Mr. Chair, with respect, I'm speaking directly to that point. We need to have adequate time to have witnesses from CSIS here so that the parliamentary secretary can challenge the evidence that was presented in the Senate if she believes it was incorrect.
On the same note, on October 27, before the Senate Standing Committee on National Security and Defence, the Commissioner of the RCMP appeared, and that was after the very unfortunate incident here on October 22. The Commissioner of the RCMP said, in testimony there, that he found it necessary to transfer resources from organized crime and drug enforcement to national security because he did not have enough resources assigned to national security.
Let's have adequate time. That's one of the reasons that my original amendment said two witnesses per session rather than three, so that we would have adequate time when we have those witnesses before us to ask them these important questions. Again, if the parliamentary secretary thinks that the Commissioner of the RCMP was distorting the situation about his budget when he testified before the Senate committee, then that's something very important to get before this committee. At that time, she should challenge the Commissioner of the RCMP about his saying he had to transfer, I believe—and again, I don't have that testimony before me—resources for 200 personnel. It's very serious if we're talking about terrorism threats when we have the Commissioner of the RCMP saying in a public forum that he lacked enough resources to deal with that question.
I think the question, again, that we need to hear testimony on, is whether any of the things in this bill, such as expanding the powers of CSIS and putting a new offence in the Criminal Code of promoting terrorism in general, are necessary. In that context, if they are necessary and we're going to add them, do we have enough resources for law enforcement and national security agencies to make use of the new powers this bill is offering them? I submit that when we hear that testimony, we will have important evidence before us from which to draw conclusions about this bill.
When challenged to give the relevance of that to the question in front of us today, again, one of the things the parliamentary secretary said in her opening remarks was that we need to lower the threshold for preventative arrest and detention, implying that the system does not work. One of the questions we have about the incident that took place in Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu and the very unfortunate loss of life there has to do with the fact that the police went to court and did not succeed in getting a peace bond. What I would like, which we still do not have, is any report, before Parliament or public, on that incident that would allow us to draw a conclusion. Was the reason they were unable to get a peace bond actually that the bar was too high or that they lacked evidence because they hadn't devoted enough resources to the case to gather that evidence? I have some questions, in general, and again, I think we could hear legal testimony about this, regarding whether a peace bond would have had any impact on the incident that took place in Saint-Jean. I'm doubtful that it would, because peace bonds don't normally include things like a restriction on the ability to drive. They had not foreseen the use of an automobile as a weapon.
Again, what we're lacking is a report on that incident. What I would hope we would have time for—