Settling Syrian torture lawsuit not end of story

By Paul Copeland Last Friday, which was the end of the school March break in Ontario, the federal government quietly announced the settlement of a major lawsuit brought by Abdullah Almalki, Ahmad El Maati and Muayyed Nureddin for very significant damages arising from the Canadian complicity and malfeasance related to their torture by the Syrian government many years ago. The claim was based on the improper actions of members of CSIS, the RCMP and Foreign Affairs officials. The government apologized to the three men. The timing of the announcement appears to have been calculated to reduce public attention to the settlement. That settlement, after more than a decade since their return to Canada, allows the men and their families to start to re-establish their lives in Canada. The terms of the settlement are confidential and at this point only government officials and the Department of Justice lawyers know the extent of Canadian involvement in responsibility for the torture of the three men. In my view, it is critically important steps are taken to ensure the type of government activities by CSIS, the RCMP and foreign affairs officials that contributed to the torture of the men in Syria do not reoccur. Parliament is in the process of establishing, under Bill C-22, a parliamentary oversight committee for Canadian security and intelligence services. It appears, as that Bill makes its way through the parliamentary process the Trudeau government is seeking to ensure the parliamentary committee will be prevented from having meaningful oversight of any of the actions of the Canadian national security agencies. Earlier this month, Murray Rankin, an NDP MP, spoke on Bill C-22 in the Commons. He said the public safety committee, with the help of expert advice, had recognized the flaws in the government’s first draft of Bill C-22 and came together around evidence-based amendments. Rankin, based on the testimony of many experts at the committee, was extremely concerned that without the amendments, the committee to be established under Bill C-22 would not be able to effectively do its job. After receiving the proposed amendments, the government came up with new proposals: • The first would remove the oversight committee’s power to subpoena witnesses and documents. • The second would allow cabinet ministers to withhold information from the oversight committee. • The third was to add a senator and another government MP to the committee so the votes of the government MPs will always outnumber the votes of the nongovernment MPs. • The fourth was to stop the committee from receiving information about all active law-enforcement investigations, all the time. The revelations of the McDonald Commission, the Keable Inquiry, the Arar Inquiry and the Iacobucci inquiry revealed some details of the very serious wrongdoing over many years by members of the Canadian national security agencies. In the lawsuit brought by the three men, the government of Canada strenuously resisted, through section 38 of the Canada Evidence Act proceedings, any revelations of serious wrongdoings by Canadian government officials in relation to the three men. Justice Mosley of the Federal Court of Canada, with the assistance of two lawyers acting as amici curiae (friends of the court), allowed some of the information that the government lawyers wanted to remain secret to be known to the lawyers for the three men. I presume the release of some of that secret information persuaded the national security agencies and the government lawyers to conclude that letting this case go to trial would prove to be highly embarrassing. The confidential settlement ensured that the information would not be made public. The new National Security and Intelligence Committee to be created under Bill C-22 must be able to fully examine each and every detail of what was done by Canadian government officials that led to the torture of the three men. The torture was significantly the result of activities carried out by a branch of the RCMP known as Project A-O Canada. That branch was headed by Mike Cabana. Cabana testified as a witness at the Arar Inquiry. Sometime after the report of Justice O’Connor from that inquiry, Mike Cabana was promoted to Deputy Commissioner of the RCMP. In my view, it is critical that the National Security and Intelligence Committee be able to examine in detail the actions of Cabana that led to and contributed to the torture of the three men, and be able to review whether his promotion to deputy commissioner was appropriate. It is only through such detailed oversight that the new parliamentary committee will be able to ensure that similar torture and human rights abuses do not again result from the work of Canada’s national security agencies. Paul Copeland has been involved in national security work through most of his 50 years of practising law. He was a special advocate in the Harkat and Almrei security certificate cases and was counsel for Abdullah Almalki in the Arar Inquiry and the Iacobucci Inquiry.