I certainly recognize—we all recognize—the political urgency in the government's avoidance of talking about the economy in recent weeks.
Beyond that, we will support this motion, with reservations. We recognize the importance of studying terrorist financing, and FINTRAC falls under the Department of Finance, but this study ought to be conducted by a parliamentary intelligence and security committee, the kind of committee that exists in the other Five Eyes countries. In Australia, New Zealand, the U.K., and the United States there is congressional or parliamentary oversight. These committees are better able to study terrorist financing than our finance committee, in part because members have a heightened level of security clearance and expertise to delve into the issues.
I'll give you an example of why security clearance is required and important, as we're studying FINTRAC and its efficacy around terrorist financing. FINTRAC uses very specific algorithms to identify suspicious transactions. These are highly secret. As the finance committee, we will be able to scratch the surface, but that's about it, because we don't have the same security clearance that parliamentarians or members of Congress have on their security committees in other countries. For the life of me, I don't understand why the government is resisting the same kind of parliamentary oversight of security that our international coalition partners in the Five Eyes have implemented.
Since there is no security and intelligence committee of Parliament in Canada, we can proceed as a finance committee with this study. But let's be clear: it is an imperfect situation, which will yield a study that does not provide as much information or as much clarity as one conducted by a true parliamentary intelligence and security committee, the kind we have been calling for and would put in place as a Liberal government in the future.