Evidence of meeting #14 for Afghanistan in the 44th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was documents.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Sukh Dhaliwal
Thank you, Mr. El-Khoury. I can't go to the vote as long as I see hands raised.
I see Mr. Chong has his hand raised.
Mr. Chong, the floor is yours.
Conservative
Michael Chong Conservative Wellington—Halton Hills, ON
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I don't want to delay a vote on this either, but this is a really important issue and it's a long-standing problem in our Canadian Parliament. I feel passionately about this and I feel strongly about this. This is an issue that has transcended partisan politics. It is an issue that has bedevilled our Parliament for decades now, and through both Liberal and Conservative governments. It's a problem.
We do not have the information necessary to do our jobs. This is a long-standing issue that precedes the current government. It's an issue that we are witnessing again on this committee. I believe strongly that one of the reasons this country lags in national security issues is precisely a lack of parliamentary oversight.
We do not have a committee of Parliament.... We do not have parliamentary committees that are empowered to have access to highly classified documents of the highest order, which would ensure that there is a watchdog over the government's national security and intelligence activities, whether they relate to what happened in Afghanistan or they relate to other matters of national security. I think that's the reason we continue to see problems with national security in our country and problems with the government doing better on national security. Until we, as parliamentarians, assert ourselves and hold the government accountable for giving us information, we are going to continue to see a decline in these national security institutions.
These have consequences. We are not part of the AUKUS agreement that was recently announced. It took everybody by surprise. We weren't even aware that it was coming down the pike last fall when it was announced.
We are an outlier in not having access to these documents. The U.K., as I mentioned, has a committee of Parliament that has access to highly classified information. It's the Intelligence and Security Committee of Parliament. Its members are not appointed by the Prime Minister; they are elected by the two chambers in their Parliament. Their chair is elected, as well, and they have access to documents of the most classified nature. In the U.S. Congress, they have both in the upper chamber, the Senate, and in their House of Representatives committees that have access to highly classified documents. As a result, I think their respective governments do a much better job in protecting the national security of their populations relative to our country. That's not a partisan comment, because this problem has predated the appointment of this government in November 2015.
I encourage everybody on this committee to vote down this amendment, because we have to start to assert ourselves, and we are not going to get these documents, either here or elsewhere, unless we, as parliamentarians, start asserting ourselves and saying we have the right to these documents.
Speaker Milliken confirmed in his precedent-setting ruling some time ago that we are “the grand inquest of the nation” and that we have, under section 18 of the Constitution, unfettered, long-held rights to these documents, whether they're redacted or unredacted. We have to start demanding this kind of information, so that we can get the job done and hold the government's feet to the fire, and so that they, in turn, can do a much better job of managing issues, whether it's Afghanistan or other issues.
I'll finish by saying this quickly, Mr. Chair. To my knowledge, Parliament has never had a national security breach. I don't recall any document or information that was injurious to national security that was ever leaked by a parliamentary committee or by the House as a whole. However, I can list dozens of examples across many different governments of national security breaches that are of the highest order and that are egregious.
We all know about the Winnipeg lab document issue and Chinese military scientists in the Winnipeg lab, but it predates that. We had a former employee of that lab under the previous Harper government who tried to smuggle prohibited materials across the Canada-U.S. border from that lab. He was arrested by U.S. border officials back in, I think, 2008 or 2009. I think of the Canada Revenue Agency breaches. Just last October, we had the very issue that we're on about now, when several hundred vulnerable Afghans who were seeking refuge from the Taliban had their names leaked by a government department. There are tons of examples of this.
We are parliamentarians. We will be respectful with information that's injurious to national security and that could be compromising national security. Let's not diminish Parliament by suggesting that somehow we can't handle this information but the government can, because the facts say otherwise.
I'll finish with that, Mr. Chair. Thank you.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Sukh Dhaliwal
Thank you, Mr. Chong.
We'll go to Madam Damoff. Madam Findlay, you will be next.
Go ahead, Madam Damoff.
Liberal
Pam Damoff Liberal Oakville North—Burlington, ON
Thank you, Chair.
I'm just wondering if we could suspend for 10 minutes, just so I have a chance to discuss with my colleagues and perhaps come up with another solution.
Liberal
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Sukh Dhaliwal
I'm going to call the meeting back to order.
Madam Damoff, you have the floor.
Liberal
Pam Damoff Liberal Oakville North—Burlington, ON
Thank you so much, Chair.
I know that there seems to be some question about whether there's national security involved here. We have a commitment to get a letter by Monday, so I'm going to move that we adjourn debate and we resume this on Monday.
Just to be clear, I move that we adjourn the meeting.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Sukh Dhaliwal
The motion is not debatable, so I'm going to ask the clerk to take the vote.
(Motion agreed to: yeas 7; nays 4)
The meeting is adjourned. Thank you. We'll see you on Monday.