Bob Rae

[Business of Supply, December 1st, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, I do not know whether the generals on the ground visited prisons or not.

The simple fact is that we have different sources of information with respect to the general conditions in prisons. I believe absolutely the testimony of the three generals who testified before us, in terms of what their view of the situation was, what their view of the information they were receiving was. There is no doubting anyone's testimony.

I completely believe Mr. Mulroney's testimony when he said that he believes there was no evidence with respect to the treatment of Canadian prisoners. The problem is that we were not at that time in a position to get evidence with respect to the treatment of Canadian prisoners. There was no independent investigation with respect to the allegations of what took place.

The members opposite have criticized Mr. Colvin for his investigatory techniques. All he was trying to do was to get information and pass that information on to the government where it would be assessed for decision-making by government. That is all he could do—

[Business of Supply, December 1st, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, if we look for example at what the British government has done on a number of occasions with respect to the conduct of the war in Iraq, if we look at what the American government has done with respect to the conduct of the war in Iraq and with respect to the treatment of prisoners and the issues that have been raised, there is always some kind of process.

I think when we look at the frustrations and the obstacles and difficulties that we have faced with respect to a purely parliamentary inquiry, it is very difficult. Will facts come out? Yes, facts will come out, things will emerge and other stuff will come up and question period will be used. However, these are not perfect vehicles for making decisions with respect to how things were done and how they can be improved.

This is not even about blame. This is about how do we improve public policy. How do we ensure that we will all be able to do a better job, because there will be other Afghanistans? There will be other difficult conflicts and issues.

This is the way we have to go about making better policy, making better decisions and allowing our decision-makers to improve how they do things. It is not a criminal investigation. It is not a criminal inquiry. It is a public inquiry into how do we improve public policy.

[Business of Supply, December 1st, 2009]

A Liberal cabinet, yes, and it is the decision of that cabinet that will be reviewed by the inquiry. If it were a wrong decision, that is what it would be.

I do not think the Conservative members are hearing what I am telling them. The conduct of the Liberal government is every bit as much the subject of the inquiry as the conduct of the Conservative government.

That is the reality of this war. The reality of the war is that it was a war that was entered into by a Liberal government on behalf of the people of Canada because of the nature of the attack on 9/11. Further steps were taken by this Parliament, in which we agreed that we would continue and maintain our support for the troops.

Let there be no question, we are supportive of our troops. We are supportive of the efforts that have been made. We are supportive of the determination shown. There is absolutely no allegation, none whatsoever, that any Canadian officer or Canadian soldier was ever involved in the mistreatment of Afghan detainees. That is not the question.

The question before us is, did we take full note of the information, not the evidence but the information, and I stress this word to the minister, the prosecutor for Manitoba who sits across from me, that was reported to the government by a range of sources, not just Mr. Colvin? The emphasis on it all being about Mr. Colvin versus the three generals, and it all being about Mr. Colvin versus Mr. Mulroney, I say with great respect is not the issue. The issue is what information did the Government of Canada have? What did it do with that information and how did it process that information, and why did it take so long to go from hearing the information with respect to the conditions in Afghan prisons and the treatment of prisoners and the decisions that were ultimately made with respect to how those would be reviewed?

I would like to mention two things.

First, we support this motion and we recognize that the Liberal government's work will also be subject to scrutiny in the inquiry proposed by the member for Ottawa Centre. This will not be a partisan review. This review will delve into the Liberal government's handling of the war and that of the Conservative government. We accept that responsibility and are saying so clearly.

Second, there is a fundamental contradiction in the government's position. It says that all kinds of problems made it necessary to change the agreement between Afghanistan and Canada. Yet it refuses to clarify exactly what problems made the change necessary.

That is the contradiction, and that is the issue that we hope will become the focus of the proposed inquiry.

The last point I want to make is this: Why hold a public inquiry? As some members will know, if they have ever paid any attention to some of the things I have said over the years, I am not a huge fan of holding public inquiries every time something goes wrong. I have argued against them in different instances, but it seems to me in this particular case, it is very hard to figure out what the alternative is. Some people say it should be a parliamentary committee. We are dogged by problems in the parliamentary committee. We cannot get access to information. We cannot get access to the same documents. Documents are leaked to journalists. The journalists then report on the documents. It is really quite an unusual situation. A government gives a document to a journalist and the journalist says whatever he or she is going to say about whatever he or she is told, and then the government says that this journalist has the information. Where else would they get the information if they do not get it from a source within the government? Where else would those documents come from. Where else would the unredacted documents come from if they do not come from the government? Where else would they come from?

I am not suggesting that the parliamentary secretary gave the documents to the journalist. I am just saying, where else would they come from? Who else has access to those documents? It is a fascinating question as to how this takes place.

We are then faced with the situation: What other vehicle do we have to get to this central question? Although the members opposite might not like to see it this way, I do think there is a significant question for Canadian foreign and defence policy and our public policy, that is, having faced this difficult situation, are we or are we not prepared to get to the bottom of it?

