Mr. Speaker, we are having a debate on the oversight mechanism for CSEC, and this member went on and on about the threats to the security of Canada being very real.
I entirely agree with that and thank him for those observations. I was a member of the first team of lawyers advising the Security Intelligence Review Committee. I have top secret clearance from that work. I know exactly of what he speaks.
However, that is not what this debate is about. It is about whether Canadians should simply take him at his word, the soothing words that all is right because we get a statement from the commissioner and his staff every year saying, “Don't worry; be happy”. We are not. We are worried, and we are not happy about what we have recently learned.
Therefore, the question on the floor for debate today is this: why can Canada not join with its other allies and have a parliamentary oversight body to allow us to know what is going on?