MP ‘honoured’ by appointment to Afghan detainee committee

A small group of MPs, including Glengarry-Prescott-Russell MP Pierre Lemieux, has been charged with the task of reviewing some 40,000 sensitive documents relating to the Afghan detainee issue.

During an interview with The Review last week, Lemieux explained that one MP and one alternative, from the Conservatives, Liberals and the Bloc Quebecois, began poring over the documents in early June.

The NDP refused to join the committee, stating it couldn't agree to the terms.

"This is a monumental task, but it's a very important task and one that I am very proud to have been chosen to carry out," Lemieux said. "There are literally thousands of documents that we will need to review and it's going to be very time consuming. But this is important... it's something that has to be done."

Earlier this year, Commons Speaker Peter Milliken ordered Prime Minister Stephen Harper's government to produce documents pertaining to the Afghan detainee issue or be found in contempt of Parliament.
Lemieux said opposition parties have repeatedly accused the Conservative government of covering up documents proving the Conservatives knew that detainees were transferred and subsequently tortured.

"The opposition has been making some pretty fantastic claims," Lemieux commented. "They took great issue that certain parts of the documents in question were censored and began accusing the Conservatives of taking liberties with the censoring. Our position has always been that we released as much of the documents as we could, but the main goal was to protect national security. We are bound by the law, that's why the documents were censored in that manner."

Lemieux called Milliken's ruling a "common sense ruling" and said the house speaker told the government to come up with a "solution" to the problem.

"It was made quite clear that the government needed to allow access to the unedited documents," he remarked. "Milliken noted that both sides were making strong and valid points, but something had to be done."

At that point, the Conservative government decided to form a committee with two representatives from each party to review the unedited documents.

Lemieux said each committee member had to receive special security clearance to view the documents and are meeting in an undisclosed location in Ottawa.

"We are not allowed to have cell phones, Blackberries, laptops or anything while we are looking at these documents," he explained. "Through this committee, we are giving the opposition what they want, which is access to the unedited documents, and still protecting national security."

Once the committee has reviewed the documents, Lemieux said, members will have the opportunity to make recommendations about material they feel should not be censored.

"If there is a part of a document that a committee member doesn't think should be censored, that member can ask for it to be uncensored," he said.

The recommendations will be referred to a panel of three arbiters, including former Supreme Court judges Claire L'Heureux-Dubé and Frank Iacobucci, as well as Donald I. Brenner, former chief justice of the B.C. Supreme Court.

"That panel will be responsible for deciding what gets released into the public domain and what doesn't," Lemieux said.

Lemieux said he doesn't know how long it will take to review the documents and said it depends largely on just how many documents the committee wants to peruse. He said the end result is to prove to the opposition that the Conservative government "wasn't being overzealous in censoring the documents and released what were allowed to release, by law."

"I am very hopeful this process will put an end to the claims being made the opposition on this issue," he stated. "The Conservative government did what it was required to do and wasn't trying to cover anything up. That was never the intention and I am confident this process will prove that in the end."