What I was thinking of was that the committee would be under public scrutiny because there would be some issues in relation to actions and activities of our national security agencies. The committee would be unable to do its work because it would not have access to information.
It's a difficult situation for a statutory committee when on the one hand it has quite a large mandate in terms of its review and oversight function of security agencies, but on the other hand it can be refused such a wide gamut of information that I can hardly see, in any kind of situation, except for very innocuous work, that the committee would actually have access to the information it needs to do its assessment of what would be before it.
That's why it's a very serious matter when we create a statutory body to do a very important function, but we don't give it the appropriate tools to do its work. This is the concern I have with the bill.
It's a very good initiative. In order to do this work, you really do need to have access to the information.
My own experience is that national security is always over-claimed, and this is probably a function of security agencies being very cautious and very careful, and that's understandable. At the same time, if we're going to have an oversight function of these various security agencies, we really do have to have the proper tools to do that.
It's particularly important in the context where it is a statutory committee. It doesn't have all the powers and privileges that a regular parliamentary committee would have, particularly if we think back to former speaker Milliken's ruling a few years ago.
If it's going to be a statutory creature, then the legislative framework has to make sure that the committee is going to have the appropriate tools to function.