In every effort that was made, the Military Police Complaints Commission, for example, was told by DND lawyers, “No, you cannot look at this; no, you cannot look at that”.

There does not seem to be any really effective alternative other than to hold a public inquiry to get to the bottom of this question.

[Business of Supply, December 1st, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, the answer my friend is shouting across the way is “a flawed agreement”. There is no question that it was a flawed agreement. It was an imperfect agreement arrived at by people who were doing their best in the circumstances and who did not fully realize its inadequacies.

I can say to the hon. member, who continues to shake his head because I can hear him doing so, that what he is saying is that it was the government's fault.

I will make it clear. We know how these policies get developed. They get developed by people on the ground and by lawyers who review material which ultimately gets approved or not by cabinet. That is how it works.

[Business of Supply, December 1st, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, as I understand the terms of the motion that has been proposed by my friend from Ottawa Centre, it refers to the years 2001 to 2009. It is not confined to the period after the Conservatives took office.

On behalf of our party, I want to make it clear that we support the motion. We understand that the implications of the motion are that the conduct of the previous government will be equally subject to scrutiny as the conduct of the current government. It is important for people to understand that. When I say this is not simply a partisan issue, I know there will be chuckles on the other side of the House. However, the fact is that we in this party are supporting a motion that refers to a public inquiry that would look at the conduct of governments with respect to the question of the transfer of detainees.

The minister and others have risen over and over again to say that the agreement that was negotiated prior to 2006 and signed by General Hillier during the election campaign of 2005-06 on behalf of the Government of Canada, was a flawed agreement. If we listened to the comments that were made by Mr. Colvin, we would certainly come to that conclusion.

As a result of that agreement, we discovered, and over time it was found out, that the Red Cross could not report instances of abuse to Canadian authorities. It could only raise them with Afghan authorities. The Red Cross repeated again over the weekend its very strong view that it retains its credibility and its deep neutrality as an organization because it does not engage in political conversations. It has insisted on that. We also found that there was no ability on the part of Canadian authorities to investigate any issues that have taken place.

My simple point would be that the government cannot really have it both ways. The government cannot say, absolutely convinced, 100% certified and guaranteed, that nothing happened untoward with respect to any detainee who was transferred to Afghan authorities, and then say that the agreement was deeply inadequate and that it spent a year and a half in trying to fix it and make it better, and then reached the conclusion that a whole series of steps needed to be taken to ensure that “problems” were dealt with.

Questions arise. What were the problems? What was it that made the Conservative government decide that there needed to be a change in the agreement? What was it that made the government finally led them to realize that it had to make substantial investments with respect to reviewing, inspecting and investigating the whole structure? What was it that made the government do that?

[Privilege, November 30th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, I know we all engage in a great deal of partisan banter and that it is impossible to keep politics out of the House of Commons but I want to make a couple of comments about why I think this matter is of significance and why it is a matter of privilege for members of the House and the committee.

Under any norm of natural justice, in any proceeding, when a witness refers to a document, the people who are questioning the witness need to be able to see the document in order to know whether the witness is quoting from the whole document, whether the witness is quoting from the document fairly or whether the witness is omitting some things that should be referred to as well. This is an absolute precondition of anything that would amount to a fair process as it relates to getting to the heart of an issue.

The Afghanistan committee was established by the House. The question of the treatment of detainees was one of the issues that was contained in the parliamentary resolution which was referred to and passed by the House. We have had the prospect in the last week of witnesses appearing in front of the committee who not only had full access to information to which we did not have access but had access to documents in a completely non-redacted form, to all of the information in terms of memoranda and whatever briefing notes were provided to them or by them to others. Frankly, we do not know exactly what documents they thought they had and we were not able to have access to those.

The second thing that happened, which my colleague from Ottawa Centre has referred to, is that there was a first witness, Mr. Colvin, whose name is well-known to members of the House, who offered to share information with members of the committee and was then told that he could not share it.

We now have the situation where the legal advisor to the committee has advised the committee that we can hear evidence that the government might consider to be confidential or affecting national security and that sections 37 and 38 of the Evidence Act are not a barrier to members of the committee hearing this information. The Department of Justice has said that it does not accept that interpretation and refuses to allow it to go forward to the committee.

The hard part is that the government says that it wants to get to the truth and that it does not want to put barriers in the way of members doing their job, but that is exactly what it is doing. In preventing members from having access to exactly the same information as the people who are giving testimony have access to, it is impossible for us to do our job in an adequate way.

If somebody says that this is just about politics and not really about anything of substance or that it is just one side saying something and the other side saying something else, just a matter of political argument, I do not think that is true.

Mr. Speaker, if you find that the way in which the government has allowed witnesses to appear in terms of receiving briefings from departmental officials before their appearance, being given access to documents which others did not have and then denying to members of Parliament access to those same documents in the same form in which they are being considered by witnesses, I really believe that is a direct obstacle to our ability to do our job.

