Arar affair 'would not happen today': Day

Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day said Wednesday he could assure "with a degree of confidence" that cases such as the wrongful deportation of Maher Arar from the U.S. to Syria could not happen again.

"With the recommendations that we've already accepted from Justice O'Connor just in the last few months … the situation that happened with Mr. Arar would not happen today," he said in an interview with CBC News.

Among the changes to national security protocol are improvements in intelligence sharing.

"There have to be caveats attached to that information that would say, 'All right, here's some evidence about a particular individual, however, there's a caveat to this,' " Day explained. "A caveat is, for instance: 'We have no firm information that this person is involved with terrorist activity.' "

More careful screening of information would allow other intelligence agencies to know "whether this is something that may be of interest, or something that is a fact," he said.

The government has already welcomeda security mechanism that directs the flow of information toward "an area of central management" while an investigation continues.

"There will be an awareness right at the top so the people at the top … will know what's going on as the investigation moves along and things can't get pushed to the side," Day said.

Newinvestigation launched

On Tuesday, Day announced the government would launch a probe into the cases of Abdullah Almalki, Muayyed Nureddin and Ahmad El Maati. All three Arab-Canadians claim they were also arrested and tortured abroad because of erroneous information provided by Canadian officials.

The announcement of the latest probe, to be headed by retired Supreme Court judge Frank Iacobucci, came on the same day Justice O'Connor released his second independent inquiry into the Arar matter — this one focusing on the RCMP's role.

The new cases being reviewed by Justice Iacobucci will be treated "as a blank slate," Day said Wednesday.

In September 2002, Syrian-born engineer Maher Arar was travelling back to Ottawa from a family vacation in Tunisia when he was pulled off a plane in New York City, accused of having ties to al-Qaeda and shipped to Syria, where he was tortured for 10 months. Arar's name has since been cleared and O'Connor has recommended the government compensate the family.