:
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Good morning, ladies and gentlemen.
[Translation]
Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. I am pleased to be here today and to have the opportunity to review and discuss with you a number of matters arising from my appearance here in September to discuss Justice O'Connor's report of the events relating to Maher Arar.
[English]
My last appearance before this committee occurred, as you know, within a fairly short time of the release of the report. I know that the committee shared my desire to hear the response of the RCMP as soon as possible, and I personally believed it was important to extend an apology to Mr. Arar and his family without delay. I also looked forward to sharing with the committee details on the important work the RCMP is doing to implement the recommendations.
As a result, I believe that some aspects of my prior testimony could have been more precise or more clearly stated. A number of misconceptions have resulted, and, as I indicated in my letter to the committee, I have been anxiously awaiting the opportunity to set the record straight, both for the committee and the Canadian public.
At this point I believe it would be helpful for me to outline a number of key facts, including what I personally knew and when, what was included in ministerial and other briefings, and the matter of our organizational response.
[Translation]
The following facts are itemized and confirmed within Justice O'Connor's report.
[English]
In the fall of 2001, Mr. Arar was legitimately identified as a person of interest in the post-9/11 RCMP counter-terrorism investigation known as Project A-O Canada. At that time, Mr. Arar and Ms. Mazigh, as part of a request to U.S. Customs, were included in a list that resulted in their being inaccurately described as “Islamic Extremist individuals suspected of being linked to the Al Qaeda terrorist movement”.
[Translation]
After this, Mr. Arar moved in and out of the United States on two occasions without incident. Indeed, Justice O'Connor concludes that he could not ascertain with any certainty what steps were taken by the Americans as a result of the request.
[English]
I think it is important to note here that Justice O'Connor states that senior officers were generally aware that the U.S. Customs request had been made, but not of its specifics, nor, I can tell you, would they ever receive that level of detail in the reporting relationship.
In the spring of 2002, the RCMP shared information with their American counterparts in the form of three CDs containing extensive documentary information collected during the investigation to date. Of these documents, 94 made reference to Mr. Arar, and some inaccurate factual information was later found in them by Justice O'Connor.
In July, Project A-O Canada learned that Mr. Arar and his family had left Canada for Tunisia. The investigators later referred to this departure as “sudden”. They also characterized the conditions placed by Mr. Arar's lawyer on an interview as a refusal. Justice O'Connor found that these were two instances that contributed to an incorrect and potentially inflammatory picture of Mr. Arar. However, during this time period there was no recognition within Project A-O Canada that such an incorrect portrayal was emerging.
In September 2002, Mr. Arar was detained by American authorities while travelling through New York. In discussions with the Americans at this time, the RCMP were clear that Mr. Arar could not be linked to al-Qaeda. They informed their U.S. colleagues of this in both written and personal communications. Staff involved were consistent in their approach and continued to tell the Americans that the RCMP had no basis to detain Mr. Arar, to charge him with a criminal offence, or to prevent him from re-entering Canada.
On October 5 and 7 respectively, RCMP staff advised the FBI that the RCMP could not link Mr. Arar to al-Qaeda. Here, Mr. Chairman, I will refer to my letter that I sent to the committee on November 2. In the letter, I state:
Nevertheless, the fact remains that RCMP investigators clearly informed U.S. officials that there was no evidence to support criminal charges against Mr. Arar in Canada, that he could not be prevented from entering Canada and that we were unable to link him to Al Qaeda.
This should have had the effect of correcting any inaccurate information that had been provided previously. When I stated on September 28, 2006, that we had corrected the record, this is what I was referring to. While my remarks could have perhaps been clearer, I think Mr. Easter recognized the unfounded basis for some of the committee's questions when he cautioned against reading too much into what I had said.
On October 11, 2001, I was formally briefed that Mr. Arar had been removed to Syria by U.S. authorities, that the RCMP had shared our investigative material with them, and that Mr. Arar was considered to be a person of interest.
[Translation]
Again, as Justice O'Connor clearly states, it is important to reiterate that no senior staff--including myself--were told of the inaccuracies in the information provided to the Americans.
