Our hope is that the National Security and Intelligence Review Agency can verify that the agencies respect Canadians' rights in the course of their work. That is why we think the agency must first have the necessary resources, as Mr. Mirza previously mentioned. Second, the agency must also be seen and act somewhat as the Privacy Commissioner of Canada does with respect to privacy. In other words, the agency must be clearly seen as an independent organization that also has expertise and whose mandate is to be accountable to the public.
We think that what's wrong about Bill C-59 is that, under it, the agency would report much more to the department and the government than to the people on the way the agencies conduct their business. Bill C-59 could be amended to make the agency operate more as a watchdog reports to the public on the way the agencies respect rights in carrying out their mandates.