I want to get back to what was described by previous deponents as the “triple lock” that is found in the legislation in clause 8, in clause 14, and in one other clause. I want to get a sense from the witnesses of how reasonable that is.
The triple lock means that you have these clauses that make it clear that the mandate of the committee can be circumscribed if there's a national security issue, something “injurious to national security”, as it says in clause 8. Then we have the whole kitchen sink list in clause 14 of things that cannot be before the committee, and the refusal of information. I guess clause 16 is the other one, which incorporates by reference the Security of Information Act. This has been described to this committee already as a triple lock on the ability of the committee to do its job.
I'm speaking as a member of the previous government, and we didn't want to have this committee in the first place, but it seems to me that if you're going to go to the trouble of having the committee, it should be a committee that is actually able and capable of doing something. This was described in negative terms by the deponents, Professor Kent Roach amongst others, as a triple lock.
Monsieur Plouffe, obviously you're the commissioner of an agency, and Mr. McPhail, you've dealt with these kinds of reviews in the past. There's a balance to be struck, and I get that, but how do we strike the right balance? Obviously, no one around this table wants to do something injurious to national security, Lord forbid. At the same time, if I may say so, all parliamentarians are honourable people, and they're busy people, so to have us go through the genuflection of having a committee without having a real committee seems to me to be a waste of time.
I would like to have your thoughts on this matter, gentlemen.