Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
I'm going to be speaking to the issue of the elimination of the Office of the Inspector General.
The protection of the national security against threats is of the highest priority, and the men and women who dedicate their professional lives to this task deserve our sincere thanks. At the same time, we must acknowledge that the presence of a domestic intelligence agency that covertly investigates persons within Canada, including Canadian citizens, for activities that are not necessarily unlawful but are suspected of being threats to Canada, is on its face inconsistent with democratic values.
Because of their covert nature, security intelligence activities do not lend themselves to a traditional accountability model. While all government institutions are subject to the Access to Information Act and the Privacy Act, which acts allow individuals to access personal information that individual departments or agencies may have collected, any such request to CSIS would elicit a "neither confirm or deny" response.
This normally unacceptable situation is currently accepted in Canada because we recognize that Canada faces security threats that must be investigated if we are to preserve our democracy; that traditional accountability models would compromise the intelligence agency's ability to protect us against threats; and that following the FLQ crises, the Royal Commission of Inquiry headed by Justice MacDonald and in-depth deliberations by a joint committee of the House and the Senate headed by Senator Pitfield resulted in the crafting of a thoughtful oversight/review regime that forged an acceptable balance between the realities of intelligence work and the imperatives of a democracy.
That regime, in addition to the creation of SIRC, placed the Minister of Public Safety in a direct line of accountability for the investigative actions of CSIS. The minister's personal approval is required for every court application to intercept communications and to conduct searches. That isn't just a general authority. He has to look at it and approve it. The minister may direct whom the service may or may not investigate. By way of contrast, the minister's resignation would be demanded were the minister to seek to exercise such a role in regard to the activities of the RCMP. Inappropriate behaviour by CSIS falls at the feet of the minister. He cannot distance himself from their actions as he would with the RCMP.
The Minister of Public Safety presides over a vast portfolio that engages some 40,000 public servants. It is impossible for him to know whether each individual is conducting his or her responsibilities in accordance with the law, operational policies, and ministerial directives, and whether powers are being exercised in a reasonable manner. It is for this very reason that we have the Office of the Inspector General. That office audits the investigative activity of CSIS at the case-file level to ensure that it is complying. The Inspector General reports directly to the minister and provides assurances that matters are on course or provides a heads-up as to potential problems.
When one considers the personal accountability assigned to the minister by Parliament, one can understand the need to provide the minister with a set of independent and professional eyes and ears that will permit him to fulfill his role properly. Without such an office, the minister would be blind and entirely at the mercy of the intelligence service. This is not a reasonable or desirable outcome.
Both the RCMP Security Service and CSIS have had more than their fair share of troubles. Edmund Burke once said that those who don't know history are destined to repeat it. The financial cost of past missteps in the area of national security, measured simply in terms of Commissions of Inquiries, runs to the many tens of millions of dollars, and that's not counting the loss of public support. There can be no acceptable excuse for failure to detect mistakes.
I know that you are worried about costs. As a cost exercise, the cost associated with the Office of the Inspector General is a small price to pay if one wants to maintain a covert intelligence agency in Canada. If you choose to eliminate this office, I'd recommend that you accompany it with the following common recommendation that future missteps by the intelligence service will be accompanied by the resignation of the Minister of Public Safety. Wilful blindness as to potential problems at CSIS must carry a price. After all, all responsibility ultimately rests with the minister.