Mr. Speaker, CSIS is busy burning secret documents, losing them in phone booths, leaving them in the back seat of cars while the secret agent attends a hockey game. Canada's secret service is secret in name only.
Yet we must not be too quick to cast a stone at these James Bonds and Mata Haris. After all, they have been set an example from higher up.
The federal government itself seems to be a past master at leaking confidential information, committee reports in particular. However, when it comes to compliance with the Access to Information Act, this same government gets obsessed with secrecy. Secret material falls into the hands of the public, while material that is public becomes secret.
It is understandable that Canada's secret agents do not know which way is up. After all, if everything that ought to be public were to become secret, most public servants would have to be replaced by secret agents. And then the Liberal government, mightily relieved at last, would no longer have to answer any embarrassing questions.