#970 Pierre Trudeau Last from D T Nicholson

In the best of all possible worlds, Alexandre Trudeau wouldn't have to talk to the media about anything but his own work as a filmmaker. Yet the 32-year-old writer-director is still affectionately known as Sacha - at least to those who watched his father, Pierre, run our country, virtually uninterrupted, between 1968 and 1984. Having grown up in the limelight, he seems at peace with the attention that comes from having a larger-than-life father.

"It's not something I've necessarily taken very seriously," Trudeau said Tuesday during an interview in the lounge of Old Montreal's Nelligan Hotel. "It's a result of the cult of personality aimed at my father, of which I am the lucky and unlucky inheritor." Unlucky, he said, because people might prejudge his work. Lucky, because his name might bring a larger audience for films like Secure Freedom, his third CTV documentary, which examines Canada's use of security certificates.

Under the certificate system, the Canadian government is allowed to hold a terror suspect indefinitely, without charges, while a judge weighs evidence to decide whether the detainee should be deported - possibly to a country that uses torture. At no point is the suspect or his lawyer allowed to see any evidence against him.

Trudeau's film zeroes in on the case of Hassan Almrei, a Syrian-born refugee, who has been held without charges for almost five years, mostly in solitary confinement. According to the documentary, the government says he is a forger for Al-Qa'ida. The proof, however, remains secret.

Trudeau has been personally involved in Almrei's case. In June last year, he offered to put up $5,000 for bail. Two months later, he appealed to federal Justice Minister Irwin Cotler to intervene on behalf of Almrei and Mohammad Mahjoub, another detainee, whose story is also referenced in Secure Freedom.

Trudeau said he has no problem taking advocacy journalism all the way. "Information is always coloured," he said. "There is, in my view, no such thing as objective information. Secure Freedom is my own journey, my own thoughts, my own doubts. And I propose to the viewer to join me on this journey and to agree with me or disagree with me - but to become informed, as I do."

In the process of becoming informed, Trudeau uncovered information about his subject that will, no doubt, leave some viewers uncomfortable: Almrei's purchase of two fake passports, for instance, one of which he sold to a man who was initially said to be implicated in the 9/11 attacks and later cleared. Almrei subsequently lied about knowing him. It's all in the film, and Trudeau is more than OK with any misgivings viewers might have.

"I'm not taking a position on his innocence or on his guilt. I don't need to. It's not my job. I take the position that he, like anyone else, deserves fairness and justice - whether innocent or guilty - and one is innocent until proven guilty. And even then, guilty individuals have the right to dignity," he said.

If some aren't sympathetic to the film's central character, so be it. While Trudeau took pains to make it clear that he found Almrei to be a stimulating and intelligent man, with a great sense of humour, he insisted that it was a principle - not Almrei's personality - that drew him to the project.

Security certificates fly in the face of Canadian values, Alexandre Trudeau says.