Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my friend, the member for British Columbia Southern Interior, very much for his presentation. Since I will not have an opportunity to speak to the bill, because of closure, I want an opportunity to put one of the concerns I have in opposing the bill to my friend and ask for his comments.
Much has been made of the notion that the bill would have judicial oversight. I want to make it very clear that it would not have judicial oversight unless CSIS agents themselves decided that a step they were about to take would violate the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
I put to my friend that we know that the Minister of Justice often disagrees with the Supreme Court of Canada about when the charter is being violated, yet we are to trust that somehow CSIS agents, who have at this point been empowered with the responsibility to interfere with and reduce a nebulous cloud of potential threats to Canadian security, would have the judicial wherewithal to figure out when something is about to violate the charter. Only then would they have to go to a judge for a warrant, and they would never have to go back to that judge to report on their activities.
This is not judicial oversight. This is not checks and balances. This is creating a scenario we have been warned about, as my friend pointed out, by numerous royal commissions. That is why we should keep intelligence services separate from police and keep them under close scrutiny.