Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
I just want to stress again, Mr. Minister, that when you talked about this bill at the outset we had hoped the bill could be made effective, and we had hoped we could have all-party support for the bill. The attitude of the government is now making me very doubtful.
We share the same interest as you in making sure that our national security agencies maintain their quality and the reputation of their services, and we think that accountability is quite important to that. There is nothing in this bill on that.
You mentioned the challenge of transferring intelligence into evidence. I think those were your words. We share that concern about taking intelligence and making sure you can use it in prosecutions. I have a concern that the way this bill is drafted it may make it more difficult to do those prosecutions. When you talk about the protection of the identity of witnesses, the courts can protect the identity of CSIS sources on a case-by-case basis now. They didn't say that wasn't possible.
When you say they invited you to do this, I believe that if you read the decisions, they said that Parliament could do this. They didn't say it was necessary, and they didn't say that Parliament should provide this blanket protection; they said it was possible.
Why risk this change to limit the rights of the defence to challenge the use of intelligence information in prosecutions? Why risk a change that might either make it more difficult to prosecute, or might result in those provisions being declared unconstitutional?