Bill C-51 - Conservative 'values'

Uncanny resemblance, isn't it?  Your 'values' not looking too good at the moment, Mr Blaney.

Having rushed the 62 page omnibus anti-terrorism bill C-51 through Parliament, the Cons are now demanding it be rushed through committee as well. They wanted to restrict expert testimony to three Public Safety Committee meetings - with one of them taken up entirely by Public Safety Minister Steven Blaney - but a successful NDP committee fillibuster has now ratcheted it up to eight .

Among the expert witnesses proposed by the NDP are former Supreme Court Justice Frank Iacobucci (Almalki, Abou-Elmaati, and Nuredinn inquiry) and former associate Chief Justice of Ontario Dennis O'Connor (Arar inquiry).

Now why wouldn't the Cons want to hear from them?

A report in the Ottawa Citizen yesterday details new documents on how in 2001 the RCMP talked up Ottawa's Abdullah Almalki to the CIA and Syria as a terrorist threat despite having been given CSIS intelligence to the contrary.

An RCMP memo, dated Sept. 5, 2001, generated after a meeting with Canadian Security Intelligence Service officials, said that “CSIS have not uncovered information that would lead them to believe the subject (Almalki) is doing something illegal.”

On Oct. 2, 2001, the RCMP sent a fax to its liaison officers in Islamabad, Rome, Delhi, Washington, London, Berlin and Paris, reporting that CSIS had described Almalki as an “important member” of al-Qaida. Days later, the RCMP liaison officer in Rome sent letters to agencies in several countries, including Syria, labelling Almalki as an “imminent threat” to Canada’s national security.

After Almalki was arrested and was being tortured in Syria, the RCMP helpfully sent along three pages of questions for them to ask him.

One of the provisions of Bill C-51 allows government departments to share private information more widely. 

Maher Arar was likewise renditioned to Syia and tortured based on bad RCMP intel and then RCMP Commissioner Zaccardelli and CSIS Asst Director Jack Hooper tried to cover it up.

Hill Times Oct 2, 2006 : CSIS didn't want Arar returned to Canada

"In May and June 2003, the Canadian government intended to send a letter to Syria indicating that it spoke with "one voice"–seeking the powerful support CSIS and the RCMP–to call for Mr. Arar's release. But according to Justice Dennis O'Connor's report, CSIS "was uncomfortable" with a statement in the letter that there was "no evidence" that Mr. Arar had links to al-Qaeda. The agency argued "very strongly" against a letter that it saw as sending the wrong message to U.S. authorities.

"CSIS wanted to make it clear to the Solicitor General that there was 'political jeopardy' in signing a joint letter and that bringing Mr. Arar back to Canada was going to be a political 'hot potato' with American authorities," Justice O'Connor wrote in the report, which cleared Mr. Arar.

Justice O'Connor also revealed in his report that CSIS, "for reasons of its own, preferred that Mr. Arar not return to Canada." While DFAIT drafted its letter to argue for Mr. Arar's release in June 2003, Jack Hooper, assistant director of operations for CSIS, called an assistant deputy minister at DFAIT to explain why it opposed the return of Mr. Arar. CSIS feared that if Mr. Arar returned with a public story of torture it could "impair" deportations from Canada to Syria, according to the report."

Sure, let's give these guys a freer hand to operate in secret without oversight.

Perhaps the committee should hear from Mr. Arar. 

As he points out, if C-51 were in place when he was in Syria, it could have been used legally to prevent his return to Canada. 

A week ago former Prime Ministers Jean Chrétien, Paul Martin, Joe Clark, and John Turner plus five former Supreme Court Justices, three former Ministers of Justice, four former Solicitors General of Canada, and three former SIRC committee members expressed their dismay with the bill in a G&M editorial pointing out Justice O'Connor's recommendations following the Arar inquiry had not been implemented. They called for greater oversight at a minimum.

In the House on Tuesday, Harper termed Thomas Mulcair's calls for greater oversight and a full review of evidence "ridiculous" :

"I would urge the committee to study the bill as quickly as possible in order to ensure the adoption of these measures to ensure the security and safety of Canadians."

while Blaney "slammed Mulcair for 'attacking the credibility' of CSIS officers".

"These people respect the law, and I call on him to present arguments, and not lies to defend his position."

Greg Fingas provides excellent C-51 links and a column in the Leader-Post on "the risks of allowing CSIS to self-assess the scope of Canadians' Charter rights under C-51". 

