Canada's Dreyfus Affair

The parallels are not exact. There was, so far as we know, no deliberate, conscious effort to frame Maher Arar. Canadian society is not a hotbed of anti-Arab sentiment, in the way that Third Republic France was anti-Semitic. Nevertheless, in the broad strokes -- an innocent man, a member of the wrong minority in a time of national panic, is unjustly accused and left to rot in some far-flung piece of hell, while officials stall, look the other way, and cover up -- this case deserves to be known as what it is: Canada's Dreyfus Affair. Mr. Arar's story, now confirmed in its essentials by Mr. Justice Dennis O'Connor's report, is a monstrous scandal. More than shocking the conscience, it scorches it: A Canadian citizen, innocent of all wrongdoing, was tortured and held in solitary confinement for 10 months in a Syrian jail, with the complicity, knowing or not, of Canadian police and diplomatic officials. Were he not Canadian, were he not completely innocent, were the government of Canada never implicated at any stage, it would still be a scandal, though one to be accounted against Syria, who tortured him, and the United States, who deported him to Syria, knowing that would likely be his fate. But in fact Canadian officials are implicated, over and over again. At any stage, had those involved exercised the slightest judgment, had they done their jobs, Mr. Arar might have been spared the horrors he endured. At every stage, in every way, they let him down. Where do we start? Where do we end? With officers in the RCMP's anti-terrorism unit, who falsely alleged to American officials, on the basis of no credible information, that Mr. Arar was an Islamic extremist, with possible ties to al-Qaeda? With senior RCMP officers, who failed to exert the proper oversight over their inexperienced subordinates? With the former Liberal government, which failed to negotiate ground rules with the Americans governing deportation of Canadians citizens to third countries? With consular officials in Damascus, who ignored, disbelieved or failed to report Mr. Arar's complaints of torture? With the RCMP, again, whose subsequent communications with the Syrian authorities may have reinforced them in their belief that Mr. Arar had information of use to them? No, incredibly enough, these are not the worst examples. If that were all, we would have a tale of gross incompetence, perhaps even willful negligence. But what is really inexcusable is what happened after Mr. Arar's release: the selective briefings RCMP brass gave the Privy Council Office with embarrassing facts omitted; the leaks from various government officials to the media, suggesting that Mr. Arar was, all appearances to the contrary, guilty of something, or that his tales of abuse at the hands of Syrian military intelligence were made up or exaggerated. That was deliberate. When, further, the RCMP raided the home of Juliet O'Neill, the reporter for the Ottawa Citizen who broke details of the force's investigation of Mr. Arar, the whiff of cover-up was unmistakable. This is, after all, not the only case of Canadian citizens being detained in Syrian jails on suspicion of terrorist activity: Three other men, Arabs all, have met the same fate. Despite Judge O'Connor's finding that Canadian officials did not knowingly conspire in Mr. Arar's deportation, it is not unreasonable to ask: Can this be mere coincidence? Whether this is enough to establish, as some have suggested, that the RCMP should be taken off the national security file altogether, is another matter. Certainly, its national security operations should be subjected to some sort of civilian oversight, as Judge O'Connor recommends. But in fact the RCMP's behaviour of late has raised concerns that go far beyond Maher Arar, or national security. From the campaign of harassment against Francois Beaudoin, the president of the Business Development Bank who dared to cross Jean Chretien, to the force's strange reluctance to investigate the alleged "forgery" of an incriminating document in the same affair, to its involvement in the sponsorship scandal (including the establishment of an illegal bank account to hold the funds it received), to Airbus, the Sorbara case, and all the litany of other recent miscues and fiascos, the RCMP has lurched from one disaster to another. At best, the record is one of rank incompetence. At worst, it suggests an over-eagerness to please its political masters, if not outright politicization -- suspicions that the Arar case will do nothing to quell. It is long since time the Mounties cleaned house, and the commissioner's office would be a good place to start.