Mr. Speaker, as someone said earlier, the member for Bellechasse withdraws his amendment and subscribes to the amendment presented by the member for Scarborough-Rouge River, which we, members of the Bloc, intend to support, as I have already said.
Listening to the speech made earlier by the parliamentary secretary to the Minister of National Defence, I asked myself a few questions on the meaning of what the member said about the CSE being accountable to the Department of National Defence at the administrative level and to the clerk with respect to its role and its latitude, so to speak. I find it a bit strange that we count on the Department of Defence to monitor the administration of the CSE.
I made the effort to do some research in the Defence budget and I will give you a few examples which are very obvious when we find out that it was the Department of Defence which monitored the CSE.
I noted a case concerning the acquisition of a Secure Telephone System-Phase 1 for which the estimate was established at $8,824,000. When the acquisition was made, the cost rose to $14,151,000, 61 per cent higher. It was the role of the Department of Defence to monitor the CSE's administrative costs.
Here is another example. From April 1 to March 31, 1993, money was invested in a Restricted Access System for which the estimate was initially established at $23 million. When the acquisition was made, the system's cost shot up to $51 million, 117 per cent over budget. And it was still under the administrative responsibility of the Department of Defence.
One more example. On March 31, 1994, work was finished on an integrated teleinformatics network, approximately 75 per cent of which was for the use of the CSE. The projected cost was $41,650,000, but it ended up costing the modest sum of $78 million. That was also a project under the administrative control of the National Defence.
I have many more similar examples of purchases of highly sophisticated electronic surveillance or telephone equipment, software, etc. Like many other stakeholders in this issue, we have determined that the CSE was to serve the Department of Foreign Affairs, the RCMP and also the Department of National Defence, that its main function was to collect information from communications outside Canada, but that it was not ever supposed to collect information from communications happening within Canada. However, the official opposition signalled several cases where it had done so and the Prime Minister denied it at first. Afterwards, he said that orders had been given so that it would never happen again and that was corroborated by the Deputy Prime Minister and the Minister of National Defence.
The Minister of Defence also said that the CSE was under his trusteeship, and that of his deputy minister, and that no other form of control was necessary since we knew very well what was the role of the CSE, the Communications Security Establishment, and that in no way, shape or form could there ever be some
eavesdropping into communications between Canadians or within the boundaries of Canada. And now, a Liberal member presents a motion for the review of the CSE operations and the Bloc Quebecois and the Reform Party support it. I support this motion wholeheartedly and I will even add that, in my opinion, this motion is a very positive statement that should lead to the monitoring of the CSE operations. That is very important.
I would also like to add that this is only a motion.
Will we take the discussion further and really pass legislation to monitor the actions of the Communications Security Establishment? As I was illustrating with some examples, on the administrative level, I am not sure that the monitoring by the Department of Defence is adequate.
I have quoted four or five examples where spending of millions of dollars had almost doubled on three occasions, and more than doubled on a fourth one. When this motion is unanimously passed in the House, it will be important to follow it up and to pass legislation which will allow for the management of the administrative aspect as well as the specific role of the CSE. We will then be able to monitor its interference in Canadian communications in order to insure that it does not intrude in the private lives of citizens, parliamentarians, business executives or other prominent people who may be asked to make decisions and whom the CSE could follow closely and sometimes monitor or report on, providing information which, under our Canadian system, is not acceptable.
In conclusion, I would like to say that we support this motion. However, I would like to indicate that, unfortunately, we will have to return, in this motion, and probably in this bill, to the administrative deficiencies within the Department of Defence which the Auditor General has raised on several occasions.
When we see in the budget of the defense department that the costs allocated to the CST may vary between $200 and $255 million because Defense budgets contain some sophisticated material which will be used by the CST and for the communications of the defense department, I believe that a separation of some sort between these two elements should be integrated in the bill which will follow this motion. This will allow for a better control of the CST spending which, I believe, is sort of lost and not well administered by the Department of Defense since in the maze of acquisition of certain material too modern or ultramodern, it is impossible to say if the material is used at 100 per cent by the CST or at 20 per cent by the Department of Defense for the Navy or the Air Force.
I have read the last five year budgets and I had some difficulty understanding in each case what was linked to the CST. I believe that situation should be clarified in order to avoid that a budget be assessed at $200 or $250 million and be confronted, after an evaluation for the acquisition of material, to increases of more that 112 to 117 per cent at the time this material is acquired.