Evidence of meeting #43 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 activities.
A recording is available from Parliament.
4:20 p.m.
Privacy Commissioner of Canada, Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada
I think to conduct an informed review in accordance with paragraph (a), it's useful to review the activities in accordance with paragraphs (b) and (c). If paragraph (b) is limited, the application of paragraph (a) may be affected.
4:20 p.m.
Conservative
Dianne Lynn Watts Conservative South Surrey—White Rock, BC
A lot of the discussion questions have been answered, and I think everybody has talked about the independence of the committee. One of the challenges that we've heard and seen, whether we've gone across the country or had witnesses coming before us, is the way it's currently structured within the bill. It's reporting to the Prime Minister. The Prime Minister recommends committee members; the Prime Minister appoints members of the Senate; the Prime Minister appoints the chair, which he's already done before the mandate of the committee came forward. Starting off on that footing, it would seem to me that it's not instilling a lot of confidence as we move forward at this point in time.
I want to get your thoughts on if we had a blank slate what the structuring of the committee would look like.
The question is for both of you, please.
4:25 p.m.
Privacy Commissioner of Canada, Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada
I will say that the way in which the committee is proposed to be structured under the bill is certainly preferable to the status quo. It would be certainly possible, and I think desirable, to have more independence in the way the committee is structured than what the bill proposes. As I said in answer to Mr. Dubé, I would err in favour of more independence, but does it have to be the same independence as the courts have vis-à-vis the executive? Perhaps not. The bill is better than the status quo. It would be preferable to have more independence, but I'm not suggesting that there should be complete independence.
4:25 p.m.
Conservative
Dianne Lynn Watts Conservative South Surrey—White Rock, BC
I understand that comment. I just want to say I think all of us here want to get it right. Anything is better than the status quo, but is that the right way to do it? I think it's more about looking at the right way to do it, and moving forward that way.
Can I get your comments as well?
4:25 p.m.
Full Professor, École de service social, Université Laval, As an Individual
As I said in my opening remarks, basically this bill is a great way forward. It's a very important step forward—a little late, but very good. I'm extremely positive on the whole about this new committee. I didn't talk about independence all that much, but I added certain things about how a committee is going to be able to look at strategic things, without picking and choosing very specific things, and giving the impression that everything else has also been looked at and doing a very incomplete sampling of intelligence activities in Canada. That would be my first thing: make the mandate look at only policy, law, and the regulations, and the rest should be left to the existing oversight committees. Hopefully, some day there will be another bill about making these committees work better, but for now, I think that would be very important: amending the mandate to do what parliamentarians do best. The second and the most important thing is removing most of the restrictions on what information is to be made available to the parliamentarians on the committee. But for the rest, I'm very satisfied with the basic ideas that are there in the bill.
4:25 p.m.
Liberal
Sven Spengemann Liberal Mississauga—Lakeshore, ON
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I may not even need the full three or four minutes.
Mr. Therrien, you mentioned that you would like to see the Office of the Privacy Commissioner added under the definition of a review body, and 2(d), effectively, would be the paragraph in which you would be added.
Can you sharpen that view a bit and tell the committee how you see the interactions between your office and the other three listed review bodies? How would this play out in practice if it were done tomorrow?
4:25 p.m.
Privacy Commissioner of Canada, Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada
The other three committees are subject matter experts for the national security operations of the agency they supervise. The Office of the Privacy Commissioner of course is an expert on privacy as it relates to all government departments, including national security agencies, so there's a complementarity to the mandates of SIRC, and so on, and the Office of the Privacy Commissioner. To have a fully effective review I think requires a number of layers: a parliamentary review, an oversight review by experts, and experts who bring significant added value to the exercise, and we think we add value, too, in privacy knowledge.
4:25 p.m.
Liberal
Sven Spengemann Liberal Mississauga—Lakeshore, ON
Would you see anything else that is legislatively required other than to add you to that provision and to have the umbrella mandate to co-operate with the other review bodies or would you suggest more specific amendments to integrate—
4:30 p.m.
Privacy Commissioner of Canada, Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada
In my remarks I referred to a few. On the question of to what extent the disclosure of information that would be injurious to national security limits the mandate, access, and reporting, I think these deserve amendments as well.
4:30 p.m.
Liberal
Sven Spengemann Liberal Mississauga—Lakeshore, ON
Mr. Chair, with your indulgence, I would like to take one more minute.
