Mr. Speaker, I would like to preface my speech by pointing out that a review committee was set up in 1990 precisely to reform the CSIS Act. The committee members were astonished to find out about another organization called the Communications Security Establishment, commonly known as CSE, and the extent of its powers.
CSE comes directly under the Department of National Defence. It is a collateral organization similar to CSIS. According to the sub-committee's estimates, CSE has a supposedly secret budget of about $200 million, even though the House of Commons or any of its committees or sub-committees has no say in CSE's activities.
As I said, CSE's budget is buried away in the overall budget of the Department of National Defence so that we cannot come up with an exact figure. Using estimates, the sub-committee reckoned at the time that CSE had a budget of about $200 million over which we have no control.
Even worse, the members of this 1990 review committee reported that even SIRC had no say in CSE's intelligence activities. In 1990, this committee made 117 specific recommendations.
Since then, only two or three of these recommendations have been adopted, and by the previous government at that. Why? Because the committee recommended that the Communications Security Establishment be formally set up by a piece of legislation that we could oversee, examine and review.
The committee also wanted SIRC to ensure that CSE's activities were carried out in accordance with the law and to report to Parliament.
Why were the members of the 1990 review committee so concerned, and what exactly is CSE? In an article published last May, the daily newspaper Le Droit explained a little bit what could be learned about CSE and I quote: ``The Communications Security Establishment carries out its activities in total secrecy, resorting to electronic surveillance to pick up messages from many areas of the world. This high-tech equipment, which is worth tens of millions of dollars-and is apparently among the most sophisticated in the world-can pick up messages to
troops stationed in Siberia or even listen to your own private telephone conversations with friends overseas." All that in the name of security.
CSE provides intelligence services akin to those of CSIS, but without reporting to Parliament. Both agencies also signed a memorandum of understanding on cooperation. The activities that are carried out in the Chomley Building, in Ottawa, where hundreds of CSE employees work on nine floors full of top secret electronic surveillance equipment, are very similar to those of the CSIS.
The same year, the Ottawa Citizen reported that a device supposedly allowed CSE to listen to 10,000 telephone conversations all at the same time and to tape specific ones on Iran'' or
sovereignty'', for example, just by entering these words in a computer. But it seems we are safe.
Does CSE communicate its intelligence to CSIS? We do not know. Does CSE violate Canadian laws? We do not know. No citizen, no member of Parliament and no member of SIRC knows. Nobody knows. Yet, according to the Solicitor General and his parliamentary secretary, the hon. member for Bonaventure-Îles-de-la-Madeleine, SIRC is supposed to review intelligence services on behalf of the members of Parliament who are democratically elected by the people.
How many untold Bristow cases are still to be unveiled inside CSE? It is difficult to say. One has to wonder if ministers across the aisle know more about this than Opposition members. We do not believe they do.
CSE has a staff of 900 civilians and about 1,000 members of the Canadian Armed Forces. It has facilities everywhere in Canada: in Ottawa, in the North and in large cities.
I would like to read another excerpt from the article published in Le Droit which says: ``The work of the CSE is so secret that its 1,000 or so employees are asked never to travel on commercial flights in case the plane is hijacked or they are taken hostage''. But there is nothing to worry about, right?
Does the CSE gather information on legitimate political parties such as the Reform Party and the Bloc Quebecois? We do not know. Can a citizen make a formal complaint to a monitoring agency? The answer is no. Why do we have a charter of rights and freedoms if CSE employees can, whenever they wish, listen to our phone conversations without prior judicial authorization and without ever having to report to a parliamentary body or an intelligence agency?
In short, the CSE is not monitored by Parliament nor by any other body. The government does not want to ask SIRC to review the activities of the CSE. Nobody knows why. And the Sub-Committee on National Security that everybody on the government side is raving about cannot get any answers from members of SIRC and, I will say it again, has no authority over the CSE.
But there is nothing to worry about. Or so we are told.
That is why we need a royal commission of inquiry to explain to all Canadians and Quebecers as well as to members of this House how intelligence agencies and secret services are constantly keeping track of what we say and do.