

The head of Canada's secret police has asked the government to fight against a proposed ban on information gleaned through torture. The chief of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service says that torture is essential to Canada's security in its fight against terrorism.

In the letter, Judd urges the minister to fight an amendment to C-3 proposed by Liberal MP Ujjal Dosanjh that would prohibit CSIS and the courts from using any information obtained from torture or "derivative information": information initially obtained from torture but subsequently corroborated through legal means.

"This amendment, if interpreted to mean that 'derivative information' is inadmissible, could render unsustainable the current security certificate proceedings," Judd writes.

"Even if interpreted more narrowly to exclude only information obtained from sources and foreign agencies who, on the low threshold of 'reasonable grounds' may have obtained information by way of torture, the amendment would still significantly hinder the Service's collection and analysis functions…"

Bahdi said the prohibition on torture was part of Canadian law long before the C-3 amendment. But CSIS needs to be made accountable, she said. "There has to be a cultural shift in CSIS so they take seriously the prohibition on torture and understand it's not there to tie their hands behind their backs so they can't do their work, but to ensure that their work has some integrity. … If torture produced national security, the regimes in the Middle East would be the safest places in the world." [emphasis mine]