Security certificates are constitutional: Day

CTV.ca News Staff

Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day is supporting the use of security certificates to detain people suspected of terrorist activity.

Day also said he is confident that the Supreme Court will uphold use of the certificates in hearings, starting Tuesday, which will decide whether the process is a violation of the Charter of Rights.

Day pointed out the security certificate process has been in place since 1978, and that is used "very rarely."

"In fact, since 2001 it's only been used six times and it's used when somebody arrives at one of our borders -- a non-citizen -- and as soon as they are checked there, if deemed that they are a very serious security threat to Canadians, at that point a deportation order would be issued," Day said Monday night on CTV's Mike Duffy Live.

The minister stressed that those held under security certificates have options to either appeal, or to accept the deportation order.

"They can choose to be subject to the security certificate. That means you'll have your full appeal, but you have to be maintained in detention; or you can go back to your country of origin," said Day.

"As a matter of fact . . . the whole time the appeal process goes on, at any time they're free to leave and return to their country of origin."

But a supporter of the five men facing deportation on suspicion of terrorist activity says three of those men face "serious risk of being tortured in their home countries."

James Loney, a member of the Christian Peacemakers held hostage earlier this year by Iraqi dissidents, was among a group of protesters on Monday who took to a federal building near Parliament Hill, demanding that Ottawa abolish the security certificate process.

"My concern is that in Canada we have had, from four to six years now, five men held under these security certificates -- and they have not been able to see the full evidence against them, (or the) allegations," Loney told Mike Duffy Live from Ottawa.
"There's no appeal, they haven't really had a fair and transparent trial . . . and this indefinite detention has been stretching out for years and years now, and I'm concerned that their rights are being trampled without a transparent process to back that up."

Meanwhile, Moona el-Fouli, the wife of one of the suspects, says the current climate created by the arrests of 17 terror suspects could unfairly influence the hearings.
"My concern is about the judges," el-Fouli told The Canadian Press. "They're human beings, they get affected as any other people do. So I'd like to see what's going to happen.''

The security certificates are based on information provided by the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS).

Evidence is heard by a Federal Court judge in private, with only a summary provided to the defendants.

Day said the government will fight to keep what he calls an important tool in providing security to Canadians. But if the appeal rules that the person is allowed to stay in Canada, "then they're allowed to stay. We don't obviously overrule the courts."

But he stressed: "Up until this point in time, the courts have upheld the security certificates as constitutional as recently as September 2005."
Day said the court decided in that case that the safety of Canadians was paramount to the rights of a person who had just arrived in Canada.
"They have said the security process is constitutional. Now, it's going to the
Supreme Court -- we'll see what happens."