Dockets: DES-3-17
DES-1-18
Citation: 2026 FC 187
Ottawa, Ontario, February 10, 2026
PRESENT: The Honourable Mr. Justice Fothergill
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BETWEEN: |
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HASSAN ALMREI |
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Applicant |
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and |
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THE ATTORNEY GENERAL OF CANADA |
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Respondent |
JUDGMENT AND REASONS
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Overview
[1] This ruling addresses disclosure of the Classified Judgment and Reasons completed by Justice Richard Mosley on June 6, 2024 [2024 Judgment]. The 2024 Judgment was issued to the Attorney General of Canada [AGC] at the time of its completion, but it has yet to be issued to Mr. Almrei or published. On September 25, 2024, this Court authorized the transmission of a redacted version of the 2024 Judgment to Mr. Almrei, together with a separate redacted Order.
[2] The AGC has appealed the 2024 Judgment and related Order to the Federal Court of Appeal. The appeal is under reserve.
[3] The 2024 Judgment concerned disclosure of “a group of eight priority documents”
for the purposes of Mr. Almrei’s civil action before the Ontario Superior Court of Justice. These documents included Justice Mosley’s 2009 Classified Judgment and Reasons, a public version of which was issued and published as Almrei (Re), 2009 FC 1263.
[4] The background to these proceedings was summarized by Justice Mosley in the 2024 Judgment as follows (at paras 2-3):
The essence of Mr. Almrei’s claim in the underlying action is that he was wrongfully detained and incarcerated for more than eight years, by agencies and officials of the government of Canada pursuant to security certificates, in which they wrongly named him as a terrorist associated with Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda, and as a threat to the security of Canada. He claims damages under section 24 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, Part 1 of the Constitution Act, 1982, being Schedule B to the Canada Act 1982 (UK), 1982, c 11 (the “Charter”) and for related torts allegedly committed by the defendants which gave rise to his lengthy incarceration.
Mr. Almrei has brought applications under paragraph 38.04 (2)(c) of the Canada Evidence Act R.S.C., 1985, c. C-5 (“CEA s 38”) in Court Docket DES-3-17, filed on April 13, 2017, and under paragraph 18.1 (4) (a) of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service Act, RSC, 1985, c. C-23 (“CSIS Act s 18.1”) in Court Docket DES-1-18, filed on April 9, 2018, for the disclosure of information subject to discovery in the underlying action and redacted under both statutes on national security and human source protection grounds. Where the claims overlap, the AGC has relied on both heads of privilege in respect of the same information.
[5] During an ex parte, in camera case management conference convened on January 8, 2026, counsel for the AGC and two Amici Curiae [Amici] appointed to assist the Court made a joint recommendation respecting disclosure of the 2024 Judgment. The joint recommendation of the AGC and Amici takes into account the withdrawal of a number of redactions applied to the version of the 2024 Judgment that was provided to Mr. Almrei in September 2024. The withdrawal of these redactions has been authorized by the AGC with no involvement of the Court.
[6] The AGC and Amici agree that the remaining redactions should be maintained. In some instances, the AGC and Amici have proposed that summaries of the withheld information be approved by this Court for disclosure to Mr. Almrei and the public.
[7] Having carefully reviewed the remaining redactions applied by the AGC to the 2024 Judgment, I am satisfied that they protect information from which the identity of human sources could be inferred, contrary to s 18.1 of the CSIS Act, or information whose disclosure would be injurious to national security within the meaning of s 38 of the CEA. I see no reason to depart from the joint recommendation of the AGC and Amici to confirm the non-disclosure of this information, subject to the disclosure of the summaries proposed.
[8] The 2024 Judgment will be issued to Mr. Almrei and published accordingly.
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Analysis
[9] Notwithstanding the joint recommendation of the AGC and the Amici, the Court must determine, in accordance with the applicable statutory provisions and governing jurisprudence, whether the prohibition of disclosure of the remaining redactions applied to the 2024 Judgment should be confirmed (Canada (Attorney General) v Meng, 2020 FC 844 at para 71).
[10] There is a tripartite test to determine whether the Court should maintain the confidentiality of information the disclosure of which is alleged to be injurious to international relations, national defence or national security (Canada (Attorney General) v Ribic, 2003 FCA 246 [Ribic]), namely:
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(a)whether the information the AGC seeks to protect is relevant to the underlying proceeding;
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(b)if so, whether disclosure of the information would be injurious to international relations, national defence or national security; and
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(c)if so, whether the public interest in disclosure outweighs in importance the public interest in non-disclosure.
