Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague for his remarks on this opposition day motion and thank the member for Malpeque for introducing this on behalf of his party.
I believe that Canadians are concerned about the possibility that their private communications are being monitored and that perhaps we do not have proper oversight over CSEC. I remember a recent debate at the finance committee. In a budget implementation act, one of these omnibus budget bills, the government decided to eliminate the position of the inspector general, which was a full-time oversight position over CSIS, and to replace that with a position as a member of the board. We were warned at the committee that this was not proper oversight, but the government went ahead with it anyway.
Given that we, as average Canadians, cannot monitor the security agencies, we need to be assured that those who are set up to monitor our security agencies are doing so appropriately. We need to have confidence in that.
My question for the member is this. In 2005, when then Liberal defence minister Bill Graham signed the directive to allow CSEC to collect metadata, does the member think there were appropriate checks and balances established at that time?