Evidence of meeting #125 for Procedure and House Affairs in the 44th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was nsicop.
A video is available from Parliament.
Senior Fellow, Centre for International Governance Innovation, As an Individual
That's what I've seen in selected instances.
Senior Fellow, Centre for International Governance Innovation, As an Individual
I fear it might be. That's why I said “fatally undermine”. It's a question of the extent to which Parliament is willing to trust and rely on the abilities of NSICOP to bring issues to Parliament's attention, in that accountability realm, that are of major public interest.
Liberal
Ryan Turnbull Liberal Whitby, ON
Thank you.
You also mentioned the heightened risk of unauthorized disclosure, which is something that concerns me as well. One of the questions or ramifications of this bill would be that if there are numerous other MPs who now have secret security clearance and have gained access to national security and intelligence information, how would we ensure the necessary safeguards in how those documents information is shared? Would their staff need to get security clearances?
There seems to be a whole number of other considerations in operationalizing the implications of this bill. Would that not be a concern for you as well?
Senior Fellow, Centre for International Governance Innovation, As an Individual
Thank you, Mr. Turnbull.
Just very briefly, as Mr. Ruff will know full well, there are processes and protections that need to be in place to handle classified information—to store it, to retain it and so on. All of that would have to be made available to MPs, senators and conceivably their staff, depending on how this process would be rolled out, if the private member's bill were established.
I don't want to emphasize the idea that parliamentarians cannot be trusted with classified information. My concern about heightened risk is in part a concern about how this initiative would be read by our Five Eyes partners, to be honest, in terms of that tension that always exists about the kinds of information and intelligence that can be provided to Canada and the extent to which it can be protected by Canadians. I think there would be some questions raised by our Five Eyes partners, not least because they do not share this practice.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Ben Carr
Thanks very much, Mr. Turnbull.
Ms. Gaudreau, you may go ahead for two and a half minutes.
Bloc
Marie-Hélène Gaudreau Bloc Laurentides—Labelle, QC
Mr. Chair, although I have a lot to say on this topic, I will stick to the matter before us today.
What we're trying to get is the relevant information that will help ensure our national security. I've noticed that, over the past six years, obstruction has taken place. As you said, it's partisan obstruction. On one hand, there is an attempt to hide information, possibly out of fear of shedding light on a situation, and on the other, there is Bill C‑377, which is an attempt to know everything.
I heard you say that the current organization needs more teeth. The executive branch puts out a report, which I didn't even know about. That means there's a lot of information available to us, as parliamentarians.
In the current situation, even if a bill like this one is passed, there will be changes. The roles will change. The goal is to regain the confidence of our democratic society.
I'd like to hear your thoughts on that before deciding whether or not to support the bill.
Senior Fellow, Centre for International Governance Innovation, As an Individual
Madame Gaudreau, just very briefly—again, I'll be repeating myself a bit—I think members of Parliament can do a great public service by better educating themselves, when the opportunities come, with regard to national security and intelligence issues. Much of that process can be based on publicly available information.
I do think that Parliament should hold the government to account for its national security transparency commitment and really press on that. It would be wonderful to see the Access to Information Act really revitalized. I fully agree with Dr. Leuprecht that it is a completely broken system.
Also, it may well be that members of Parliament simply do not understand, and this is why the declassification process is so important. Once a document is classified, it remains classified forever under the current system, unless someone comes along and makes an access request for it, and even if that person comes along and makes an access request for it, that information is regarded as theirs and not the public's, so it doesn't become public.
It is the craziest system that you can imagine, and it needs reform, but we haven't seen that reform.
Bloc
Marie-Hélène Gaudreau Bloc Laurentides—Labelle, QC
Mr. Chair, I'd like to know whether the witness can send the committee the 2021 report entitled “Reimagining a Canadian National Security Strategy”.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Ben Carr
Dr. Wark, if you have access to that.... We can get it on our end, too, but we'll want to make that available as per Madam Gaudreau's request. Thank you.
Ms. Mathyssen, you'll be the last speaker for today. There are two and a half minutes for you.
NDP
Lindsay Mathyssen NDP London—Fanshawe, ON
I always love being last.
I would like to thank both witnesses. You both referenced access to information. That's why I was so adamant about having that review in the national defence committee, where we're going through that report right now—a soon-to-be excellent read.
Dr. Wark, I think you mentioned the lack of the review that was overdue in terms of the NSICOP report. It sparks me to say that if we're going to make changes or amendments to this piece of legislation, would you—or either witness, actually—comment on the need for a review mechanism within this piece of legislation?
Senior Fellow, Centre for International Governance Innovation, As an Individual
Ms. Mathyssen, I'll just go quickly. It's an interesting question.
I think there's much that is unclear in he governance of this process that Mr. Ruff has proposed, including questions we've touched on, such as how CSIS would handle security clearances and to whom recommendations would be made and how those recommendations might be handled, whether granting a clearance or denying it. Who would be in a position to review such a process I think would be a question that I would scratch my head about.
Thank you.
Professor, Royal Military College of Canada, As an Individual
Timely review is built in. For instance, the Australians do this regularly, with an outside judge, every five years for the whole national security infrastructure. The problem we have in Canada is that we build in these mechanisms, but then the government of the day doesn't follow through, for any number of reasons.
Yes, a review, but there's also the question of what kind of review. Would it necessarily be a review within a parliamentary committee or would it perhaps be an outside review? Certainly, on these types of mechanisms, it will be worthwhile to look at whether the effects we intended to achieve are actually working to that particular end.
For me, the effect would be that of providing a rebalancing of the information asymmetry between Parliament and the executive.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Ben Carr
Thank you very much, Ms. Mathyssen.
Colleagues, that brings us to the end of today's testimony. I do have a couple of quick items for the committee to deal with that aren't relevant to our witnesses.
Dr. Wark and Dr. Leuprecht, thank you very much for being here today. I wish you a good rest of your day, and thank you so much for the insight you provided.
Colleagues, just very quickly.... You will recall that we changed the meeting time for this Thursday's meeting from 10:30 to 1:30 originally. We only have two hours' worth of business as a result of not being able to get enough witnesses. Here's my question, then: Do we want to go from 11:00 to 1:00, our usual window, or do we want to keep the change but have it be from 11:30 to 1:30?
Bloc
Marie-Hélène Gaudreau Bloc Laurentides—Labelle, QC
Since we're going to have some time in a week, we can deal with it then.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Ben Carr
Colleagues, I'm seeing unanimous consent on that, so it will be our regular meeting time.
One other thing to mention is that the analyst has let me know that we're very close to receiving the final translated copy of the report that he's drafted from the Chief Electoral Officer with regard to the Nunavut pilot project. That will be coming out relatively soon. We'll ask everybody to keep an eye out for that because we will have to dedicate a couple of moments of committee business to going through that report.
With that, colleagues, it's been a very productive meeting. Thank you very much. Have a good rest of the week.