[English]
Over the fall of 2002 and spring and summer of 2003, the RCMP continued to interact with Canadian agencies, such as PSEPC, DFAIT, CSIS, and PCO, to ensure that ministers were appropriately briefed on the circumstances relating to Mr. Arar.
Deputy Commissioner Garry Loeppky was the primary lead for the RCMP. When representing the RCMP at numerous and regular interdepartmental meetings, he expressed what was known to us at the time: that the RCMP had shared investigative material with the U.S., that the RCMP had told U.S. officials that it could not charge Arar criminally or refuse his entry into Canada, and that the RCMP could not indicate links to al-Qaeda.
Deputy Commissioner Loeppky periodically and regularly briefed me, and Minister Easter was also briefed, regarding the situation as I have described it. Specifically, in November 2003, Minister Easter was given a comprehensive operational briefing, which included that Mr. Arar was deported to Syria unilaterally by American authorities, that the RCMP had shared investigative information, and that Mr. Arar remained a person of interest.
I think it is important to note that for the RCMP, Mr. Arar remained a person of interest during the whole period I have outlined. This is what I knew--all that I knew--during the three years from Mr. Arar's deportation until the release of Justice O'Connor's report.
On this key question of what was known by whom and when, I think it is helpful to really reiterate two statements from Justice O'Connor's report.
The first statement, with regard to the inaccurate information that was contained in the 2001 U.S. Customs request, Justice O'Connor states that “senior officers...were not apprised of the fact that Project A-O Canada had described Mr. Arar and Dr. Mazigh as Islamic extremists in its border lookout request to U.S. Customs.”
Second, with regard to the questions the RCMP sent to the American authorities while Mr. Arar was detained in New York, he states:
...I note that the senior officials at “A” Division and in the Criminal Intelligence Directorate (CID) were unaware that the communication was being sent....
It was during the inquiry that the compilation of all facts related to the events surrounding Mr. Arar were painstakingly pieced together by Justice O'Connor. But it is important to remember that Justice O'Connor confirms what I, too, believe: that no bad faith could be attributed to members of Project A-O Canada. This is made even more evident by the fact that Project A-O Canada staff did not identify or report any inaccuracies to senior staff, believing that any information used by the U.S. would be verified and that Mr. Arar would be subject to due process, as is standard operating procedure for police.
As I've noted before, the decisions made by senior officers, which I support, have been to accept these problems at an institutional level and to put into place corrective measures that focus on, first, strong central governance; second, information sharing; third, extensive training; and fourth, effective integration. Such measures are designed to increase our organizational effectiveness in the very challenging arena of national security and terrorism and to ensure that similar problems never reoccur.
As former Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Public Safety, Anne McLellan, told this committee just last week:
Accountability takes very many forms, and we have to get past the notion that heads must roll to have accountability. Sometimes maybe they should.
It may mean that you change the procedures that you had in place that led to the mistake, to make sure that it doesn't happen again.
In other cases it will be something else that is perhaps more important in terms of the culture of that organization.
Mr. Chairman, I want to be very clear about the significance of what I have said here today. For a government official, nothing is more fundamental than ensuring that the information they provide to ministers is accurate and complete. To improperly withhold information or to misrepresent facts is a cardinal sin. If I had been guilty of such actions, no one would have to ask for my resignation, Mr. Chairman. The facts of the matter are, however, that due to circumstances I have described, we were unaware of some important information until the completion of Justice O'Connor's inquiry this year. My colleagues and I deeply regret that mistakes were made, but it is important to recognize that at all times we acted in good faith.
Finally, before we move to questions, I would like to thank you for giving me this opportunity to speak with you today. As I stated on September 28, it is such steps that assure all Canadians of the existence of transparent, accountable, and responsible leadership within the Canadian democratic system that is the very bedrock of a safe and civil society.
Thank you. Merci.
:
No, she never appeared before this committee, but these are statements by Ms. Heafey, who was the chair of the RCMP public complaints commission.
Let me finish, because this is important.
The second conclusion, if we are to accept it—and I find it extremely hard to accept the second possibility—is that you were in the dark and you knew nothing, that as head of the RCMP you were so out of touch with your organization that you had no idea what was going on and you weren't asking questions in that period of time.