From Stephen Lautens : For those of you keeping score at home (updated April 20, 2015) :

UPDATE : DAMMIT JANET! : FASCIST C-51 : FEET ON THE STREET TIME!

and Reddit hub on planning Canada-wide protests.

Friday update : Open letter to Parliament: Amend C-51 or kill it
  A letter from over 100 Canadian law professors. Clear concise objections.
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CSIS recycles old leaks slagging Abdelrazik, Charkaoui

A leaked 2004 CSIS report from LaPresse on Thursday purports to be a summary of a conversation between Abousfian Abdelrazik and Adil Charkaoui  in 2000 in which they plotted to blow up an airplane enroute between Montreal and France. It has already been enthusiastically repeated across our national press :
CBC : CSIS file reveals plot to bomb plane: La Presse
Gosh, CBC, your previous nice pix of Abdelrazik and Charkaoui are now replaced by scary ones
G&M : Abdelrazik and Charkaoui plotted plane bomb: report
AFP : Two Canada terror suspects plotted France attack: report

etc. ... etc. ...
Never mind that this 'news' was already reported nearly two years ago after a federal court judge annulled Charkaoui's security certificate because government lawyers refused the judge's order to reveal their wiretap evidence, citing "security concerns".
About now you are probably wondering what kind of "security concerns" trumps giving evidence about someone you allege was plotting to blow up a plane.

Immigration Minister Jason Kenney :

"I read the protected confidential dossiers on such individuals, and I can tell you that, without commenting on any one individual, some of this intelligence makes the hair stand up on the back of your neck,” he said. “I just think people should be patient and thoughtful and give the government and its agencies the benefit of the doubt."

The re-leak has nonetheless been greeted with skepticism by Boris, Dr. Dawg, Pogge, Sixth Estate and no doubt many others because we all remember previous security leaks from government officials who are more than happy to anonymously rejig conveniently-timed select bits of complete bullshit to a cooperative media.


Let's review just the anonymous bullshit security leaks about Maher Arar for instance, for which no public officials were ever called to account and who are presumably still happily at it.

In 2002 while Arar was being tortured in Syria, an anonymous official source linked Arar to "a suspected member of Osama bin Laden's Al Qaeda terrorist network." That suspected member was Abdullah Almalki - later cleared by the Iacobucci inquiry.

Commission of Inquiry into the Actions of Canadian Officials in Relation to Maher Arar :

CanWest bureau chief Robert Fife, July 24, 2003 :"Terror threats in Ottawa: Two kinds of fear: Report says
Syrian intelligence helped U.S. to foil al-Qaeda plot on target in Ottawa : One official would only tell CanWest News Service that Mr. Arar, a 36-year-old Ottawa engineer, is a 'very bad guy' who apparently received military training at an Al-Qaeda base. "

As noted by Justice O'Connor in the report : "the apparent purpose behind this leak is not attractive: to attempt to influence public opinion against Mr. Arar at a time when his release from imprisonment in Syria was being sought by the government of Canada"
Coincidentally the sudden re-issuing of this "new" leak about blowing up planes happens to coincide with Abdelrazik's attempt to get his name off the UN 1267 terror list this month.
To continue :

G&M, Oct 10, 2003 : unnamed Canadian government sources said that Mr. Arar had been “roughed up,” but not tortured, while in detention in Syria

CTV, Oct. 23, 2003 : “senior government officials in various departments” said that Mr. Arar had provided information to the Syrians about al-Qaeda, the Muslim Brotherhood, and cells operating in Canada.

Juliet O'Neill, Ottawa Citizen, Nov. 2003 : “Canada’s dossier on Maher Arar: The existence of a group of Ottawa men with alleged ties to al-Qaeda is at the root of why the government opposes an inquiry into the case.”

Fife : Dec. 30, 2003 : "US, Canada '100% sure' Arar trained with al-Qaeda" : “a senior Canadian intelligence source said the United States had an extensive dossier on Mr. Arar and that “if the Americans were ever to declassify the stuff, there would be some hair standing on end."

Toronto Star : Learning from media mistakes in Arar case May 2009 :

"Unnamed officials also told Craig Oliver at CTV News that Arar was only released because he had given information to the Syrians about Al Qaeda and about other Canadians suspected of terrorism activities. Oliver later explained that he felt the story was credible because his sources were senior officials in two different government departments. Nonetheless, years after the Arar inquiry's report, he apologized to Arar in person for running the story. He also told him of an offer he had turned down – a photograph of Arar training in a camp in Afghanistan. As he describes: "The source wanted me to use the information without showing me the photograph. That was a very solid source... This experience has made me more skeptical... I knew these people very well."