A. Relevance
[11] The relevance of the 2024 Judgment to the underlying civil action may be inferred from its disclosure to Mr. Almrei in the course of litigation. It should be noted that the threshold requirement for disclosure in the context of a civil action and the threshold applied at the first step of the Ribic test are both quite low (Canada (Attorney General) v Abdelrazik, 2023 FC 1100 [Abdelrazik] at para 81).
B. Injury
[12] Courts should accord deference to decisions of the executive in matters of international relations, national defence or national security, as the executive is considered to have greater knowledge and expertise in such matters. Nevertheless, the AGC has the burden to prove that disclosure would be injurious to international relations, national defence or national security (Canada (Attorney General) v Canada (Commission of Inquiry into the Actions of Canadian Officials in Relation to Maher Arar), 2007 FC 766 at paras 46-48). The anticipated injury must be probable, not merely possible or speculative, and is assessed against the standard of reasonableness (Ribic at para 18).
[13] The information the AGC seeks to protect falls within the categories identified by Justice Mosley in the 2024 Judgment at paragraph 79:
● Information that would identify, or tend to identify persons who agreed to cooperate with CSIS and provide information.
● Information that would disclose information received in confidence from foreign security and intelligence agencies by CSIS.
● Information that would identity, or tend to identify CSIS’s interest in individuals, groups or issues, including the existence or absence of past or present files or investigations.
● Information that would identify, or tend to identify, investigative techniques and methods of operation used by CSIS.
● Information that would identify, or tend to identify, CSIS employees, telecommunication systems or administrative methodologies.
● Information that would identify or tend to identify human sources as protected by s 18.1 of the CSIS Act.
[14] Pursuant to the Federal Court of Appeal’s ruling in Canada (Attorney General) v Almrei, 2022 FCA 206 [Almrei FCA], s 18.1 of the CSIS Act creates an absolute class privilege for CSIS human sources. A designated judge seized of an application under this provision can either (i) prohibit the disclosure of the privileged information, or (ii) order the disclosure of the information, if it is not subject to privilege. In the context of a criminal prosecution, the information remains subject to privilege but can be disclosed, with conditions, in order to establish the innocence of the accused (Almrei FCA at para 27). Section 18.1 of the CSIS Act does not permit the issuance of summaries, including non-identifying ones, in the context of civil proceedings.
[15] The information that would tend to reveal the identity of CSIS human sources is clear and unambiguous. Accordingly, this Court has no choice but to prohibit the disclosure of the privileged information, and cannot authorize the disclosure of even a non-identifying summary of the information.
[16] The AGC’s objection to the disclosure of the other redacted information is reasonable. This information falls within one or more of the categories identified by Justice Mosley in the 2024 Judgment at paragraph 79.
C. Competing Public Interests
[17] In carrying out the third part of the analysis under s 38.06 of the CEA, the Court must determine whether the public interest in disclosure outweighs in importance the public interest in non-disclosure. The party seeking disclosure bears the burden at this stage of establishing that the scale is tipped in its favour (2024 Judgment at para 147, citing Ribic at para 21).
[18] Justice Mosley’s articulation of the public importance of disclosing information for the purposes of Mr. Almrei’s civil action bears repeating here (2024 Judgment at para 150):
In this case, the Applicant alleges that his constitutional rights were breached and that he was the victim of a negligent investigation which resulted in his detention for nearly nine years. This Court found in 2009 that the basis on which Mr. Almrei was arrested and detained did not survive close scrutiny and the second certificate was quashed on the reasonableness standard. He is now seeking redress for the alleged breach of his rights and the defendant, if its servants were negligent, should be held to be accountable. While the underlying action does not directly concern his liberty or risk of removal to an oppressive regime, he will be contending that his Charter s 7 rights are at issue because of his lengthy detention during much of which he was in administrative segregation or solitary confinement. The engagement of a party’s Charter rights is a factor which “weighs heavily” in the balancing of public interests even where injury may result from disclosure: Khadr v Canada (Attorney General) 2008 FC 807 at para 57. The government’s nondisclosure should not be used as a shield to protect it from scrutiny where wrongdoing is alleged: Carey v. Ontario, (1986) 2 S.C.R. 637 at para 65.
