Public Safety committee  Yes, they will, if someone's in preparation of a criminal offence. If I'm in a conspiracy with someone to blow up Parliament, and the police have information on it, they don't have to wait for me to blow Parliament up. That is criminal law 101.

Public Safety committee  Exactly.

Public Safety committee  I think you're correct in your assessment. We're not saying CSIS and the RCMP aren't needed. They're needed to do certain things, as Ms. Cheung has pointed out. CSIS has to protect Canada from threats to Canada. Yes, that is their role. But CSIS actually arose from a wrongdoing

Public Safety committee  —some of it is quoted in Craig Forcese's paper—roundly thrashed them. They don't even understand what jihad is. They made mistakes between a Chechen rebel and al-Qaeda. They were making fundamental mistakes in cases in which all you need to do is read a newspaper or know a little

Public Safety committee  Thank you for your question.

Public Safety committee  I talked about the balance. Just to address your first question, due process and the adversarial process set that balance to find the truth to avoid mistakes while catching criminals. And to Mr. Vernon's point, this isn't an issue about parliamentary oversight, sir. The Arar inq

Public Safety committee  Madame Mourani, thank you for your question. That is a real concern in the Muslim and Arab communities since September 11, 2001, since the Anti-terrorism Act came into play. We're not discounting the fact that, yes, people are suspicious. There are issues in the world today that

Public Safety committee  Thank you, Mr. Chair. Good morning, Mr. Chair, members of the committee, fellow witnesses, and guests. My name is Ziyaad Mia, and I am representing the Canadian Muslim Lawyers Association today. Thank you for inviting me to participate in this session on this very important mat

Public Safety committee  Mr. MacKenzie, to be clear and on the record, the Muslim community in this country are Canadians. We're proud to be Canadians. We share many of the values of this country. Our values are not any different from Canadian values. I wanted that on the record so there's no misunders

Public Safety committee  I'll keep it short. Mr. Ménard, I see your point that you would have some information that you wouldn't use in the legal proceeding, that you would use for public safety. I see your point, and it gets into that moral dilemma. I would have to err on the side of the legal princi

Public Safety committee  I can speak to that a bit. On principle, it just doesn't stand when you look at it logically and legally. I know we are in the realm of politics and the law doesn't fully apply in that way, so that's why I'm offering you recommendations. So, in principle, we would prefer this ei

Public Safety committee  I appreciate the question, Monsieur Ménard. I think what you're referring to would in the evidence world be derivative evidence: if I torture the heck out of you and you tell me something, and I can't use that evidence but it leads me to something else—the secondary, derivative e

Public Safety committee  I am opposed to that for a number of reasons. First of all, the analog in the criminal law and in the charter jurisprudence, and even in the United States under the Bill of Rights, is that derivative evidence is not allowed, because then effectively you let police or security age

Public Safety committee  I've seen Lorne and Craig's piece, and I would concur with all of what they have said, but I have a number of additional.... I would add the Suresh exception and a number of other things. I don't want to go through the whole list here. As has been cautioned in our submission, b

Public Safety committee  The bill as it currently stands—and if I knew what the Supreme Court were going to do, I'd also know the lottery numbers for next week and I wouldn't be doing this.... As I mentioned, she said the substitute has to be meaningful, substantial, allow informed participation, and m