Mr. Speaker, if you are looking for a precedent with respect to how else this could have been done, I am reliably informed that in 2004 the public accounts committee requested and received all cabinet documents directly related to the sponsorship program, including cabinet committee minutes of meetings and briefing notes of PCO and PMO to the prime minister. These documents were provided in an unredacted form to the public accounts committee in a timely fashion; that is, before the ministers, former minister and senior public servants were called to appear.

Mr. Speaker, In the unfortunate event that you decide there is no case of privilege here or that you cannot see one, I would put it to you that we on this side of the House are left in literally an impossible position. We have absolutely no choice in that circumstance other than to insist on a public inquiry because a public inquiry under the Inquiries Act and a judge, or anyone sitting as a hearing officer under the Inquiries Act, would absolutely be required to follow these principles.

Therefore, the real question for the House and for you, Mr. Speaker, is whether the committees of the House, in carrying out their work and investigation, are obliged to follow the simple rules of natural justice, yes or no. If you find that the answer is no, that they do not, then we are left with a very harsh conclusion, and that is that we in the House cannot or have not created a system of committees that actually allows them to function in a proper and appropriate way.

I think that is something of some significance when it comes to getting to the bottom of this question.

My question is quite simple: are the committees of the House obliged to follow the rules of natural justice?

I think the answer is clearly yes. We do not have a choice. We cannot leave members of Parliament in a position where they do not have access to the same information as the witnesses at the committee. That puts them in an impossible position and we cannot accept that.

[Day of Remembrance for the Victims of Nazi and Soviet Communist Regimes, November 30th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, there have been discussions among the parties and I think you will find unanimous consent for the following motion:

1) WHEREAS the Government of Canada has actively advocated for and continues to support the principles enshrined by The United Nations Universal Declaration on Human Rights and The United Nations General Assembly Resolution 260 (III) A of 9 December 1948;

2) WHEREAS the extreme forms of totalitarian rule practised by the Nazi and Communist dictatorships led to premeditated and vast crimes committed against millions of human beings and their basic inalienable rights on a scale unseen before in history;

3) WHEREAS hundreds of thousands of human beings, fleeing the Nazi and Soviet Communist crimes, sought and found refuge in Canada;

4) WHEREAS the millions of Canadians of Eastern and Central European descent whose families have been directly affected by Nazi and/or Communist crimes have made unique and significant, cultural, economic, social and other contributions to help build the Canada we know today;

5) WHEREAS 20 years after the fall of the totalitarian Communist regimes in Europe, knowledge among Canadians about the totalitarian regimes which terrorized their fellow citizens in Central and Eastern Europe for more than 40 years in the form of systematic and ruthless military, economic and political repression of the people by means of arbitrary executions, mass arrests, deportations, the suppression of free expression, private property and civil society and the destruction of cultural and moral identity and which deprived the vast majority of the peoples of Central and Eastern Europe of their basic human rights and dignity, separating them from the democratic world by means of the Iron Curtain and the Berlin Wall, is still alarmingly superficial and inadequate;

6) WHEREAS Canadians were instrumental during the 1980s in raising global awareness of crimes committed by European totalitarian Nazi and Communist regimes by founding an annual “Black Ribbon Day” on August 23, to commemorate the legal partnership of these two regimes through the infamous Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact and its secret protocols,;

BE IT RESOLVED THAT every victim of any totalitarian regime has the same human dignity and deserves justice, remembrance and recognition by the Parliament and the Government of Canada, in efforts to ensure that such crimes and events are never again repeated;

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED THAT the Parliament and the Government of Canada unequivocally condemn the crimes against humanity committed by totalitarian Nazi and Communist regimes and offer the victims of these crimes and their family members sympathy, understanding and recognition for their suffering;

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED THAT the Government of Canada establish an annual Canadian Day of Remembrance for the victims of Nazi and Soviet Communist regimes on August 23, called “Black Ribbon Day”, to coincide with the anniversary of the signing of the infamous pact between the Nazi and Soviet Communist regimes.

[Points of Order, November 30th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, in the course of a conversation with my seatmate, I may have made a comment about the minister. I am sure he has said some nasty things about me as well.

Of course, if anyone overheard my comments, I would withdraw them without hesitation.

[Afghanistan, November 30th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, I am doing my best but I did not hear the answer to my question. It is very simple; the question is very simple. Ms. Buck, a Foreign Affairs official, said that it is not the role of Canada's federal government to investigate the allegations. Its role is to forward the allegations to the government of Afghanistan and to wait for a reply. I will once again put the very simple question to the minister.

Is that his government's attitude towards the serious allegations that we have heard?

[Afghanistan, November 30th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, in trying to understand the process under way with respect to dealing with allegations of harsh treatment, Kerry Buck who is a senior spokesperson for the Department of Foreign Affairs, said under cross-examination in 2008, “It is not our role to determine credibility of the allegations, to determine the veracity of the allegations. We don't investigate those allegations. We record them”.

I wonder if the Minister of Foreign Affairs could tell us, is that his understanding of the way in which these allegations are supposed to be dealt with?