Kerry Pither

Despite an attempt by government to shut down debate, the majority of the House of Commons has just voted in favour of compensation and a formal apology for Ahmad El Maati, Abdullah Almalki and Muayyed Nureddin. The vote was on a concurrence motion, moved by NDP MP Don Davies, and supported by all opposition parties, calling on the government to implement recommendations contained in a report by the parliamentary Public Safety Committee.

You can watch the debate on line here (December 3, 2009, HoC Sitting # 123, beginning at 10:00 a.m.).

The report, tabled on June 18, 2009 and debated in the House of Commons today, came out of a study of findings by the Iacobucci Inquiry and findings and recommendations of the Arar Inquiry. (The Iacobucci Inquiry determined that the actions of Canadian officials, such as providing questions and information to Syrian and Egyptian interrogators, likely contributed to the torture of El Maati, Almalki and Nureddin.)

In addition to an apology and compensation, the committee report calls on the government to correct misinformation shared about the men with foreign agencies – information containing allegations which retired Supreme Court Justice Frank Iacobucci determined were variously inaccurate, inflammatory, and without evidentiary basis.

Just yesterday one of the men, Abdullah Almalki, was told he would not be permitted to board a flight from Toronto to Windsor. Another of the men, Muayyed Nureddin, whose family is in Iraq, cannot travel to see them without risk of being detained and tortured again.

The report also calls on the government to urgently implement a recommendation made by the Arar Commission on December 12, 2006, calling for a new system of checks and balances for the agencies tasked with national security investigations.

The vote on concurrence with the report took place after almost three hours of debate in the House of Commons today, a debate that the government tried, but failed, when put to a vote, to have adjourned.

Witnesses representing the RCMP, CSIS and the Canadian Border Services Agency (CBSA) will testify on the Arar Inquiry recommendations and the Iacobucci Inquiry findings before the Public Safety Committee on Tuesday, March 31. CSIS and RCMP representatives should be asked, among other things, if they are prepared to apologize for the ways in which their agencies contributed to the detention and torture of Canadian citizens. The hearing takes place from 9:00 to 11:00 a.m., in room 253 Centre Block on Parliament Hill in Ottawa, and is open to the public. More details to be available soon on the Committee page here.

The Commons Committee on Public Safety is supposed to begin hearings this week on the findings of the Iacobucci Inquiry, and the recommendations of the Arar Inquiry. These hearings are crucial. We’ve heard nothing from the government since the report’s release in October last year: The report confirmed that Canadian agencies did contribute to the detention of Ahmad El Maati and Muayyed Nureddin, and to their torture and the torture of Abdullah Almalki (by, for example, supplying the questions to those interrogating and torturing them). No-one in government has apologized to the men. There’s no sign that any Canadian official has been held accountable for their actions. And the Conservative government is still ignoring the Arar Inquiry’s recommendation, made more than two years ago, for effective and integrated civilian oversight of the agencies that carry out national security investigations. And without that oversight mechanism in place, it isn’t clear how Canadians can be confident that many of the Arar Inquiry’s other recommendations have been implemented.

It isn’t yet clear who will be appearing before the Public Safety Committee, or when they might be appearing. The committee was supposed to hear testimony from the RCMP, CSIS and the Canadian Border Services Agency on Tuesday — but that’s been cancelled or postponed. The Public Safety Minister was invited to appear this week but wasn’t available. So now it’s anticipated that witnesses from DFAIT, the Commission for Public Complaints against the RCMP (CPC) and the Security Intelligence Review Committee (SIRC) will appear on Thursday.

Just eight days after the release of the Arar Inquiry’s report on September 18, 2006, former RCMP Commissioner Zaccardelli appeared as a witness at the Public Safety committee hearings. On that first day of hearings, he used the opportunity to apologize to Maher Arar and his family, but then went on to provide testimony for which he would later be forced to resign. The Public Safety committee’s study of the Arar case continued through to January 2007. Evidence for these meetings is available here.

The Public Safety Committee later tabled a report calling on the Canadian government to issue a formal apology to Mr. Arar, negotiate compensation for him and his family, register formal protest with the US for its rendition of Mr. Arar, register formal protests with Syria for torturing Mr. Arar, and implement all the findings of the Arar Commission.

I hope the Public Safety Committee will work towards a similar report this time, calling on the Canadian government to apologize to Messrs. El Maati, Almalki and Nureddin, to move swiftly into mediating compensation for the men so they can rebuild their shattered lives, to register formal protests against the governments of Syria and Egypt for brutally torturing these Canadians, to provide a full, detailed accounting of how the Arar Inquiry’s factual report’s recommendations have been implemented, and to immediately implement the Arar Inquiry’s recommended oversight mechanism for the agencies that conduct national security investigations.

For those who are interested, the Arar Inquiry’s reports and recommendations are available on its web site, which has been archived here.

Stay tuned…