I'd like to take you to paragraph 2 of your written submissions. You say that the nature of the security and intelligence work is sometimes ill-understood due to secrecy. What is your assessment of the knowledge of the Canadian public on matters of security and intelligence?
4:30 p.m.
Privacy Commissioner of Canada, Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada
It is certainly better than it was a few years ago, particularly before the revelations by Edward Snowden, but it is still very imperfect and weak overall.
4:30 p.m.
Liberal
Sven Spengemann Liberal Mississauga—Lakeshore, ON
Does your office have any research that you could point this committee to, opinion research, any kind of social science research, that goes into a bit more detail about what Canadians think about national security, the role of their government, and the role of oversight bodies?
4:30 p.m.
Privacy Commissioner of Canada, Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada
I can certainly undertake to provide this information to you.
4:30 p.m.
Liberal
4:30 p.m.
Privacy Commissioner of Canada, Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada
Yes.
4:30 p.m.
Liberal
4:30 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Rob Oliphant
Thank you very much.
I think that brings an end to our first round.
Thank you very much again to our witnesses near and far. We're going to take one moment as we say goodbye to you and welcome our next panel.
November 17th, 2016 / 4:30 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Rob Oliphant
We're going to come back to order.
Welcome to our witnesses, and thank you for agreeing to appear and give your thoughts on Bill C-22.
Because it continues with the last panel, we're going to begin with Mr. Doucet from SIRC for 10 minutes. Then we will have Mr. Neve from Amnesty International, for 10 minutes, and then questions from the committee.
4:30 p.m.
Michael Doucet Executive Director, Security Intelligence Review Committee
Chair and members, good afternoon and thank you for having invited SIRC to appear before you today to discuss Bill C-22, the national security and intelligence committee of parliamentarians act. Our chair, the Honourable Pierre Blais, sends his regrets for not being able to join us.
I'm joined by Charles Fugère, acting senior counsel and director, and Marc Pilon, legal counsel, both from SIRC's legal and registry services team.
This discussion on national security accountability is very timely. For months, there has been healthy public debate on the powers that should be given to our national security bodies, and in parallel, the checks and balances required to ensure these powers are used properly. The government’s proposal to create a national security committee of parliamentarians goes to the heart of this matter.
SIRC has been following this committee's work on Bill C-22 with much interest. We are aware that you have had very productive exchanges with government officials, legal experts, scholars, and practitioners.
Today, I hope to advance the discussion and to enrich your study of this bill by focusing on three key points: first, to outline the value of the work performed by expert review; second, to discuss SIRC's possible relationship with the proposed committee of parliamentarians; and third, to take the opportunity to discuss the notion of horizontal expert review for Canada's national security community.
I will not take much time now to describe SIRC's mandate and responsibilities. I will be pleased to answer any questions about our work following my remarks. I will simply state that SIRC is an independent external review body that reports directly to Parliament on CSIS's activities through an annual report.
SIRC has three core responsibilities: to certify the CSIS director's annual report to the Minister of Public Safety; to conduct investigations into complaints; and to carry out in-depth reviews of CSIS's activities. Simply put, SIRC is key in providing accountability for CSIS.
This brings me to my first point. SIRC and expert review bodies play a crucial role in ensuring proper accountability of our national security agencies. Allow me to briefly outline what we feel are some distinct benefits of expert review, namely independence, expertise, and continuity.
First, SIRC is an independent body that operates at arm's length from government. It acts autonomously in its decision-making, including in determining which matters to investigate and report on. This independence allows SIRC to make findings and recommendations in an impartial and non-partisan manner.
Second, SIRC's reputation and credibility are built on its expertise. Our full-time research and legal staff have access to all information under the control of CSIS, with the exception of cabinet confidences. Our staff devote their days to reviewing CSIS's activities in all programs and across the world. They also keep abreast of changes taking place at CSIS, not to mention political, legal, or other relevant developments in the environments in which CSIS operates.
Third, SIRC's reviews involve continuous, ongoing, and detailed examinations of CSIS's core operations. A true benefit of SIRC's model is its ability to provide this detailed level of scrutiny on an ongoing basis. Our reviews provide a series of snapshots of CSIS's activities that when taken as a whole and over time yield a comprehensive assessment of CSIS's performance.
Let me use a recent example to highlight the value of expert review. In early November, the Federal Court issued a public judgment regarding CSIS's retention of associated data unrelated to threats to the security of Canada. SIRC first brought this serious matter to the attention of the Federal Court.
