Mr. Speaker, I stand corrected on that. I will read the headline because it is not relevant to display it: "CSIS spied on metro Somalis". The gist of the story, based on a leaked document, was that CSIS did have agents engaged in some undercover work in connection with the Somali community because it feared that there were some violent elements in this community that were a threat.
Certainly with the very recent history of the problems in Somalia, we would all agree that CSIS had legitimate cause for concern. We would probably also agree that its wanting to get information from the Somali community in this case was proper.
What is not proper is the fact that this document was leaked and the story appeared in the newspaper. I do not fault the newspaper because newspapers must run with the information they receive. The fault was the fact that a document was put out that very obviously was designed to or at least would have had some result in damaging a very legitimate operation on the part of CSIS.
That brings us to a very important point which is that we should be deploring in this House the fact that somewhere along the line the system went awry and that an individual in a trusted post was able to collect CSIS documents with the apparent intention of leaking them to the newspapers for whatever reason. We can only be grateful that the Toronto Star actually ran a photograph of one of these leaked documents leading to the person who was leaking them.
I do not want to sound very narrow and rednecked about this, to use that expression, but I really do hope that the government does take some very positive steps-and I hope it has the mechanisms-to prevent civil servants and people in trust from leaking documents of this nature. We must have orderly government, be it in connection with the secrets or intelligence agencies or cabinet confidentiality or whatever. This was a very serious precedent and we should all be concerned.
I believe I have time to move on to another topic which is the issue of accountability that has been raised time and time again and which I believe is the aim of the motion. It is a very important issue. I have heard the speakers on all sides and heard the explanation from my own members on the structure that has been set up to try to make CSIS and the Communications Security Establishment accountable.
In the final analysis, when any agency or any government department is engaged in secret work, as many are-the military, for example, certainly is engaged in secret work; it has to do military testing and that kind of thing-the guarantee of accountability is the quality of the civil servants and the strength of democracy.
We can put the legislative controls in place but nothing is guaranteed because people work of necessity in the shadows. When we are dealing with foreign intelligence or counterintelligence we have to work in the shadows. Despite what has been said I do not really believe that members opposite think we can expose that to parliamentary committee examination. It really is impractical. We would lose all our allies if we did that, at the very least.
It still is a problem. How do we bridge the gap of confidence in the personnel who are engaged in activities that are not immediately seen, that are not laid out before you?
The answer ultimately is having a strong democracy and a strong screening process. The only thing I would add to that, and it is a pet thing with me, is that I would have a very carefully documented accountability.
Over and above what we have heard here, the only way we can control these individuals who must work behind the scenes, is to require them to put their orders always on paper and have this paper record preserved in perpetuity. We have to have a control that will not allow people to destroy records.
I believe when democracy is strong with a strong and dedicated bureaucracy, the control on the bureaucracy for doing the right thing when it has to operate in secrecy is to be answerable to history. When the historian comes along 30 or 40 years later and looks at it and sees that even if the decision was marginal or borderline or questionable, at least he sees the bureaucracy operated in good faith. The vast majority of people in our bureaucracy, certainly in this country, operate in a spirit of good faith and try their very best. This is an important point to bear in mind.
I will conclude by talking about the future of CSIS. This also is at stake in this debate, the fact that the world has changed radically, as we know, with the collapse of the Soviet Union and so forth. This has to and must change the face of counterintelligence.
CSIS is primarily a counterintelligence agency. We must be very clear on that. New threats are spread across the board. We now have situations where very small countries can pose very great threats. We all realize there is a terrific problem now in keeping controls on plutonium. The great stocks of plutonium that exist in the former Soviet Union may pop up in any third world country. I regret to say that the technology for making small bombs is well known. This is a fundamental threat.
Fundamental again is the threat of biological and chemical warfare agents, particularly biological warfare agents. These are the weapons and dangers of very small nations. We have to have a constant and very alert secret service that examines these dangers worldwide. We also have to examine these dangers internally.
We have an open door immigration policy, which I think is wonderful, but we have to understand that with that open door immigration policy we are also open to genuine security threats. It is not just obvious criminals, but the ones that are not obvious, the ones that may be carrying the torch of hatred from the animosities of their homelands which they might employ against other ethnic groups in Canada. We must have a strong organization to look at that.
I have one more thing to say. This pertains to the Communications Security Establishment, which we alluded to before. The world is a global village. The threat now goes beyond just security threats. The threats are also economic and political. We have to be aware of the fact that Canada is a nation that relies enormously on trade.
I see the Minister for International Trade is here. He will agree with me that Canada's future is delicately balanced on our ability to compete worldwide. Not every country competes fairly. Some countries are willing to resort to intelligence gathering in various ways and in other illegal activities, which may affect our ability to trade honestly and adequately.
The role of our intelligence organizations involves making sure Canada is always dealt with fairly. We must have a strong intelligence service that will back us up because the record of history shows, going back to previous centuries and this century, that a nation with a strong intelligence service will use it and use it sometimes, I hate to say, on the weaker. We must be strong in order to compete.
Finally, if ever there was a reason against separatism, against the break-up of the country into smaller pieces, it is the expense of running a comprehensive and professional intelligence service.
If we separated, the new piece-a separate Quebec-would have to set up its own intelligence service. It would lose all it has gained from the very fine intelligence services that we have had since the second world war. It would be on its own and it would not have friends. That is a very dangerous situation to be in.