Mr. Norlock opened up an interesting line of questioning, which I'd like to continue with, when he talked about the RCMP and its internal monitoring of activities. We used to have an inspector general of CSIS who did internal monitoring of observance of the law and CSIS activities, and that was eliminated by this government in 2012.
I'd like to ask the minister, given the broad expansion of powers and activities contemplated for CSIS in this, why not bring back the inspector general's position? The former inspector general said quite clearly, and she actually used the word “ridiculous”, that it was ridiculous to think the review committee known as SIRC could do the same job of probing the Canadian Security Intelligence Service. She said:
They don't do the same kind of work at all.... They don't go into the same depth, the same detail. And they're basically part-time people.
Instead of passing these powers to SIRC, which has basically had the same flat budget for the last 10 years, why not bring back the inspector general to help provide that internal oversight?