Mr. Speaker, I would not say “infamous” as that would be unparliamentary, but it is a very famous Liberal family. Could it just be that he is being rewarded for his long-time dedication to the Liberal Party, or could it perhaps be that it is simply a reward for having been left out of cabinet when the cabinet was formed?
Finally, the bill states that the committee chair will receive an annual allowance of $42,200. This amount is over three times the usual allowance of $11,900 given to chairs of standing committees.
In my riding of Perth—Wellington, $42,000 is a good annual salary. The chair of this committee will receive the equivalent of a Canadian worker's salary, in addition to the $170,400 parliamentary salary he already receives.
There is no question in my mind that Parliament and we as parliamentarians are open to a degree of parliamentary oversight of our national security agencies. This is something that our party is not opposed to. The challenge the Conservative opposition has, as members of this august chamber, is the way in which the Liberals have structured this committee. The way in which they have imposed their self-appointed chair on this committee and the way in which they have introduced amendments at report stage and rejected some of the amendments of the all-party committee simply go to show that this is more window dressing than actually an effective oversight committee of the House.
For these reasons and so much more, this bill simply does not reflect the international examples that have been provided in the past of effective parliamentary oversight activities.