The first recommendation called on the government to recognize the urgency of the situation by immediately implementing all of the recommendations from the O'Connor inquiry, the one in relation to Maher Arar. The committee found it regrettable that the government had not yet established the national security review framework recommended by Justice O’Connor. After hearing from the majority of witnesses, the committee determined that the implementation of the recommendations from the policy review report would give Canadians assurance that the actions of national security departments and agencies were in compliance with the law. That was the main objective. I will read the recommendation:
The Committee reiterates the recommendation made in its report presented to the House of Commons on January 30, 2007, and recommends that the Government of Canada recognize the urgency of the situation by immediately implementing all the recommendations from the Commission of Inquiry into the Actions of Canadian Officials in Relation to Maher Arar.
In June 2009, the committee resurrected the O'Connor inquiry's recommendations, which had been submitted in the January 2007 report. It is important to bring this up again today to show that, first, the government has not yet implemented the committee's June 2009 recommendations, and second and more importantly, the government expressed a dissenting opinion. The committee submitted a majority report, but a minority, the Conservatives, produced a dissenting opinion. That means that the Conservative members did not agree with the committee's recommendations. I will come back to that.
That is why it is so important today to show that even though the committee submitted a majority report with recommendations, the inevitable outcome has been that the government, which expressed a dissenting opinion, has no interest in implementing the report's recommendations.
This means we must find out why the Conservatives decided to submit a dissenting opinion and why they decided not to act on the June 2009 committee report.
The second recommendation states:
The Committee recommends that the Government of Canada immediately issue regular public reports on the progress made in implementing the findings and recommendations arising from the Commission of Inquiry into the Actions of Canadian Officials in Relation to Maher Arar and the Internal Inquiry into the Actions of Canadian Officials in Relation to Abdullah Almalki, Ahmad Abou-Elmaati and Muayyed Nureddin.
The reports should have been made public in order to demonstrate that these people did not suffer irreparable harm at the hands of the government. It seems clear that the government decided not to publicly announce all of the progress made because, once again, it wanted to hide the documents.
This brings us to the core of the report. The third recommendations states:
In consideration of the harm done to Messrs. Almalki, Abou-Elmaati and Mr. Nureddin, the Committee recommends:
that the Government of Canada officially apologize to Messrs. Almalki, Abou-Elmaati and Nureddin;
that the Government of Canada allow compensation to be paid to Messrs. Almalki, Abou-Elmaati and Nureddin as reparation for the suffering they endured and the difficulties they encountered; and
that the Government of Canada do everything necessary to correct misinformation that may exist in records administered by national security agencies in Canada or abroad with respect to Messrs. Almalki, Abou-Elmaati and Nureddin and members of their families.
Clearly, the reputations of these individuals have suffered considerable harm. The committee found that the government made a mistake and should correct that mistake by officially apologizing. That was a recommendation. It will come as no surprise that the Conservatives had a dissenting opinion and ignored that recommendation. Their failure to acknowledge the harm done to our citizens is an affront to rights and freedoms, but that is the Conservative way.
Despite the Conservative rhetoric when it comes time to show some respect for human rights, this is just further proof that they really do not respect those rights.
The fourth recommendation is very important in light of the debates of these past few days, because it recommends adopting an unequivocal position on torture. This report was published in June. It took a few months to draft it. I will read the recommendation:
The committee recommends that the Government of Canada issue a clear ministerial direction against torture and the use of information obtained from torture for all departments and agencies responsible for national security. The ministerial direction must clearly state that the exchange of information with countries is prohibited when there is a credible risk that it could lead, or contribute, to the use of torture.
I am not a member of the Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security, but the fact that the Conservative MPs issued a dissenting opinion on this recommendation is disturbing. It shows that everything the government has been doing in the past few weeks to hide the documents on the torture of Afghan detainees from the Standing Committee on National Defence is symptomatic. It is a Conservative syndrome. They see no torture and hear no torture, therefore there is no torture. Only those who are present can determine that there is torture. If there is no video evidence of torture, then there is no torture.
