One of the things we did when the special committee that reviewed the CSIS Act came into being was to decide on the sorts of approaches we would take. I have to say my committee chair was very influential on two points.
One, he had just done two previous statutory reviews, so he was experienced in understanding the difficulties Parliament has in getting information from the executive branch. That was one.
Two, he was very protective indeed of parliamentary privileges. I'll give you an example. One of the issues that came up during this process was how warrants get approved by the Federal Court. When I suggested to the chair that we needed to do this and that we should have judges from the Federal Court appear on a committee, he said, “Oh, no. You can't possibly do that. It might establish a precedent. What would happen if they didn't come?”
It really depends on technique. What were the techniques we used that were different from what I think Parliament uses today? Well, our staff worked to do interviews behind the scenes. Every time we had a witness, we asked to follow up with written questions.