In SIRC's 2014-15 annual report, which was tabled in Parliament in January of this year, we reported on our review of CSIS's use of metadata. One of the recommendations stemming from this review was that CSIS advise the Federal Court of the particulars of its retention and use of metadata collected under warrant. This recommendation, which was rejected by CSIS, caught the Federal Court's attention and triggered a series of events leading to the ruling. To borrow Minister Goodale's words, SIRC blew the whistle on this matter and had a vital role to play in accountability.
From our perspective, this case serves to illustrate the value of SIRC's work. More importantly, I would argue this case underscores the importance of expert review bodies such as SIRC being properly resourced. On this point, I can assure you we are working diligently to secure capacity funding for our organization to ensure we can continue to carry out our mandate effectively.
On the second issue I wish to discuss with you, our relationship with the committee of parliamentarians, SIRC looks forward to establishing a positive and productive work relationship.
Three year ago, before a Senate committee, SIRC noted the importance of a future parliamentary committee working lockstep and hand in glove with SIRC to avoid duplication and achieve complementarity. This position holds true today. For this reason, we are pleased that the proposed legislation explicitly states that the new committee and review bodies will take all reasonable steps to co-operate with each other to avoid any unnecessary duplication.
Overall, the goal of accountability benefits from having parliamentary oversight and expert review. The proposed new committee will examine the legislative, regulatory, policy, administrative, and financial frameworks for national security and intelligence. This means it will be well placed to examine large public policy questions and the objectives, policies, and programs of operating agencies, as well as the overall purposes of the government's national security policy. This high-level coverage will serve to complement the detailed, in-depth operational reviews carried out by SIRC.
There has been some discussion around whether there is a need to further frame the relationship between this new committee and expert review bodies. SIRC believes there is merit to maintaining some flexibility on this issue and providing the new committee and review bodies time to establish rapport and to define points of intersection.
Having said this, SIRC believes there are ways in which it could engage with this new committee.
For example, SIRC could share its annual research plan to the committee to make it aware of its research focus. It could appear before the committee to discuss its work, findings, and recommendations, or to provide briefings on topics in which it has expertise. SIRC could also provide clear value to the proposed committee’s functions in relation to the clauses that would limit its ability to review CSIS activities or access CSIS information.
For example, should the Minister of Public Safety decide that the committee of parliamentarians could not review a specific CSIS activity, following a determination that the review would be injurious to national security, or that the committee could not have access to specific CSIS information, SIRC would be uniquely placed, given its unfettered access, to the refused information and the reasonableness of this recommendation.
SIRC could also, under its own mandate, decide to conduct a review of the CSIS activity in question. SIRC would then be able to report its findings to the committee and to Canadians in its annual report. This would represent a key safeguard, considering the limitations being placed on the committee’s access to activities and information.
To summarize, we believe that expert review can complement and contribute to the higher level, broad oversight by a committee of parliamentarians. I have no doubt that there will be a mutual willingness by all parties to work together, and there will clearly be comfort that if the proposed committee is precluded from reviewing a CSIS activity or having access to CSIS information, then SIRC has the ability to review it and to report on it.
The third and final issue I wish to raise relates to the need for a horizontal expert review of Canada’s national security community. Without doubt, greater parliamentary oversight represents an important step forward for accountability. In our view, there remains an important gap in our accountability framework as it relates to the ability to carry out community-wide expert review.
Canada’s national security accountability framework has fallen out of sync with contemporary national security activities. Existing review bodies like SIRC are ill-equipped to review our increasingly integrated national security activities. For a number of years, SIRC has said publicly that it lacks the ability to carry out joint reviews with existing review bodies and to follow the thread of information as our mandate does not extend beyond CSIS.
These challenges underpin a broader structural deficiency and the siloing of review. It highlights the need for an expert community review body with authority to examine all national security activities. This is all the more important, as most of the departments engaged in national security activities are not currently subject to independent review.
While I appreciate that this issue falls outside the scope of Bill C-22, it is nonetheless appropriate to raise it here today, because it is intertwined with our discussion on strengthening national security accountability.
Let me conclude by thanking you for your dedicated work on this matter. The government has made a firm commitment to enhancing national security accountability. The SIRC looks optimistically ahead to having its work support and further this goal.
I'm happy to answer your questions.
Thank you very much.
4:45 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Rob Oliphant
I just need to say that's the first time a witness has ended at exactly 10 minutes and zero seconds. Thank you.
4:45 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Rob Oliphant
Your credibility has just gone right through the roof.
That's a high standard, Mr. Neve.