Both conclusions are unacceptable. Frankly, to be honest with you, one way or the other, you either misled the committee or you did not tell the truth before this committee.
The question is really no longer whether or not you should be fired, Mr. Zaccardelli. In my opinion, it's not. That has been made clear today. The question is why the government, Minister Day, and Prime Minister Harper went to such extraordinary lengths to protect you.
In the ten days intervening between September 18, when the O'Connor report was released, and September 28, I want to know what happened. What meetings took place? What discussions occurred?
This is what I want to get to, because I don't understand. When we had Minister Day before this committee, he said that he and the Prime Minister stood 100% behind you. We reserved judgment. We waited, we listened, and we said let's make sure we get everything in front of us. They didn't. Despite all the contradictions, despite all of the problems, and despite every reason in the universe to at least take a pause and ask some questions, they asked none. It was left to us on this side, all of the opposition parties, to ask questions.
Let me go to that intervening period of time. When you appeared before this committee at the time I'm referring to...can you tell us if you met with Minister Day between September 18 and September 28? If so, what was the content of the meeting? What was discussed? Was there any discussion on a communication strategy for how to deal with it?
:
I would like to finish my answer, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. O'Connor states that in his report very clearly. I and my senior officers became aware of the errors and mislabelling at the conclusion of Justice O'Connor's report. It is only Justice O'Connor who takes all of these various elements of the mistakes and the mislabelling and brings them together, as an auditor, to examine these, brings them together and comes to this conclusion. That's the first time it was all brought together, and in his report he states very clearly that no senior officer was aware of that.
In my testimony on September 28, I clearly inferred that some of the knowledge I got when I read the report. I implied that I may have had it in 2002. That was a mistake on my part, and that's why I wanted to come back here to correct the record. But that is very clear, and it's important for the committee to understand that.
No senior officer was aware of it, and all of us became aware after the report was published by Justice O'Connor.
With respect to the second question that Mr. Holland raised, I will go to the point of my discussions with the minister relative to the so-called muzzling, as you called it the last time I appeared, Mr. Holland.
Mr. Chairman, the report was issued on September 18. I was overseas. I was in Brazil at the Interpol conference. That was on the Monday that the report was issued. I came back late Wednesday afternoon. I went to my office, I changed, and I went and met with Minister Day.
We had a discussion about the report. He asked me if I had read the report. I told him I had just gotten the report and I was in the process of trying to read it. I had not slept because I had flown all night. He said, “You should get some sleep.” That's what I did.
I read the report, and then the next day, the next morning, I was in my office and I got the first indication that this committee might be meeting. So I called the minister's office and I set up a meeting. At the same time, that day I wrote a letter to the minister indicating my desire to appear before the committee and to make a public response to the report.
We met the next day, Mr. Chairman, and we–I'm sorry, not the next–on Thursday. That was when I wrote the letter, and I had the discussion and heard that the committee might be meeting.
On Friday I met with the minister. The minister and I discussed the report and we discussed the possibility of the meeting. By Friday afternoon we had indications that the committee would be meeting on Tuesday. We both agreed that would be the ideal time and place to have my first appearance.
That's exactly what happened. That's what transpired between the minister and me. At no time, Mr. Chairman, was I ever directed, was I ever given any instructions, was I ever sent any indication that I was not to talk about it. We understood that this committee was to meet as soon as possible and we agreed that this was the proper place to explain what happened.
Commissioner Zaccardelli, thank you for coming.
I want to try to briefly summarize what's going on.
Justice O'Connor's report describing a massive failure and violation of RCMP protocols in conveying false information to the American law agencies came out on September 18. Canadians were eagerly waiting to hear from you. It took ten days for you to come to this committee to give us your reaction. You said--it was very clear, not imprecise, not impressions--you had found out in 2002 about sharing misinformation with the Americans, that you tried to correct it, and that you shared it with ministers at the time.
I should also mention that between the 18th and the 28th, before your arrival at this committee, Minister Day was firm in his support of your office. In fact, there were reports that the PMO was not so confident at the time, and then they eventually conversed and stood together in supporting what you had done and said.