That is the heart of today's debate. I watched the Conservatives tear their hair out saying that today's debate would delay all the big, fine decisions they have to make. They have made some very serious decisions nonetheless.
Once again, they gave a dissenting opinion on recommendation 4, which reads as follows:
The Committee recommends that the Government of Canada issue a clear ministerial directive against torture and the use of information obtained from torture for all departments and agencies responsible for national security.
When I read that in the report, I remembered that the Conservative Party had issued a dissenting opinion on recommendation 4. That gives me a better understanding of the Conservative ideology, which comes from the Republicans in the U.S.: “If we don't see it, it ain't happening”. It is a bit like the boxer who told his trainer that someone was hitting him. The trainer answered that no one was hitting him, no one could see him and no one was touching him. The boxer asked the trainer to check with the referee, because he could feel someone touching him. That is the reality. That is the Conservative approach. They cannot see or feel anything, but meanwhile, people are being tortured. In order to admit that torture is taking place, all the Conservative members would have to see acts of torture with their own eyes at the same time.
This attitude comes from the Conservatives' right-wing ideology. Today, this whole debate is being brought to the House of Commons in connection with the June 2009 report. The government has not acted on this report. But even worse, the Conservatives had a dissenting opinion on recommendation 4, which recommended:
that the Government of Canada issue a clear ministerial directive against torture and the use of information obtained from torture for all departments and agencies responsible for national security. The ministerial directive must clearly state that the exchange of information with countries is prohibited when there is a credible risk that it could lead, or contribute, to the use of torture.
As we can see, in June 2009, the Conservatives did not agree with this recommendation. Obviously, this tells us even more about how they handle all the cases of torture of Afghan detainees.
The fifth recommendation was as follows:
The Committee recommends, once again, that Bill C-81, introduced in the 38th Parliament, An Act to Establish the National Security Committee of Parliamentarians, or a variation of it, be introduced in Parliament at the earliest opportunity.
Clearly, the objective was to create a parliamentary committee to review the activities of national security organizations.
When a government just does not wish to issue the directives or support a recommendation calling for clear directives, it is not unusual for a committee of parliamentarians to follow up with these organizations in the matter of the allegations or the way in which they handle all files involving our citizens who are accused of all kinds of things abroad. My colleagues on the Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security and I thought this was an interesting solution.
Once again, this report expresses the findings of the majority but the minority Conservative voice has prevailed. It is no surprise that the report has not been acted on and that, inevitably, it has been shelved. That is what happened.
The Bloc Québécois is pleased to discuss this matter today. It gives us a little more insight into the Conservative philosophy, which is based on always turning a blind eye, never apologizing and, when faced with a situation where there is torture and the violation of human rights, having to be there to actually witness it. They do not even want a committee to recommend that clear directives be issued to all security services that may question witnesses. That is how they see things. There is the Conservative view of things and the humanitarian view of things, and the Bloc Québécois has always defended the latter. We have always been strong defenders of justice.
We want every person who commits a crime to be punished. However, when someone is wrongly accused of having committed a crime, they deserve an apology. Torture must not be used; it is straight out of the Middle Ages. I apologize for pushing this, but it really is an outdated way of doing things. There are ways to obtain information that are more respectful of human rights. That is how the Bloc Québécois wants things to work.
Today's debate was very important, and it showed that the Conservatives do not want to discuss governance problems related to torture. The government is not at all willing to bring the facts to light or to prevent these kinds of things from happening.
The Bloc Québécois still supports this report. Our colleague from Marc-Aurèle-Fortin was once the attorney general of Quebec. He was one of the instigators of Opération printemps 2001, which targeted organized crime in Quebec. He was the minister at the time. This operation was made possible thanks to the Bloc Québécois, which was in favour of amending the Criminal Code to reverse the burden of proof. Criminals were then required to prove that their money had been earned legitimately. Opération printemps 2001 dealt a serious blow to organized crime.
