Maher Arar among those cautiously welcoming reform in RCMP oversigh

Jim Bronskill And Jonathan Montpetit, Montreal, QC (Canadian Press) – Maher Arar and several other of the RCMP’s staunchest critics call a government plan to replace the force’s existing oversight body a step – and only a small one – in the right direction.

Arar, like several other RCMP critics, said Friday that the new body must have the power to subpoena documents and investigate other law-enforcement agencies that interact with the Mounties.

Ottawa’s intention to scrap the existing Commission for Public Complaints Against the RCMP was revealed in this week’s budget, which allotted $8 million over two years to set up a new watchdog.

Few details about the new body were available Friday and Kate McDerby, a spokeswoman for the complaints commission, said its staff had not been briefed on the government plans.

The current regime has been the target of repeated criticism in recent years for being unable to probe the RCMP counter-terrorism activities or access all information in the force’s files.

A federal inquiry led by Justice Dennis O’Connor into Arar’s rendition and torture in Syria called for drastic reforms to the RCMP complaints commission.

The man at the heart of the inquiry was cautious in welcoming the announcement.

“It is good news if it is exactly what Justice O’Connor recommended,” said Arar, who spent a year in a Syrian jail after being falsely accused of terrorist ties.

“We still have to wait and see what kind of watchdog it is.”

One prominent human-rights lawyer described the kind of teeth he’d like to see the new watchdog have.

“They have to have the power to investigate and compel documents and compel RCMP officers to answer questions and that’s what is really lacking right now,” said Paul Champ, who is currently representing Omar Khadr.

“When they lack that essential power it makes it very easy for the RCMP to escape scrutiny.”

Former complaints commission chairman Paul Kennedy said his unit was ill-equipped to deal with more dynamic nature of contemporary security threats.

The existing complaints commission was created in 1988, and Kennedy sees the desire for change as tacit acknowledgment by the government that the oversight process has become outdated.

“I think they recognize that it isn’t able to do what the public wants it to do,” he said. “It isn’t able to give the public the assurances.”

For Kennedy, the effectiveness of a new oversight body would depend on its ability to share information with other oversight agencies.

In the 20 since it was created, law enforcement has become increasingly integrated and he argues that accountability organizations must operate the same way.

He also advocates moving away from the primarily complaint-driven process of the current model.

Kennedy, whose term was not renewed last year, says a watchdog should be able to able to seek out its own wide-ranging investigations into any aspect of the RCMP’s activities.

“If that capacity isn’t there then I would have serious concerns about the credibility of what’s going on,” he said. “It might be smoke and mirrors.”

Civil-liberties advocates expressed concern Friday that the government might reject O’Connor’s broader recommendations, leaving large sections of the intelligence community without effective oversight.

However, the office of Public Safety Minister Vic Toews cautioned Friday that the budget announcement should not be seen as a response to the O’Connor inquiry.

The government has said it is awaiting a federal inquiry report into the 1985 Air India bombing before deciding how to reform intelligence oversight. It is unclear when those long-awaited findings will be released.

That explanation doesn’t make sense to Kerry Pither, a human-rights activist who has closely followed the cases of Arar and three other Arab-Canadians tortured overseas.

“I’m left wondering if the government simply lacks the courage to rein in the national security agencies,” she said Friday.

“And so what we’re left with is a culture of impunity.”