Mr. Speaker, I am sorry to say that the parliamentary secretary's question is an example of pretzel logic, because he refers to an independent commissioner, but I am sure he is aware that the CSEC Commissioner is not independent. In fact, his reports are vetted by CSEC itself before they go to the minister, so that CSEC can take things out of the commissioner's report for national security reasons.
All we are asking for is to have a genuine independent mechanism for reviewing its necessary activities. I do not disagree with the parliamentary secretary: the national security activities of intelligence agencies are necessary. But we have no way of knowing what CSEC is actually doing, and I cited in my speech the example of a court finding CSIS to in fact be in violation of the law.
We need those mechanisms to ensure that both security and privacy are respected at the same time.