Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you to both of the ministers for appearing and for all their hard work in shepherding this legislation into law.
Minister Goodale, you spoke at some length about the committee of parliamentarians' mandate to conduct a review of ongoing operational activities. One expression you used was that the committee will be able to “follow the evidence wherever it leads”.
There are some limitations to that statement. Mr. Clement pointed out what some of those limitations are in the draft legislation. You have summarized the rationale underscoring those limitations by saying that for obvious reasons, we have to be very cautious about allowing classified information, information that would be injurious to national security, into the public realm. I think that's a sentiment that all members of this committee would share.
What I would like to ask you about, though, are what you described as the general powers of investigation of this committee. There are some other contexts from which I think we can draw. If you were to look at the legislation under the CSIS Act, which provides SIRC with its mandate, there are some statements there that describe the powers of investigation generally. If you go to the National Defence Act, the commissioner of the CSE is empowered to conduct certain investigations by being granted powers that are exactly the same as those of a commissioner of inquiry under the Inquiries Act.
Can you take a moment and talk about what kinds of powers generally that you envision this committee having? Will it have the capacity to enter the premises, to examine documents, or to summons or request witnesses to testify before that committee?