RCMP Watch

Meagan Fitzpatrick - CanWest News Service

A new independent review agency should not only examine the RCMP’s national security activities, but those of five other government departments, concluded the second Arar Commission report released Tuesday.

As expected, Justice Dennis O’Connor recommended the creation of a new body called Independent Complaints and National Security Review Agency (ICRA) for the RCMP that would review all of its activities, including those related to national security. The ICRA would act on complaints but also have the authority to conduct self-initiated reviews of the police force’s national security activities for compliance with laws, policies and international standards.
“The need for self-initiated reviews stems from the fact that most of the RCMP’s national security activities are conducted in secret and receive little, if any, judicial scrutiny, yet have the potential to significantly affect individual rights and freedoms, “ O’Connor said in the report.
The ICRA should have “comprehensive powers including the power to decide what information is necessary to fulfill its mandate, and to subpoena documents and compel testimony from any federal, provincial, municipal or private sector person or entity,” states the report.
The review body should not be bound by jurisdictional boundaries and should be able to “follow the trail wherever it leads,” O’Connor said, explaining that integration between agencies should be encouraged.
The kinds of powers laid out by O’Connor for the new RCMP review body should also be extended to the national security activities of other agencies, urges the report. The Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA), Citizenship and Immigration Canada (CIC), Transport Canada, the Financial Transactions and Reports Analysis Centre of Canada (FINTRAC) and Foreign Affairs and International Trade (DFAIT) should also be subject to independent review, including complaint investigation and self-initiated review, the report concludes.
The existing Security Intelligence Review Committee (SIRC) that currently oversees CSIS, is well-positioned to add four of the five agencies to its mandate, O’Connor said. He suggests that CSBA should come under the purview of the new ICRA.
O’Connor’s rationale for recommending enhanced review for the other five agencies is that they are all involved in national security and integrated with the RCMP but none is subject to any kind of review. There is a “serious potential for gaps in accountability” if those agencies are not reviewed, O’Connor states.
Among O’Connor’s 13 recommendations, is a proposal to link the three independent national security review bodies - the proposed ICRA, SIRC and the CSE Commissioner - in order to exchange information and conduct joint investigations.
O’Connor would also like to see a new review coordinating committee created called Integrated National Security Review Coordinating Committee. It would be a “unified intake mechanism for complaints regarding national security activities of federal entities.” The committee would report to the federal government on accountability issues and on how national security practices are affecting human rights and freedoms.
“In the post-9/11 period, the protection of national security, including the protection of Canadians from terrorist threats has become a critical responsibility of our government,” O’Connor said in the report.
“Effective review of national security actors assists in the difficult balancing act of protecting the security of our country while ensuring that our fundamental rights are respected and that confidence I our valued institutions is maintained.”
O’Connor’s final recommendation is that in five years the government appoint an independent person to review the framework he has proposed to ensure that it is functioning properly.
“The national security landscape in Canada is constantly evolving to keep abreast of threats to our national security. It is vital that review and accountability mechanisms keep pace with operational changes,” O’Connor said at a news conference.
O’Connor’s first report, released in September, examined the facts in the Maher Arar case, and recommended policy changes at the RCMP and other agencies to minimize the risk of a similar debacle. The report found that the RCMP mislabeled Arar as an Islamic extremist with suspected terrorist links. It also concluded the sharing of that misinformation with U.S. authorities likely led them to deport him to Syria, where he was jailed and tortured in 2002.
This second report comes just a week after RCMP Commissioner Giuliano Zaccardelli resigned over the whole affair. He stepped down after admitting he provided two different accounts of what he knew about Arar and when to a parliamentary committee examining O’Connor’s first report.
Zaccardelli said he made mistakes in his first testimony in September but never purposely misled the committee. Nevertheless, the change in story set off a firestorm from the opposition who demanded Zaccardelli resign or that Prime Minister Stephen Harper fire him. The RCMP

Commissioner stepped aside, to protect the reputation of the RCMP, he said, last Wednesday.
Arar, who now lives in British Columbia with his wife and two children, will hold a press conference later today in Ottawa to react to the report.
Earlier in the day, government and interest groups provided reaction to the report.
New Democratic Party MP Joe Comartin was disappointed that O’Connor recommended a review body instead of an oversight body.
“With simply doing review, you accept that there are going to be ongoing problems and you’re going to deal with them after the fact as opposed to by setting up an oversight committee you may be able to head off a number of those problems,” Comartin said at a press conference.
“If you combine both the review process, enhanced as is recommended, and an oversight committee it seems to me you end up with the best of both worlds,” he said.
In his report, O’Connor said he rejected the idea of an oversight body because it runs the risk of intruding on police independence.