Mr. Speaker, I am interested in following up with my colleague, particularly on the values that Canadians place on the rule of law in dealing with the kinds of threats we face.
With the Spencer decision, we found that the issues of warrantless access were struck down in the Supreme Court. There were a million requests to various telecoms last year from various government agencies. A million requests, which works out to one every 72 seconds, raises the question of whether these provisions, which are not legal, were being properly applied. This then would suggest that if we do not have proper oversight on warrantless access, then the ability to use these tools when they are needed would be drowned out by all manner of what could be the most bizarre requests. A government agency could simply get one's information without any oversight. Therefore, I would like to ask my colleague a question about oversight.
The Privacy Commissioner's report on the RCMP and warrantless access raises many questions, such as the RCMP has not been able to show whether it has followed procedure or cannot explain under what terms this information has been gathered. On the issue of the rule of law, how do we ensure that we are using these tools to go after legitimate threats and not going on fishing expeditions?