We have a range of thoughts on oversight issues that we share with some other groups like Amnesty and the CCLA in Toronto, and we'd be happy to provide that, but in a nutshell, we're very much concerned about that. We're aware that the CSE is under a different ministry. Never mind that the government has come forward and said “national security consultations”, Canadians don't see which ministry is doing what, unless the message is from Minister Goodale and not from Minister Sajjan. We see that as problematic.
In terms of the agencies themselves, it's been a long-standing concern of ours that there are siloed oversight agencies for each. We've seen instances where there is collaboration, and in fact, the movement is of course towards collaboration. The agencies remain siloed.
We've said over and over, and many others have too, that there needs to be a crossing over, and not just with a parliamentary committee that will have the ability to look at all these agencies. There needs to be what, in shorthand, people have been calling a “super-SIRC”, some staff agency, an agency, not necessarily SIRC or the commissioner for CSE, but an agency that will have the ability outside of the committee to have oversight for integrated national security reasons where the RCMP, the CBSA, CSIS, and everybody is participating. We say that there needs to be a parliamentary committee. There needs to be a whole-of-government national security apparatus oversight agency. Whether that's something that sits on top of the existing ones or amalgamates them could be up for discussion.
The third thing that we say there needs to be in terms of oversight is very much like what they have in the United Kingdom, which I know the chair will be aware of, and probably some of the members will as well. That's basically some sort of official who is independent from civil society organizations and independent from government and who can make recommendations as to how national security law ought to evolve.
We're always at a disadvantage. We don't know what's going on with these secret agencies. Parliamentarians don't even know in a lot of cases, and there may be very good reasons, for example, why the government has chosen to do a certain thing, but from the outside we don't know what those reasons are.
In the United Kingdom they have an agent who I think is an officer of Parliament. I'm not sure what the construction is, but I believe he's an officer of Parliament, and his job is to be able to know all of those things and to make thoughtful and constructive recommendations as to legal changes needed where others wouldn't have the benefit of that knowledge. We think that's an important feature as well—