Procedure and House Affairs committee  Thank you. My name is Murray Mollard. I'm a lawyer and the executive director of the B.C. Civil Liberties Association in Vancouver. We don't have very much time, and I'm going to keep my remarks very short. I have had the opportunity of appearing before a variety of committees

Public Safety committee  If I could just respond quickly, first of all, if there indeed is reliable evidence--not just information, but evidence--from a foreign source, such that the evidence suggests this individual who has arrived in Canada has committed crimes elsewhere, surely we have procedures to e

Public Safety committee  Right. If they are seeking--

Public Safety committee  Then we have to ask the question why they wouldn't. If they're governments we respect, they have a full democratic and fair judicial process.

Public Safety committee  First, one of the suggested improvements—and I'm not sure we've discussed it explicitly today—is the importance of prohibitions against information that has the reasonable suspicion of having been generated from torture or degrading, inhuman, cruel behaviour. Mr. Cullen, you had

Public Safety committee  Well, it's going to come down to.... I want to be on record that there is a better way to go as far as criminal prosecutions go, and indeed monitoring of individuals. Even if this bill dies, there is still a solution. But if you're going to have this special advocate process,

Public Safety committee  Maybe I'll quickly start. Assuming you're sticking with the bill and you want to find ways to improve it, I have said that if you're going to use special advocates, you want to make it the best possible in the world. You've picked up other points that certainly have been made

Public Safety committee  Yes, I think it will be. As long as the individual subject to the certificate is not able to have access to the full panoply of information such that the individual can truly know the case against him or her and truly meet that case, there is going to be a violation of a princi

Public Safety committee  But I just wanted to get that on the record, because I think it's a very important point.

Public Safety committee  Briefly, there are a couple of things. Number one is certainly access to all the file that the government has, not just the information that the court is given. Number two, the ability to have that interplay with the person who's subject to the certificate is going to be critical

Public Safety committee  It wasn't me, Mr. Cullen. I'm not sure who you're referring to, but no doubt there are bad people in this world. I don't think anybody is suggesting that there aren't possible threats to the security of Canada posed by individuals involved in terrorist activities, and I'm indeed

Public Safety committee  I think there are a variety of things. You've heard evidence, I presume, from other witnesses on this. I know that Mr. Waldman and Mr. Forcese have come before you, but there are a variety of things. There is full disclosure, not just the disclosure that goes to the court; indeed

Public Safety committee  I'm not sure about that. I actually do think, going back to my earlier submission, that the security certificate process does allow the security apparatus to cut short investigations and provide information that really short-circuits that process. If the legislation were to esse

Public Safety committee  That was exactly my point. It's been over a year now. When are we going to see those reforms? When are the RCMP and the minister going to come and tell you exactly how he's managed to implement the recommendations in the Arar report?

Public Safety committee  Thank you. It is indeed a question that has been debated carefully by our organization. As with any organization that defends freedom of expression, I would say there are a variety of points of view. I would think that in an ideal world, our members and our association would lik