Mr. Speaker, it was great to hear all the reassuring words from the member for Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke and all the assurances given by the commissioner. However, they have not all been assurances. In the report for 2012-13, this is what the commissioner said:
However, a small number of records suggested the possibility that some activities may have been directed at Canadians, contrary to law. A number of CSEC records relating to these activities were unclear or incomplete. After in-depth and lengthy review, I was unable to reach a definitive conclusion about compliance or non-compliance with the law.
The assurances are not quite as assured as the member tries to portray.
Second, yesterday the Prime Minister's national security adviser, who was before the Senate committee, when asked these questions on the metadata, basically said, “I'm not...persuaded” that there was an infringement of Canadians' rights, basically, for lack of a better term.
“Not persuaded” is not very definitive. We had all-party support here at one time. Yes, the minister during question period talked about the metadata that happened in 2005, when the Liberals were in power. I did not know that until just lately. Therein lies the problem. It does not matter the political party that is in government. What matters is what the security agencies are doing.
What is wrong with Canada coming up to the standards that all the other countries involved in the Five Eyes have in terms of oversight for our intelligence security agencies in this country?