So you'll have to forgive the rest of us if we also share Craig Oliver's reluctance to be conned into accepting any more conveniently-timed leaks and smears from anonymous security officials who for all we know are the same ones who previously set out to turn public opinion against Arar even as they destroyed his life for reasons they have yet to account for.
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Welcome to the Banana Republic of Canada

In the wake of the O'Connor and Iacobucci public inquiries into the role CSIS played in the torture of Canadians overseas, a new government rulebook of guidelines was issued to CSIS and blandishments were offered by the ministers in charge.

What's in the new rulebook? Pogge blogged yesterday about a copy obtained by The Canadian Press under the Access to Information Act that is so heavily censored it is impossible to tell whether the new guidelines adequately address the recommendations laid out by O'Connor and Iacobucci to prevent future torture such as that visited upon Maher Arar, Abdullah Almalki, Ahmad El Maati, and Muayyed Nureddin. As Pogge wrote :

"When representatives of government and its agencies assure us that they're playing by the rules, it's a little difficult to judge the accuracy of their claims when we're not allowed to know what those rules are."

This was also the position our elected representatives on the Committee on Public Safety and National Security found themselves in back in March during its Review of the Findings and Recommendations of the Iacobucci and O'Connor Reports. Despite persistent straightforward questions from the Liberals and Bloc members - Do we condone torture? Do we still use information derived from torture? - the dodging and weaving from CSIS lawyer Geoffrey O'Brian left these questions largely unanswered.

A brief media flurry resulted from his opening statements that there is no absolute ban on the use of information derived from torture when "lives are at stake", but this was immediately laid to rest the next day when the word "knowingly" was added by Public Safety Minister Peter Van Loan", as in "we don't knowingly use info extracted by torture". It's the Don't ask, Don't tell Intel.

As O'Brian explained to the committee : "Three individuals are suing the government for several hundred million dollars, therefore we cannot discuss anything that would indicate that the government is in agreement with Iacobucci's findings."

He is aided in this avoidance of accountability by the six Con members on the committee running interference on tough questions from the Libs and the Bloc. From my notes of that session -not exact quotes :

Maria Mourani, Bloc : I'd like to ask about our questioning of Omar Khadr in Guantanamo ...
Dave MacKenzie, Con : Point of order : what's the relevance?
Mourani : Khadr was tortured and Canadians paid CSIS to contribute.
Chair Garry Breitkreuz, Con : I don't understand the relevance.
Mourani : I want to know did CSIS use information from Khadr obtained under torture?
MacKenzie : Point of order - Mourani is on a fishing trip.
I'll just give you a moment to let that one sink in.

Mourani : I'll rephrase the question : Is information obtained under torture?
Chair, Breitkreuz : Witnesses cannot comment on individual cases.
Mark Holland, Lib : But the questiuon is central to this inquiry.
Rathgeber, Con : Point of order. Not relevant. Stick to Iacobucci and O'Connor reports.

Which, you will recall, O'Brian has already said cannot be commented on due to ongoing litigation.

Menard, Bloc : Mourani is right. This is central to the O'Connor and Iacobucci reports. What we want to know is: Is torture still endorsed?
Mourani : Answer my question.

O'Brian, eventually : "I reject the premise of the question"

And thus CSIS informs elected members of parliament - the peoples' representatives - sitting on a committee whose mandate is to provide public oversight on intelligence agencies - to stuff it.


A couple of years ago I was sitting in a bar in the States discussing politics with some university students. "How are things up there after the coup?" one of them asked.
Me : *blink* *blink*
"Perhaps you don't call it a coup," said another helpfully.
We not only don't call it a coup, we don't even ever refer to it.
In 2006 as Liberal PM Paul Martin was set to be re-elected, RCMP Commissioner Giuliano Zaccardelli went public with a criminal investigation into rumoured leaks of the Liberal decision not to tax income trusts and that was the end of the Libs. Nothing came of the investigation save one lone bureaucrat pocketing some loot. No inquiry was ever launched into why the head of the national police force, himself later disgraced over Arar, in effect threw the outcome of a national election.

And exactly which intelligence agencies are responsible for the continued incarceration of Omar Khadr and the ongoing banishment of Abousfian Abdelrazik? Well we don't really know.

