Mr. Chair, once again, when the government introduced this bill, they said that they were hoping to get all-party agreement, and that we'd have complete and full discussions in committee. Of course I'm very disappointed at this time that none of the amendments we put forward were considered.
Setting that aside, I still think it would be useful to, within two years after the coming into force of this act, go back to this act and look at what we've done, and make sure these expansions of powers have not limited the ability of SIRC or any other review mechanism to deal with providing proper oversight for national security activities in Canada.
We've had the abolition of the position of inspector general within CSIS. We had some concerns, which were ruled out of order today, about the expertise and appointment process for SIRC. All this amendment would do is say that if the government insists on pressing ahead with this, in two years we'll come back, look at the impacts of the changes the government had made both to CSIS and to other aspects of the review process, and see where we are. I think it makes sense.
We have not specified the mechanism. We've left that to the government at that time to specify. But it would be very useful for the committee to look back at what we've done because we're making piecemeal changes here.
To me, both the integrity and the credibility of CSIS, and other national security operations depend on them protecting both national security and civil liberties at the same time. Therefore, oversight is essential to the way they do these jobs.