A Commons committee has called upon the Conservative government to formally apologize to Maher Arar and his family, and recalled RCMP Commissioner Giuliano Zaccardelli to testify Tuesday.
MPs want to question Zaccardelli further about inconsistencies between his recollection of briefings the RCMP gave to the former government about the Arar case, and contrary indications by former cabinet ministers in interviews published in the Toronto Star.
Zaccardelli told the committee on Sept. 28 that the government received full briefings about the Arar matter and the RCMP’s actions in the case — actions that included the mistaken labelling of Arar to U.S. officials as an “Islamic extremist” with ties to Al Qaeda.
The O’Connor inquiry reported the RCMP’s mistakes “very likely” led to Arar’s September 2002 deportation by the U.S. to Syria, where he was tortured and jailed for a year.
But three consecutive cabinet ministers who oversaw the RCMP at the relevant time (Lawrence MacAulay, Wayne Easter, and Anne McLellan) say the government was never informed about the RCMP’s errors, and the potential role they played.
The first they learned of it was in the report by Justice Dennis O’Connor into the Arar scandal.
Zaccardelli told the committee he was personally aware of the RCMP’s mistakes as early as Oct. 21, 2002, when Syria confirmed it had Arar in jail, he said. But he said he did not personally inform government ministers because he wasn’t “personally” called to a meeting to specifically discuss the issue.
The Star has found no one in the Privy Council office who was aware that inaccurate information had been shared or inappropriately labelled to the U.S.
Yesterday, the public safety committee voted to approve a motion by MP Irwin Cotler that “the government should now do the right and honourable thing and apologize” to Arar.
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