Last I heard O'Connor was still trying to convince the govt. to release some parts of the report that were censored. I would not expect too much too quickly from the Harper government. The Justice Dept. is trying to make Iacobucci inquiry into a private whitewash insofar as it can. The Arar report gave Arar too much ammunition to sue and resulted in costs that the government wants to avoid with the Iacobucci inquiry. The facts there I expect would show Canadian officials to be even more involved than with Arar.
Arar remains frustrated by gov't inaction
Betty Ann Adam
The StarPhoenix
Wednesday, April 18, 2007
Whether another Canadian could experience the type of injustice suffered by Maher Arar depends on how serious the government is about implementing Justice Dennis O'Connor's recommendations, Arar said Tuesday in Saskatoon.
"Any of us could be victims of the so-called big picture," Arar told members of the Canadian Bar Association and others in the Saskatoon legal community.
In December, O'Connor's second report on the inquiry into Arar's 2002 wrongful deportation to Syria, and his year-long incarceration and torture there, called for two arm's-length bodies from government to review national security activities.
Arar believes that is key to protecting a Canadian's civil liberties, yet he said he has heard little response from Ottawa on the second report.
Instead, "the government seems to prefer" recommendations in O'Connor's first report, which Arar considers to be less important.
That report, released in September, found the RCMP mislabelled Arar as an Islamic extremist with terrorist ties. It also concluded the communication of that information to U.S. authorities likely led to Arar's deportation to Syria.
The report made 23 recommendations, including training for RCMP involved in national security investigations and a ban on CSIS and the RCMP sharing information internationally that could lead to torture.
"We . . . urge the government to implement the second report which talks about policy," Arar said. "I've heard positive feedback about the first report, but nothing about the second report. . . . The parliamentary committee . . . is secondary in importance to the actual oversight agency that Justice O'Connor recommended," Arar told reporters after his main address.
Parliamentarians would not necessarily have the background to do the oversight work on national security activities, Arar said.
"MPs are busy people and for this kind of work . . . you need a full-time team of people to investigate these matters, (who) have the proper background in national security area," he said.
"It all depends how serious the government is going to commit to recommendations made by Justice O'Connor. . . . We can never know for sure unless we have inside information. I just hope that this won't happen again," he said.
"I wish they would do something to let us know because this will increase the confidence level of all of us to make sure that those national security institutions are being monitored," he said.
O'Connor recommended establishing an independent complaints and national security review agency to monitor the RCMP's security and police work and supervise the Canadian Border Services Agency.
O'Connor also called for expansion of the powers of the Security Intelligence Review Committee, which now provides oversight of CSIS. He recommended it also review security work done by Citizenship and Immigration Canada, Transport Canada and Foreign Affairs, as well as agencies that monitor international financial transactions.
Arar said he is proud of "fair-minded" Canadians who demanded justice, refused to tolerate infringements of civil liberties and supported him in calling for a public inquiry.
He is working on a PhD in electrical engineering at the University of Ottawa.
In January, Prime Minister Stephen Harper apologized to Arar for Canada's role in his ordeal and promised a $10.5-million legal settlement.
"I've come to accept recently that my life will never be the same from every aspect, psychologically, socially, but I can tell you I'm a lot better today than I was four years ago. The apology meant a lot to me. At least I can say to my kids, I'm not what they described me."
badam@sp.canwest.com
© The StarPhoenix (Saskatoon) 2007
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