As Ms. Pillay has said, information sharing is a modern reality. We should participate in it, but we need checks and balances in the form of an adequate review structure. Although the Privacy Commissioner obviously has some role here, if we had a dedicated national security review—if the activities of, say, SIRC, the Security Intelligence Review Committee, were expanded, as Justice O'Connor recommended in Arar—we would have greater confidence that the information sharing that must take place with our allies, both in and out, is done in as responsible a manner as possible.
The problem is that this act is silent about foreign information sharing. Even its operative principles do not actualize what Justice O'Connor said was important, which was that when we share information or receive information from allies, we should be cognizant of the reliability, lack of reliability, or, as is often the case with intelligence, unknown reliability of that information.