Public Safety committee  I think they do contradict each other in that Mr. Ménard's motion essentially says that information obtained by torture would otherwise be reliable. So you cannot have—

Public Safety committee  Essentially the judge, in determining the reasonableness of the certificate, has to look at reliable information, to the exclusion of what is obtained by torture, which assumes that, as a rule, information obtained by torture is reliable—which is, with respect, incorrect.

Public Safety committee  I would like to make a few points. First, there's no question that we're dealing with a very special administrative process with grave consequences for individuals. That cannot be denied. That said, we are dealing with a removals process, and in that process to remove on the ba

Public Safety committee  The idea of replacing "défenseur" with "avocat spécial" does not cause any difficulties. What prompted us to use the term "défenseur" to refer to the lawyer in question is that the lawyer is playing a specific role in relation to the individual against whom the certificate has be

Public Safety committee  As officials, our role is to explain what the current version of the bill was meant to say, but we're ill-placed to tell you how to amend it.

Public Safety committee  Yes, and I'll expand on that.

Public Safety committee  The principle in the decision of the House of Lords is that the role of the special advocates is consistent with U.K. and European law. The one caveat was that the House of Lords added that it might be in exceptional circumstances that special advocates will not be sufficient to

Public Safety committee  Certainly the Federal Court, under the charter, would have the opportunity and responsibility to decide whether the system, as applied in a given case, met the charter requirements. At the end of the day, that would ensure fairness in the process.

Public Safety committee  We think, of course, that the system we've devised is constitutionally sufficient. In the system of law that we have, it is up to the courts to determine the constitutionality of the legislation. A court faced with that situation would have the tools to make the appropriate decis

Public Safety committee  And the government would be concerned with tainting and would recognize tainting and may have to make submissions on that issue.

Public Safety committee  As my colleague said, it is not our intent to make the special advocate compellable.

Public Safety committee  I might start by answering about the Supreme Court and my colleagues might want to add something. The Supreme Court provided a formula to assess the legitimacy of a detention that gets longer and longer and this is the formula we intend to apply without codifying it in all its d

Public Safety committee  I am the one with a blank now. Do you want to take that?

Public Safety committee  It is the government.

Public Safety committee  It would be difficult to give a short answer to that question. The U.K. experience, for instance, tells us that there is a phenomenon called tainting that occurs.