First of all, I think our committees are set up very differently, as I understand them. As I understand the responsibilities of the Finnish foreign policy committee or foreign affairs committee, you are also the oversight committee of security. Is that correct?
We have a number of different departments. I know that the prior government conducted a study, in which I was vice-chair of national security. We were looking for a parliamentary committee that could be an oversight of the intelligence-gathering agencies that we have here in this country.
I want to study more the Finnish model because, as I understand it, your committee specifically is the oversight for even those intelligence-gathering agencies. Is that correct? That is correct. So we are set up very differently. In security we have our intelligence-gathering agency, CSIS, and our RCMP, which are all part of another department, the Department of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness. We have an oversight committee of CSIS, known as SIRC, that goes through to make sure that everything that is carried out in this agency of CSIS is done properly so that every human right is recognized and protected.
So they are very different. How we have reports to our committees.... Our committee is not structured as yours is. We have ministerial accountability. Ministers will come--in fact we're expecting one this afternoon, and we had one last week--to give us an update on how that department is, or how Canada is, in that certain area they're responsible for.
I'm not certain if that's answering your question. In the last week, for example, we had a minister who appeared. He talked about Hamas and about the Middle East. He talked about some of those issues, but it's our responsibility to be aware of it but not to be necessarily the oversight of any of that.