Thank you, sir.
I take your admonition with good grace, but what I had wanted to say was that this is the context in which I want to talk about how many meetings we should be having. It's because of those kinds of statements, because of the seriousness of this legislation, because of the fundamental need for good understanding, not only by members of Parliament but also by the public, that we need to have a sufficient number of hearings.
For example, this committee itself, I'm told—I wasn't here, so I'm sure Mr. Norlock could disagree with me if I'm wrong—devoted 12 meetings to the economics of policing. Now, the economics of policing I'm sure was obviously of great interest to this committee. They devoted 12 meetings to it. But I don't think the economics of policing is as important as the fundamental rights and freedoms that people have in this country. When legislation such as this has been....
As has been said, each and every day it seems new aspects of this legislation are being challenged by people who are experts, by people who have or have had significant leadership roles in this country, by academics and lawyers, on both sides. I looked at a transcript today of an interview done in St. John's with a person who was a long-time prosecutor and now is a defence counsel talking about the fundamental problems with that. We do need to have a significant amount of study to devote to that. I have another note here suggesting that for the transport committee's study on safety, they had 31 meetings, and they're still ongoing.
Really, the question is how many witnesses will we be able to hear from, and will there be sufficient time? This legislation was contemplated last fall. The Minister of Public Safety, before October 22, before the events that took place here in this Parliament that we all know about, talked about legislation being brought forward to give new powers to the security services. Well, that was last October. We didn't see the legislation until two weeks ago. It was rushed through Parliament with a closure motion. And despite Mr. Norlock's suggestion of good faith on the other side, they come in here and suggest that we should deal with this in three meetings; get rid of it, because it has to be brought into place.
That's not good faith, in my view, Mr. Chairman. It's not surprising that it was objected to by the official opposition and by the Liberal Party as well.
It has been pointed out, of course, that when Parliament dealt with anti-terrorism legislation after the horrific events of September 11, 2001, there were 19 days of hearings. And September 11 was a shock to the world: over 3,000 people were killed in one day—many Canadians were part of that—by a planned, elaborate, and shocking terrorist attack on the World Trade towers in New York. There was a need for a response and reaction to that. When that came, it didn't get rushed through in 24 hours or 48 hours or three days. It was studied and looked at; it was made sure that it passed whatever muster that was able to be given to it. Amendments were made to it. Sunset clauses were put in on some of the powers that were given.
That sort of thing happened then. What we're dealing with today is something a fair bit different from that. It's a little more complex, and maybe a little bit more...situations are required. We're dealing with people leaving this country to go to foreign lands. We have people being inspired by activity in other countries to do so-called lone wolf acts here.
We have all sorts of issues with respect to whether these individuals are acting in concert with anybody else, whether they're “murderous misfits”, as the Minister of Justice called certain people who planned some criminal acts in Nova Scotia, or whether they're engaged in organized terrorist threats. And what is the proper response?
All of those things need to be debated and we have a whole series of people proposed by Mr. Randall Garrison and Madam Doré Lefebvre who have something important to bring to this debate and discussion, and they should be heard. That's not to delay or obstruct or prevent this bill from being passed. I don't think anyone on this side has suggested that this is being done to delay the passage of the bill. In fact, what I've heard is exactly the opposite: the commitment by people on this side is to have this legislation through committee by the end of March, which is the date that has been proposed.
There is a willingness to sit and take the time required to do that, and that time would be fitted into the calendar of the House. We could use the time that's available, for example next week, when the House is not sitting and this committee could have extended hours. We're having extended hours now. We've been debating this subamendment in order to try to get the time to do the work that's required.
One of the other issues—and this has been debated and I'm not going to repeat all the debating points—is the question of oversight. That's come up time and again. The government has taken the position that oversight exists and is adequate. Is that true or is it not true?
One of the organizations we're talking about, the so-called oversight body, says that it doesn't do oversight. Who do we have to hear from to hear about that?
Who are the people we want to hear from? Some of the witnesses include the former inspector general of CSIS, who as inspector general was engaged in a form of oversight before the position was cut. She understands how this all works, and we want to hear from her.
Dennis O'Connor, the justice who lead the Maher Arar inquiry, knows how the security intelligence services work together. We want to hear from him and hear what he has to say about what oversight is required and why.
Frank Iacobucci, a former justice of the Supreme Court of Canada, was also engaged in an important inquiry into the actions Canadian officials took with people who were detained and tortured in Syria and Egypt.
Former Justice John Major of the Supreme Court of Canada, has spoken out recently. We want to hear from him. Why would we not want to hear from him? He presided over the Air India inquiry, as was mentioned earlier.