What we do know is that we have lost public oversight over our police and intelligence agencies. Isn't this the kind of thing we used to sneer at "banana republics" for?
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CSIS just fine with tips "extracted" via torture

I'm not sure what is the most alarming aspect of CSIS testimony today that they will still use information that may have been obtained by torture in other countries "if lives are at stake" :

"Geoffrey O’Brian, a CSIS lawyer and advisor on operations and legislation, under questioning by the public safety committee, admitted there is no absolute ban on using intelligence that may have been obtained from countries with questionable human rights records on torture."

~ That CSIS continues to reward other countries for torture - when exactly are lives not "at stake"?
~ That they condone a practice which, in addition to being barbaric, is not even effective
~ That oversight of CSIS operations remains negligible
~ That recommendations from both the O'Connor and Iacobucci inquiries are being ignored
~ That we are now in open contravention of UN Convention Against Torture
~ That CSIS is comfortable being open about this, presumably based on the assumption there is sufficient public support
~ That about half of the 250+ public comments under a similar article at the G&M do indeed support the CSIS position, citing the necessity of preserving "republican" or "christian" or "North American" values, backed up with examples gleaned from the US TV drama 24 Hours.

Apparently in addition to condoning actions that prove we have lost the war on terrorism, we have also become a nation too stupid to safely operate a television.


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Update : When I blogged this afternoon about this, I hadn't yet watched the actual proceedings.
Well now I have.
Apparently, according to O'Brian who is very keen on quoting the British House of Lords 2005 "torture decision", "the Executive is bound to make use of all information, both coerced statements and whatever fruits they bear, to safeguard the security of the state."
And if mistakes are made? Well there's always SIRC, the Security Intelligence Review Committee and source of glowing reports about CSIS, to complain to afterwords.
And further, we should be grateful and proud of that.
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Also, just because a country has an "abysmal" human rights record, it doesn't necessarily follow that information we receive from them is extracted by torture. In fact, usually we have no idea how information is obtained, so - not our fault.
Do we continue to share info with Egypt and Syria? Yes, we share info with 247 agencies, with caveats of course. See SIRC above.
Does the Con chair of the committee plus the five Cons on it continually interrupt with points of order and run interference for the intelligence agencies phrased as questions? You betcha.
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Also on this one : Skdadl and Dave
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Harper slashes RCMP watchdog funding

because watchdogs have this annoying tendency to call you out.

Last June, RCMP watchdog Paul Kennedy issued a scathing report on the RCMP use of TASERs, citing the RCMP's over-reliance on the TASER™ manufacturer in developing their policies and training, sloppy reporting of TASER™ use, use of "the folk terminology excited delirium" as an excuse to deploy the TASER™, and failure to treat it as a "firearm".
The report from the Commission for Public Complaints Against the RCMP recommended that TASERs™ be used only on suspects that present a clear physical threat.

Two weeks ago Mr. Kennedy told the public safety and national security committee that he is powerless to tell whether the RCMP have made the changes needed to prevent another Maher Arar affair.
Justice Dennis O'Connor's federal inquiry two years ago into the RCMP's role in the rendition and torture of Maher Arar called for an overhaul of the RCMP complaints commission that would give it new powers to keep an eye on the Mounties' intelligence activities.
Mr. Kennedy told the committee that because this recommendation was not implemented and he does not have full access to RCMP files, he is unable to determine whether the RCMP has cleaned up its act.

Yesterday : Feds slash RCMP watchdog funding

"The Harper government is slashing nearly half the funding for the watchdog agency that monitors the RCMP and recently helped pressure the national police to craft a new policy on Tasers."

Mr. Kennedy said the funding was supposed to produce more than a report on Tasers.

"The commission is close to completing a report on cases where RCMP officers have been involved in deaths and been investigated by their own colleagues.
A spokesman for Public Safety Minister Peter Van Loan said the project is now over, and the government is consulting with the provinces about other ways to bolster the RCMP complaints process."

In his report last June Mr. Kennedy warned of the danger of the RCMP behaving like "a group distinct from the public" and following "a model in which officer safety takes precedence over that of the general public."

"The cumulative effect of these trends over time may reduce the degree of co-operation of the public that is essential to public safety in Canada."

Obviously. Public Safety Minister Peter Van Loan evidently has other priorities.


