E/CN.4/2006/7/Add.2 page 5 Introduction 1. The Working Group on Arbitrary Detention, which was established pursuant to Commission on Human Rights resolution 1991/42 and whose mandate was most recently extended by Commission resolution 2003/31, visited Canada from 1 to 15 June 2005 at the invitation of the Government. The delegation consisted of Leïla Zerrougui, ChairpersonRapporteur of the Working Group and head of the delegation, as well as Soledad Villagra de Biedermann and Seyyed Mohammad Hashemi, members of the Working Group. The delegation was accompanied by the Secretary of the Working Group, an official from the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights and two interpreters from the United Nations Office at Geneva. 2. The visit included the federal capital, Ottawa, and the cities of Iqaluit, Toronto, Edmonton, Vancouver and Montréal. During its visit, the delegation met with officials of the federal, provincial and territorial governments, members of the judiciary, representatives of civil society, former detainees, relatives of persons in detention and other individuals. It was able to visit 12 detention centres, and had meetings, in private and without witnesses, with more than 150 detainees. 3. The Working Group would like to express its gratitude to the Government of Canada, to the governments of the Territory of Nunavut and of the Provinces of Ontario, British Columbia and Québec, as well as to the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, which greatly assisted with the logistics of the visit, and to the Canadian civil-society representatives with whom it met. I. PROGRAMME OF THE VISIT 4. The Working Group was able to visit the following detention centres and facilities: in the Territory of Nunavut, the Baffins Correctional Centre and the Isumaqsunngittukkuvik (Young Offenders Centre) in Iqaluit; in Ontario, the Toronto West Detention Centre, the Rexdale Immigration Holding Centre, the Maplehurst Correctional Complex, and the Vanier Centre for Women; in Alberta, the Pê Sâskâtêw Centre in Hobbema, and the Edmonton Institution for Women; in British Columbia, the Immigration Holding Facility at Vancouver International Airport, Vancouver Jail, and the North Fraser Pre-Trial Centre; in Québec, the Rivière-des-Prairies detention centre, and holding cells of the Service de police de la Ville de Montréal. The Working Group assisted to bail hearings before the Aboriginal Peoples’ Court, the Drug Treatment Court and the Mental Health Court in Toronto’s Old City Hall, as well as to a detention review hearing before the Immigration Division in Vancouver. 5. The Working Group met in Ottawa with representatives of the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade, the Department of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness (including the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, RCMP), the Correctional Service of Canada (CSC) and the Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA), the Department of Justice, and the Department of Citizenship and Immigration and the Immigration and Refugee Board. In the provinces it visited and in the territory of Nunavut, the Working Group met with representatives of the departments responsible for policing, the administration of justice and corrections. The Working Group also met with members of the judiciary, both federal and provincial, representatives of prosecutors’ offices, human rights commissions and legal aid services.