Mr. Chairman, I'll try to be brief as it pertains to the legislation and certainly the subamendment.
We saw the media report on these individuals from Quebec who left. The report said—and I have to take it at its face value at this point because I don't have anything else to suggest otherwise—that one of the individuals said that his passport had been stolen. Actually, according to the report, his father said he had taken that passport so the individual asked for a new one. Now, if CSIS knew that, they actually wouldn't be able to go to the passport folks and say that they couldn't reissue. That is just one point I wanted to make.
We're often asked to limit our statements, as previously said by others and particularly the parliamentary secretary. I've been in a number of committees where we've actually limited the speaking time of the witnesses to five minutes, or to seven minutes, and potentially other times.
What was also interesting was listening to our colleague Mr. Garrison. He was talking about Grand Chief Phillip and saying that he was arrested. He was suggesting that this legislation had something to do with it, but my recollection is that this legislation isn't law yet, so I'm not sure how it would have impacted that. It's just a point I wanted to make.
Also, I believe it was Mr. Garrison who also stated that CSIS can't be trusted. I mean, as witnesses here, I just wonder about that comment.... I know that he also talked about dozens and dozens of phone calls coming into their offices. I also had a bunch of phone calls coming in from a group well known to be very friendly to the NDP asking us to stop this legislation. My staff asked them if they actually read the legislation. The vast majority said that no, they hadn't. So they didn't even know anything about it, and on their concerns regarding that, I find it a bit frustrating and a bit phony, if I might suggest, Mr. Chairman.
I think the final point I want to make is that we still need to make sure that officers, when they go before the courts...they need to get a warrant, so they have a judicial presence in getting those warrants to do whatever it is they might need to do in terms of stopping terrorism. That's what this bill is all about, Mr. Chairman.
Thank you.