The Bloc's position will always be the same: we believe that we must fight criminals and anyone who attacks our freedoms. But in doing so, we must respect human rights. We must not torture people. We are capable of holding these debates in a way that respects human rights.
Paul Szabo Liberal Mississauga South, ON
Madam Speaker, as usual, the member has provided wise input.
The government responded to the committee's report. I believe the response was tabled on October 19.
One of the areas that is very relevant to the Afghan detainee situation which is being worked on in committee right now has to do with the torture issue. The government response seems to indicate that changes, clarifications or reaffirmation are necessary. That is almost an admission that there is a culture in which there is less certainty as to the commitment of the government with regard to torture issues.
I wonder if the member would care to comment on the results of the request for documents from the government with regard to matters of torture. The information provided to parliamentarians at committee has been redacted. Basically committee members have been denied access to full information to help them discharge their responsibilities.
Mario Laframboise Bloc Argenteuil—Papineau—Mirabel, QC
Madam Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague for his question.
The Conservatives' treatment of all torture files is symptomatic. The committee report simply recommended that the government issue clear directives to all organizations in a position to interrogate witnesses, whose safety we must ensure.
This is proof that they do not care what goes on. They want testimony and results. Once again, it is a matter of public pressure. The Conservatives' way of doing things is very simple: they use the media to control their image and public opinion. Their goal is to ensure that their political party benefits as much as possible and that the public finds out as little as possible.
There is a reason they did not want to hand over the files. Because of public pressure and for purely partisan reasons, they did hand over some of the files, but they are still hiding the most important information. And that is what they will keep doing.
The Conservatives are not interested in changing their philosophy. They probably believe that the means employed by security forces are unimportant and that only the end matters. They do not think that it is important for us to respect our obligations under international agreements on the treatment of prisoners. It therefore comes as no surprise that significant portions of the documents we were given were blacked out. That is how they operate.
Jim Maloway NDP Elmwood—Transcona, MB
Madam Speaker, in his report the former Supreme Court Justice Frank Iacobucci agreed with the men we are talking about, finding that all three suffered treatment amounting to torture as the term is defined in the United Nations Convention against Torture, this, after the authorities are disputing their claims.
For years these men have said the questions they were asked under torture could only have come from Canada. The justice agreed, finding that in all three cases the information and questions in the hands of their interrogators did come from Canada. CSIS sent the questions to Mr. El Maati and Mr. Nureddin's interrogators. In Mr. Almalki's case, it was the RCMP that sent the questions.
These men also wanted to know how Canadian agencies used, back in Canada, their so-called confessions and the statements they were forced to make under torture. The justice gives the answer to that as well.
From Mr. El Maati's confession, information that agencies knew or should have known was likely the product of torture was then used to justify further telephone taps and search warrants back here in Canada. What is worse is that CSIS then used information obtained in the searches and sent more questions back to the Syrian interrogators. In the justice's words:
Syrian officials would likely have viewed these additional questions sent by Canadian officials as a “green light” to continue their interrogation and detention of Mr. Elmaati, rather than a “red light” to stop.
Would the member agree that what was revealed in this report is a vicious cycle of Canadian complicity in torture?
Mario Laframboise Bloc Argenteuil—Papineau—Mirabel, QC
Madam Speaker, my colleague is right about the fact that the Conservatives only care about the end result. They do not care how it is achieved, and this has some ramifications. Indeed, a commission was authorized to investigate, paid for out of the public purse. According to some of the findings, torture did take place. So an apology should be made and those people should probably be compensated. But for the Conservatives, only the end result matters. As for the rest, they will never apologize or compensate anyone. It does not matter, regardless of the fact that a commission was created and paid for using public money.
The timeframe needed to do this was important, because it allowed them to stall for time. The rest is not important, since the Conservatives were not present to witness the torture. If they see it with their own eyes, only then will they offer any compensation. As I said at the beginning, this clearly shows the Conservative philosophy: they want results at any cost, and do not care about anything else.