Public Safety committee  Again, much like CSIS, we don't talk about the reviews that we're doing or contemplating doing. I will say that we will be guided, obviously, by any decisions or requests that may come from government, and I'll leave it at that.

Public Safety committee  I know the government is currently in the process of looking at that.

Public Safety committee  Are you saying with respect to the RCMP or CSIS...?

Public Safety committee  Well, we are continually looking at different issues that arise out of all these recommendations and so on. We, for instance, did our own study this past year of a number of agencies with which CSIS has exchange of information protocols and agreements, ones that are known to have human rights issues.

Public Safety committee  First, we don't have the authority to demand of CSIS that they do it. That goes back to a Supreme Court decision. Our recommendations are not binding, but we do make recommendations and we will certainly examine any of those things that come out of the O'Connor report. I believe we met on three occasions, I certainly made a presentation before Justice O'Connor's commission, and our staff did have a great deal of exchange of information with them.

Public Safety committee  We have the same information as the committee was given, which is that, as Mr. Judd said yesterday to the committee, CSIS wouldn't endorse the letter, among other things because it would mean that the service was denying that a person was a target, and it's their policy that they neither confirm nor deny the identity of targets or persons of interest.

Public Safety committee  All I can say is that back at the time we appeared before the Senate committee that was reviewing the Anti-terrorism Act, we did express concern that the Anti-terrorism Act and a number of its provisions did bring the RCMP back into the field of security and intelligence. We expressed that back in I guess it was November 2001.

Public Safety committee  Coming from a former elected office myself and being familiar with the responsibilities that parliamentarians have to always examine and re-examine policy and structure in view of changing times, I think it's fair to consider a variety of different options. We have the benefit of meeting, as we just did about three weeks ago, with security and intelligence review agencies from all over the world to take a look at different systems.

Public Safety committee  I believe that virtually every review that's been done with respect to terrorist acts in the world in recent years, starting from 9/11 on through to Justice O'Connor, has suggested that we need to have more sharing of information amongst the security and intelligence agencies of all the countries in the world, that it's absolutely fundamental to our desire to make this a safer place and to offer a secure environment for our citizens.

Public Safety committee  I'm sorry, I didn't answer that question as well to Mr. Holland; I didn't have time. But the fact is that we did our investigation and did not find any confirmation of that allegation, and I believe, if I'm not mistaken, so did Mr. Justice O'Connor, that he investigated that and could find no confirmation of that allegation.

Public Safety committee  Yes.

Public Safety committee  I know it's a matter that may be frustrating to the committee and is difficult for us to deal with, but we're constrained by exactly the same requirements of national security protection as are CSIS in this case.

Public Safety committee  There actually is a specific memorandum of understanding between CSIS and the RCMP about information sharing. It has multifacets to it, including the requirement for the reliability or otherwise of the information to be specified, and also any caveats that may be required with respect to any information sharing, and also notification if information is requested to be shared with third parties.

Public Safety committee  We did receive a response with respect to that, a response that we probably didn't feel was a satisfactory response in terms of the delay. As a result of that, one of the seven recommendations we made in our report on Maher Arar was specifically to address that. I'm trying to look at which number it was here, of the seven.

Public Safety committee  We haven't received anything directly from Mr. Arar, but we have received a letter from Mr. Waldman, his counsel. I assume he was acting on behalf of Mr. Arar in making that request to us. I can say to you that the matter is being examined by our committee. We'll need to take some time to investigate a number of the claims that are made within the letter before we respond to that request.