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Sometimes your recommendations are picked up by government. This week the government said it would accept all my 10 recommendations on a particular law, because it’s a coalition government and I think that’s the only thing they can agree on.

Q. What issues are hardest to navigate?

A. The trickiest are measures that constrain how people live their lives. Whether that’s freezing of assets, or terrorism investigation and prevention measures — similar to what you call peace bonds.

Those are troubling because in terrorism cases there are parts you can’t disclose in full. Both in Canada and the U.K., we have tried to develop a trial process which is as fair as possible. It’s still a very awkward position to be in when you have someone who cannot actually hear all the evidence and may face bad consequences as a result.

Q. How has terrorism changed in the U.K. since ‘The Troubles’?

A. You can make the case it was more serious then: In 1972, more than 500 people lost their lives in the U.K. due to terrorism, most in Northern Ireland.

In reaction to that, some pretty oppressive measures were brought in. We brought in internment for a few years in which people were indefinitely detained. The European Court of Human Rights found in 1978 that we were close to torture, with five degrading techniques where they were hooded and deprived of sleep and subject to loud noises.

I think we’ve learned from that in the post-9/11 world. We have made mistakes but what we have so far avoided, with some good judgment, are measures that are so disproportionate they become in themselves radicalizers. In Northern Ireland today, I can show you freshly painted signs complaining about internment; (yet) that’s not been used for more than 30 years.