Canadian Security Intelligence Services: Exceptional Circumstances

Public Safety Minister Vic Toews Dept: The directives to the RCMP, Canada's border services agency and the Canadian Security Intelligence Services appear to be setting safeguards against abuse of people who may be in the custody of other governments. Yet they also argue because "exceptional circumstances" may arise when information gained through torture may "mitigate a serious risk of loss of life, injury or substantial damage," the agencies "may need to share the most complete information in their possession." So, using information gained by torture may be acceptable, according to Winnipeg Free Press. Accused of anti-Soviet, counter-revolutionary activities, they were exiled to northern Russia or Siberia, or summarily executed. They were the victims of state-sanctioned terror. Are we to become complicit with systems that do the same and if Public Safety Minister Vic Toews has reached a point where he is prepared to accept information gained through torture, he has forgotten his own history. Toews is the son of Mennonite immigrant parents, people who understood how morally corrosive and destructive such violence can be. I have two volumes of Mennonite Martyrs , a book produced by a great-uncle of Toews. In it, Aron A. Toews tells the stories of scores of Mennonites devoured by the Soviet apparatus during the 1920s and '30s. Terror was always the tool. These were ministers, teachers, farmers, industrialists and ordinary workers. (www.immigrantscanada.com). As reported in the news.