Canadian torture policy irks European security alliance, records reveal

OTTAWA – A major alliance that promotes European security has criticized Canada for opening the door to use of information that may have been extracted through torture.

Newly disclosed briefing notes and correspondence show the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe wrote to Canada’s representative to the organization to express concerns about the policy.

Canada belongs to the 57-member alliance, which bills itself as the world’s largest regional security organization, working for peace, democracy and stability for more than a billion people.

The Canadian government responded to the February 2012 letter with a staunch defence of its information-sharing policy as a principled response to terrorism and other security threats.

The OSCE’s concerns came to light through heavily censored records released to The Canadian Press under the Access to Information Act.

Though the organization’s letter to Canada’s then-ambassador to the OSCE is blacked out, a spokesman for the Vienna-based agency’s human rights office spelled out its concerns to the news agency.