Meanwhile over at Runesmith, Jennifer is on a mission to save another government watchdog, Kevin Page, who has issued a public plea for help. Go.
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Iacobucci whitewash into Canadian torture-by-proxy and rendition-lite

Shorter former Supreme Court Justice Frank Iacobucci : After two years of reviewing the cases of three Canadian citizens detained in Syria during which time the RCMP are alledged to have faxed Syria the questions to be put to them under torture, and after interviewing only the Canadian officials involved, I am ready to conclude that :

"The inquiry did find that the three men were tortured in foreign prisons and that the mistreatment may have "resulted indirectly from several actions of Canadian officials."

but that :

"I found no evidence that any of these of these officials were seeking to do anything other than carry out conscientiously the duties and responsibilities of the institutions of which they were part."

See, that's exactly what worries us, Frank.
That's exactly it right there.

Does 'conscientiously carrying out their duties and responsibilites' include outsourcing torture-by-proxy and rendition-lite to third party countries?
Rendition-lite : No, we don't bag em here; we wait till they're visiting their dying Mom in Egypt and then put the word out.
Torture-by-proxy : Hey, if you're gonna beat the crap out of our citizens anyway, I got a coupla questions you could put to them for us.

Because without testimony from those US and Syrian and Egyptian officials, who have been more than willing to finger Canadian complicity in these deals in the past when our own officials were denying it, what's the point of your secret inquiry?

Justice Dennis O'Connor's previous inquiry into our government's treatment of Maher Arar uncovered evidence of Canadian rendition-lite and torture-by-proxy.
He recommended a further inquiry to nail this down.
That was your inquiry, Frank.
A mandate so narrow in its scope - not your fault, I know - as to exclude all but the Canadian officials involved in it does nothing to restore confidence in the ability of CSIS and the RCMP to act in our interests without sending us off to foreign countries to be tortured in the process.
And wasn't that the whole point?

Speaking of which, how's our other rendition-lite case, Abousfian Abdelrazik, doing?
Is he still living in the lobby at the Canadian embassy in Sudan?
Sudan is begging us to take him back as they consider him to be innocent but DFAIT obstructs his repatriation so as not to upset the Americans while frantically attempting to appear not to do so.

Iacobucci's inquiry only considered Ahmad Abou El Maati, Abdullah Almalki, and Muayyed Nureddin.
How many more are there? How many more?

UPDATE :Stockwell Day issues some pap on it :

"Our Government is moving forward on comprehensive and robust security and intelligence review measures.
Our Government is unwavering in its commitment to give law enforcement the tools they need to safeguard our national security and to ensure review mechanisms are in place to protect Canadians."

Fuck you, Doris.
Not every one is quite so sanguine about torture :

Reuters : Canada actions likely led to Syrian torture: report

AFP : Canada had role in torture of its nationals: probe

Kady live-blogs Iacobucci's press conference

Meet the old boss, same as the new boss

The new head of the RCMP was possibly one of the officials responsible for blacking out portions of the Arar report.
Yeah, well, Stockwell Day was his boss then and he's his boss now.

The G&M reports this bizarre analogy from a security official by way of explanation :

"Some security officials says there is no great mystery as to why such references were blacked out: Foreign intelligence is not viewed as fundamentally different from any other borrowed good or service. For that reason, Canada is wary of passing along secrets it gets from other sources, or even pointing to those sources."

“If you borrow your neighbour's pickup truck to haul a load to the dump, you don't give the keys to the kids to go for a Slurpee at the 7-Eleven,” said one official who declined to be identified. “Intellectually, it's not a difficult concept to grasp.”

Excuse me? You were the one driving the damn truck:

New York Times: Deported Canadian Was No Threat, Report Shows :

"Several months before Mr. Arar arrived in New York, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police gave a PowerPoint presentation to the F.B.I. about Canadian terrorism that mentioned Mr. Arar three times, along with other people they believed might be engaged in terrorist activities. While the American agency asked for a copy of the slides and background material, the newly released information shows that the Canadian police “were not successful in convincing the F.B.I. to institute a criminal investigation.”

CBC : RCMP shared intelligence with Syria, Arar inquiry told :

"RCMP Supt. Mike Cabana who headed up the investigation in the Ottawa area said Canadian officials were concerned Arar was being abused early in his captivity in Syria, but they exchanged intelligence anyway."

In fact, RCMP, you did one worse : after giving the kids the keys to the truck knowing they would wreck it, you told them you didn't want it back to save yourself from embarrassment.
And as of today, even after Justice O'Connor's inquiry has brought all of this to light, you're still lying to us about it.