RCMP Watch

CBC

Former solicitor general Wayne Easter said he was never told that the RCMP had provided wrong information to the U.S. about Maher Arar.

Speaking before a Commons committee looking into the Arar case, Easter contradicted previous testimony given by RCMP Commissioner Giuliano Zaccardelli.

Last month, Zaccardelli said he had told the government about the RCMP’s actions and mistakes that, according to an inquiry report, “very likely” led the U.S. to deport Arar to Syria, where he was tortured.
“I was not informed by briefing note, by housebook card or by any other measure that the RCMP had provided misinformation,” Easter told the committee Tuesday.
“I think this is a question you’re basically going to have to raise with the commissioner again.”
Easter, who was the solicitor general at the time and in charge of the Mounties, said he has gone through all the documents and discussed the matter with people who were on his staff at the time.

“There is no situation where the RCMP came to me and basically said ‘We screwed up, we provided improper information.’ ”

Easter said he wasn’t told that security agencies had labelled the former Ottawa engineer an “Islamic extremist” or that Arar had been placed on a watch list.
Easter said he wasn’t aware of many of the false allegations against Arar until they were made public during the inquiry by Justice Dennis O’Connor.
The committee plans to recall Zaccardelli for more questions.
Arar, who then lived in Ottawa, was travelling back to Canada from a family vacation in Tunisia in September 2002 when he was pulled off a plane in New York. Within days, he was sent to Syria, where he says government officials detained him, kept him in jail for a year and systematically tortured him.