Mr. Speaker, the of Ontario has published a letter regarding this issue and is basically calling the federal government to task for its silence on this issue.
Meanwhile, in the United States, the President has announced reforms to the National Security Agency, demonstrating that a free and open society actually needs a proper discourse on the surveillance powers of their intelligence agencies. While that debate is happening in the United States, our government is maintaining what the Privacy Commissioner calls a “wall of silence”.
When clearly the experts are saying otherwise, I want to hear from the parliamentary secretary why the oversight of CSEC by a single commissioner who is appointed by the minister and reports only to the minister would be considered adequate. Why would we want to have a so much weaker oversight mechanism of this agency that reports to the Minister of National Defence than all of our allies have in their countries?