Evidence of meeting #41 for Public Safety and National Security in the 42nd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was c-22.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Liberal
Sven Spengemann Liberal Mississauga—Lakeshore, ON
Thank you for that.
I have one brief follow-up on the issue of trust. We've heard both from you and from Professor Wark about the steep learning curve and the 17 departments and agencies that are part of this ball game. How do we guard against regulatory or bureaucratic capture of this committee? I think you've alluded to some levers already, but could you clarify that briefly in the remaining time?
Prof. Craig Forcese
I think staffing is going to be very important. I won't repeat what Professor Roach said about the need to staff robustly and perhaps staff outside of the traditional public service career pattern, in terms of bringing in special advocates who are the only non-governmental experts who have really seen the inside operations of the security services. I think that's important.
More generally, again, I think the culture of the members matters. There is a huge literature in the United States about who makes a good legislative oversight committee member: it means skepticism without partisanship, and an open mind and asking hard questions. The membership will matter.
Liberal
Sven Spengemann Liberal Mississauga—Lakeshore, ON
Then, presumably, there's also being able to communicate to the public, which I'm assuming is constrained in the field of counterterrorism because of classification levels. I think that's an additional challenge.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Rob Oliphant
We've come to the end of our meeting.
Ms. Watts had 30 seconds remaining in her time. Would she be prepared to give it to Mr. Rankin? He has one quick question.
Murray Rankin NDP Victoria, BC
I acknowledge my debt.
Mr. Forcese, The Globe and Mail just reported that a Federal Court ruling says CSIS has illegally retained sensitive data on Canadians over a 10-year period. This is the second time in three years the courts have found that CSIS has breached the duty of candour and hidden information from judges. Some of this stems from the powers in Bill C-51.
Professor Forcese, what does this ruling mean in terms of the need to repeal Bill C-51 and strengthen Bill C-22?
Prof. Craig Forcese
Well, it's hard for me to comment, because the decision is 137 pages long and it was issued just as I was walking over here for this committee hearing. I've only read the summary.
I think it's going to be an important decision. I think it relates to a long-standing question as to how you construe section 12 in terms of the competency of CSIS to retain data. It is going to have important knock-on effects, it seems to me, in terms of the information sharing provisions in Bill C-51, because it says something about the capacity of CSIS to become a sort of data dump location, that is, to derive a huge database of accrued information from across government. These new retention standards that the court articulates will presumably stand, in part at least, as a barrier to that, although again I need to read the case more carefully.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Rob Oliphant
Thank you, Mr. Forcese.
I suspect our committee will be dealing with that in our national security framework study. We may call you again.
We will reconvene on November 15.
The meeting is adjourned.