Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague for his question. I do not know the specifics of the decision made in 2005. However, the Liberal government was in power that year and the other parties all agreed to create that parliamentary committee.
This parliamentary committee should be created in order to understand what metadata is and to determine whether this is really a breach of Canadians' privacy, among other things.
In some circumstances, the minister has the authority to have Canadians closely monitored for security reasons. Once again, it is important that we have a parliamentary committee, not just to monitor CSEC's activities, but also to be aware of the minister's decisions and determine whether he is acting responsibly when he authorizes an exception to the prescribed rules.