After your testimony, where you reported you shared that information in 2002 with the ministers at the time, three former ministers have come to this committee and told us they were never informed by you.
Then somehow, yesterday, you gave a speech to the Economic Club, clarifying these mistakes. By the way, I find that very interesting, because at the time--on the 28th--you said the reason you had not spoken publicly was because you thought this committee was the only proper forum to report to Canadians what you had done and hadn't done and what your responsibilities are. Yet yesterday you chose to make those statements in front of the Economic Club instead of this committee.
Having said that, today you told us you were forthcoming about meetings with Minister Day, even though it took a lot of effort from this committee to get some type of description from you at the time about whether you had any political meetings, or any meetings, with Minister Day. Now, today, you told us you met with Minister Day.
Could you please tell us when you met with Minister Day and who was present at the meeting?
:
Thank you very much for that question.
Yes, we have gone outside the RCMP. In particular, as I stated earlier, we have renewed our memorandum of understanding, for example, with CSIS such that we now are much more in tune and work with them much more closely in the work we do, in understanding our mandates much more clearly, in making sure that our work is synchronized. We have learned from them their best practices in terms of managing sensitive information—how you exchange sensitive information.
We've also gone outside of Canada. We've gone to Great Britain, for example. As you know, Great Britain has been challenged in a lot of ways relative to national security issues. We've talked to the Met in England and we've talked to people from MI5. We've gone to other countries; we've talked to Australia, New Zealand, and other countries that are facing the same types of challenges in terms of terrorism and how you bring security agencies and law enforcement agencies together in a seamless integration to work on these files. We've exchanged information.
We've looked at best practices. I sent a team around the world, literally, to look at best practices. We've incorporated that work, along with Justice O'Connor's recommendations, in what we have done in policies, practices, training, and so on.
Again, I can't guarantee anything in this business. Justice O'Connor said that our policies were actually very good even before 9/11. I believe we have a very good system now that would stand the best scrutiny of Justice O'Connor or anybody else and is comparable to if not better than those of a lot of countries. It has to be, because we've learned a lot of lessons from here. A lot of people have been hurt in this situation. I myself have gone through some not easy weeks since my last testimony. If there is anybody who has taken some serious hits because of information that wasn't precise, it has been me.
So we've all learned. This is what I'm trying to do. I'm looking forward, not forgetting the past, but trying to correct those mistakes, and we've gone around the world looking for those best practices.
:
The response may take a little bit longer, but I won't get into whether heads should roll or not. That's for another day.
When we talk about mistakes that were made, first of all, there was a document, the lookout document, that contained the names of a number of people. Those people were legitimate targets of Islamic extremist investigation. Mr. Arar and his wife were added to that list. They should not have been. If they were, they should have been identified. That is the first mistake we're talking about. But in Justice O'Connor's report, he clearly states that after that lookout was put out, Mr. Arar did travel back and forth twice to the United States and nothing happened to him. He also states in his report that he can't determine what use the Americans made of that statement.
The other errors, if we want to call them that, are things like a statement that was made, as I said before, that Mr. Arar sold his house and left for Tunisia “suddenly”, as we described it having been done. Justice O'Connor, when he analyzed that three years later, said we should not have described it as “suddenly”.
There was another mistake when the investigators said Mr. Arar was actually in Washington on September 11, 2001. He wasn't in Washington.
The other mistake was that when he had the so-called meeting here with one of our main targets at that café, the investigators said he came from Quebec City for the meeting. Instead, he was actually here.
Individually, although Justice O'Connor said he didn't believe these were conscious errors on their part—let me just finish, Mr. Comartin—at the end, when he analyzed this, when he did his extensive audit and brought all of it together, he came to the conclusion that those small errors, taken together, could have created an inflammatory impression or created the impression in the Americans' minds that Mr. Arar was a more serious person than we actually thought. I accept that totally.
But then Justice O'Connor says in his report that the investigators didn't do this intentionally. They didn't have the right training. The organization hadn't given them the right training, so Justice O'Connor put what they did in context. I'm grappling with how we deal with somebody who makes an honest mistake when a judge—