SIRC, with its staff and its established history of some 25 to 30 years, is an experienced review body that goes into the detailed monitoring and investigation of particular operations after the fact. It's the sort of detailed work that members of a parliamentary committee, even with the best staff in the world, will not have time to do. I think it's a recognition that in some cases where there is a problem—and there will always be problems—the committee of parliamentarians would be the first committee to which that problem would be referred.
It may well be that there will be a working relationship between the committee of parliamentarians and SIRC, and that the committee of parliamentarians might ask SIRC to undertake a particular investigation or conduct particular hearings. I don't believe a parliamentary committee, certainly from my experience appearing before them, has the sort of structure to hold individual hearings, where persons come with individual complaints, and the committee acts, in effect, as a court of law.
I think the purpose of the parliamentary committee will be to look at the efficiency of the operation, the efficacy of the operation, the productivity of the operation, and where there's alleged wrongdoing to at least highlight where the wrongdoing has occurred, and then to recommend, as an “overview committee”—a term I've used before—which body should be taking appropriate action, either in terms of reference to a minister or reference to one of the expert review bodies. If it involves CSEC, the Commissioner for CSEC would perhaps have the same expertise related to that organization.
There are other bodies in the Government of Canada, such as the CBSA, for which there is no review body. That is a problem in the makeup of the current security intelligence review mechanism in the Government of Canada. I'm not sure if Bill C-22 is going to fix that, but I think it could be highlighted by committee members of Parliament.