[19] As Justice Mosley found in the 2024 Judgment, while the national security interest is undoubtedly important, so is the public interest in giving a litigant in civil proceedings a fair chance to make his case (at para 173).
[20] The open court principle also weighs in favour of public disclosure. Court files and proceedings are presumptively open to the public. The general rule is that justice should be carried out in the open and not in secret (Canada (Attorney General) v British Columbia Civil Liberties Association, 2024 FC 853 at para 47, citing Sherman Estate v Donovan, 2021 SCC 25 at paras 30 and 37-39); see also Reference re Canada Evidence Act, 2022 FC 1392 at para 11).
[21] The Court may consider the fact that the information in issue can be summarized as one of the factors in balancing the competing public interests. Depending on the circumstances, it may be beneficial to examine what the parties are actually seeking to disclose when weighing the public interests. The fact that the injury may be limited by disclosing some of the redacted information in the form of a summary weighs in favour of the public interest in disclosure. The summaries, when they are possible, avoid revealing particularly sensitive or injurious information (Abdelrazik at paras 68, 164).
[22] If the Court is satisfied that the public interest favours disclosure, ss 38.06(2) of the CEA permits authorization of the disclosure of information or facts in the form and under the conditions that are most likely to limit any injury to the protected national interests (2024 Judgment at para 177, citing Ribic at para 21; Canada (Attorney General) v Almalki, 2011 FCA 199 at para 13). The Court may authorize disclosure of all or part of the information or facts, a summary of the information, or a written admission of facts relating to the information.
[23] I agree with the AGC and Amici that disclosure of some of the redacted information in the form of summaries outweighs in importance the public interest in maintaining its confidentiality.
[24] The summaries proposed by the AGC and Amici explain the general nature of some of the information that has been redacted, e.g., “concerns about Source X’s suitability as a source”
; “[d]iscussion of the arrangements associated with the termination of the Source X”
; “issues discussed in these reasons”
. Other summaries are intended to prevent readers from misunderstanding the nature of the redactions.
[25] A concern expressed by Justice Mosley in the 2024 Judgment was that “[o]ne effect of the redactions is to obscure that certain paragraphs apply to the same human source which is, in itself, misleading even if some of the text is unredacted”
(at para 71). A potentially misleading redaction may elevate the public interest in disclosing information or a summary to prevent misapprehension of what the information signifies.
[26] Justice Mosley noted that he had received copies of the documents that were the subject of his ruling with read-through colour highlights of the redacted information. He then explained the categories of information to which the different colours pertained (2024 Judgment at paras 78-79). The AGC asks to withhold the colour coding used to identify the different categories of protected information.
[27] The AGC’s account of the injury that will result from disclosure of the full colour coding scheme is complicated and cannot be adequately summarized in public reasons. Essentially, the AGC’s concern arises from the oft-cited “mosaic effect”
, whereby “apparently innocuous items of information can be assembled by an informed and hostile reader and used to cause injury”
(Mamut v Canada (Citizenship and Immigration), 2024 FC 536 at para 58, citing Soltanizadeh v Canada (Citizenship and Immigration), 2018 FC 114; see also Canada (Attorney General) v Almalki, 2010 FC 1106 at paras 115–119).
[28] The bald assertion that information could be of value to an informed reader is not enough. There must be a reasonably articulated evidentiary basis for the claim that makes sense to the judge (Ibid). I accept the assessment of the AGC and Amici that disclosure of the full colour coding scheme would be injurious to national security, but disclosure of a summary confirming that some of the categories are identified by the same or different colours (i.e., “Colour A”
, “Colour B”
) would not be.
[29] In sum, I am satisfied that disclosure of the summaries of information redacted in the 2024 Judgment jointly proposed by the AGC and the Amici will cause minimal, if any, injury to national security, and will provide meaningful disclosure to Mr. Almrei and the public.
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Conclusion
[30] The AGC’s request to prohibit the disclosure of information withheld from Justice Mosley’s 2024 Judgment will be granted, and the prohibition of disclosure will be confirmed pursuant to s 38.06(3) of the CEA. This is subject to the Court’s approval of the summaries of information proposed by the AGC and Amici pursuant to s 38.06(2) of the CEA.
[31] The 2024 Judgment will be issued to Mr. Almrei and published with the redactions provided by counsel for the AGC to this Court on January 22, 2026.
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