Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I want to join in expressing our appreciation for your appearance here today, Mr. Therrien. May I, at the same time, thank the outgoing interim commissioner, Chantal Bernier, for her steadfast work and also the former Privacy Commissioner, Jennifer Stoddart, with whom I've had the pleasure as well of working on some of these matters.
Mr. Therrien, I had the benefit of your counsel about nine years ago in an appearance before the then Sub-Committee on Public Safety and National Security of the Standing Committee on Justice, Human Rights, Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness. That dealt, among other things, with the relationship between security and rights. One of the things that arose then, and which I want to address now, is the question of a parliamentary oversight committee for national security to watch the watchers. You served in the Department of Justice as chair of national security and intelligence.
Since there have been calls for many years in both the House and the Senate to create a parliamentary oversight committee to watch the watchers, as it has been put, and given the vast amount of data that is now collected by law enforcement agencies and government agencies, do you agree with the merit of this idea? If so, why would you support it, and if not, why would you not support it?