Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague from Marc-Aurèle-Fortin for his question.
I mentioned the importance of balancing security and civil liberties. We cannot put one ahead of the other, and one cannot exist without the other. Unfortunately, the bill before us does not provide balanced civilian oversight of CSIS.
In 2006, the Maher Arar inquiry made recommendations in that regard and called for new accountability measures for CSIS. However, to date nothing has been put in place. The introduction of this bill would have been a good opportunity to move in that direction and implement those recommendations.
The Security Intelligence Review Committee, which works part-time, consists of members that are appointed and not elected. What is worse, two of the five seats have been vacant for several months. Civilian oversight is not very functional at CSIS. This could have been corrected to strike a balance between security and civil liberties.