Finance Committee on May 17th, 2012

[Brian Jean, Conservative, Fort McMurray—Athabasca, AB]

Of having the oil sands....

[Scott Brison, Liberal, Kings—Hants, NS]

—to put oil under the ground, we would have done the same thing. We just didn't think about it.

[Brian Jean, Conservative, Fort McMurray—Athabasca, AB]

You are digging it. It's in Alberta.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

Is there a question for Mr. Macdonald?

[Brian Jean, Conservative, Fort McMurray—Athabasca, AB]

There is no question there.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

Okay. It's just a comment.

May I finish with this division, then, colleagues?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

Thank you.

Mr. Macdonald, I want to thank you very much for answering our questions and for being with us and giving your presentation.

Colleagues, I am going to take a five-minute health break in the interests of all of us. We'll resume in five minutes.

[Shelly Glover, Conservative, Saint Boniface, MB]

Six minutes.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

I call the 61st meeting of the Standing Committee on Finance back to order. We are studying Bill C-38.

Colleagues, we had just finished with division 17, but we had also just tabled division 15. We are glad to have two officials from Public Safety join us here today. They are going to talk about the Canadian Security Intelligence Service Act.

We look forward to any overview you may have of these amendments, and we will have some questions from members after that.

[John Davies, Director General, National Security Policy, Department of Public Safety]

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and I apologize for messing up your order earlier on.

Division 15, or clauses 378 to 387 of the budget implementation act, is relatively straightforward. It amends the Canadian Security Intelligence Service Act to abolish the Office of the Inspector General.

For those who are perhaps unfamiliar with the role of the Inspector General, I'll briefly go through what it does. The main task of the Inspector General is to produce an annual report, what is called in legislation a “certificate”, for the public safety minister. The certificate is basically an attestation by the Inspector General that the Canadian Security Intelligence Service is abiding by its mandate, legislation, and ministerial direction, and that the report of the director of the service is accurate. That's the primary function of the Inspector General. The Inspector General does not deal with complaints in any way; it's a review body.

Clause 380 in the BIA repeals the functions and the powers of the Inspector General. Clause 381 gives those functions and powers over to the Security Intelligence Review Committee, which is another review body of the service. Basically, the director's report will be looked at by the Security Intelligence Review Committee and it will proceed from there.

For those of you who are unfamiliar with the Security Intelligence Review Committee, it is a legislated external review body that reports to Parliament. It does external reviews of the performance of CSIS—I guess that would be its main function—and it also deals with complaints about the activities of the service. Again, as with the Inspector General, it looks in particular at CSIS's adherence to its mandate, to ministerial direction and, to some extent, CSIS's internal operational policies. I can go over some of the work of the Security Intelligence Review Committee in more detail, if you're interested.

But to finish off on the other clauses in the budget implementation act, there are a few other clauses that tighten up the reporting role that the Security Intelligence Review Committee will have to ensure that all reviews will go to the minister. It also ensures there will be at least an annual briefing to the minister, or at any other time the minister requests.

As I said, these 10 clauses are relatively straightforward in transferring the primary role of the Inspector General to the Security Intelligence Review Committee.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

Thank you very much for that overview.

We'll begin members' questions with Mr. Marston, please.

[Wayne Marston, NDP, Hamilton East—Stoney Creek, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Before we start, I want to assure you that I'm not a conspiracy theorist. One of my favourite writers is Kris Kristofferson, and he's written a song The law is for the Protection of the People. Understandably, with all of the rhetoric—and I want to stress that word—around the intelligence communities of all countries, there's a kind of mystery to it all, as is necessary.

We're changing the oversight with these changes, and with regard to the SIRC, is there a similar expertise, particularly an intelligence-related type of expertise, compared to those on the existing committee?

[John Davies]

Yes. It's very similar. A number of analysts who have worked in the Inspector General's office have also worked at the Security Intelligence Review Committee and vice versa. It's the same thing in Public Safety with the national security branch, of which I am part. A number of analysts have worked in both places, so they have a similar or complementary skill set.

As one point of clarification, neither the Security Intelligence Review Committee nor the Inspector General is really an oversight body. Oversight implies that it's ongoing, and now it's more of a review function looking back at activities.

[Wayne Marston, NDP, Hamilton East—Stoney Creek, ON]

Would that be an annual review? How frequently would it be?

[John Davies]

The Security Intelligence Review Committee and Inspector General both produce annual reports summarizing all the reviews they've done during the year.

[Wayne Marston, NDP, Hamilton East—Stoney Creek, ON]

So those reports would go to the minister, and then to the Parliament by the minister?

[John Davies]

The normal review function of the Security Intelligence Review Committee would continue. Their annual report would be submitted by the minister to Parliament. In addition, there would be an internal report prepared by the minister—the certificate—which is the former Inspector General's function.

[Wayne Marston, NDP, Hamilton East—Stoney Creek, ON]

By “internal”, do you mean it doesn't go to Parliament?

[John Davies]

That's right. It goes to the minister. An unclassified version is released, though.

[Wayne Marston, NDP, Hamilton East—Stoney Creek, ON]

That covers my questions.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

Thank you, Mr. Marston.

Mr. Brison.

[Scott Brison, Liberal, Kings—Hants, NS]

I want to confirm the justification for this change. Was it purely budgetary?

[John Davies]

It was part of the deficit reduction action plan, so it was a budgetary decision. I think it's also a strong policy rationale, given that we're consolidating similar functions.

[Scott Brison, Liberal, Kings—Hants, NS]

From what I understand, the Inspector General is usually chosen from within the security establishment. Is that right?