Justice committee  Yes.

Justice committee  First of all, it wouldn't be appropriate for me to comment directly on the Halifax proposal. I have reviewed it and I am familiar with some of the things they're proposing. What I would say is that it's one perspective. I'm not saying that it's not valid, but it's not the only

Justice committee  Any presumption is just that. It doesn't mean that it can't be set aside. It doesn't even necessarily need to be set aside by an argument from the other side. We could review something that we presume is reliable, but if we look at it and think, “I don't quite understand that, an

Justice committee  Yes, it is an issue, and that's one of the reasons we want extradition to move on a expeditious basis. If we were to change the law to require witnesses to be heard and cross-examined, we would never finish our extradition hearings in any kind of reasonable time frame. An average

Justice committee  That's right, yes. The big red sign is up.

Justice committee  I'm not sure if you're asking how we deal with a request from the beginning to end. Are you asking where the Department of Foreign Affairs comes in and where the Department of Justice comes in?

Justice committee  When we first receive a request, if it's not from a country that we're very comfortable with and used to dealing with, the first question we ask ourselves is, “Is this a country that we could send somebody safely to?” That will involve consulting with our partners at the Departme

Justice committee  Yes, I can. As you can imagine, that's the case with a lot of Canadian laws. At a particular point in time, there's an enumerated list of grounds of discrimination. As time progresses, that changes and expands. There are a great many different laws and agreements that don't list

Justice committee  Yes. A person generally raises the concerns they have. For example, there was a case that took place in Mexico some years ago. The individual was gay, and he was concerned about how he would be treated in prison in Mexico. We ultimately ended up getting an assurance from Mexico

Justice committee  I'm sorry. I didn't notice.

Justice committee  I would say yes, but the reality is that we're not.... It's a weird question, because this isn't a trial and we don't possess all the evidence. We get what we receive from the foreign state and we disclose it.

Justice committee  I would say we have an ethical duty to disclose it, so yes.

Justice committee  I wasn't ready for that question.

Justice committee  One thing I wanted to mention is that extradition is an area that's very heavily litigated, so the thought that somehow people's rights are being ignored ignores the fact that it's very heavily litigated. It's also gone to the Supreme Court of Canada for a subject matter opinion

Justice committee  I'm happy you knew in advance that it was an unfair question. I can't really answer most of that, other than to say that there's no such thing as a perfect piece of legislation, just like there's no such thing as a perfect system in any country. Obviously there are ways that it