Mr. Speaker, the connection to the matter before us will soon be clear.
Of course the government wants to collaborate. That is what it has been trying to do from the start, in a way that respects parliamentary privilege and extremely important national security issues.
I am going to skip a whole section of my presentation and jump right to my proposal.
We are putting various options before you, all of them valid, in my opinion. I think it would be worth your while to read them so that we can find a solution that works for all parliamentarians and all parties.
I will not be very long.
The first option relates to what I call a memorandum of understanding regarding Afghan detainee documents. In response to the ruling by Speaker Milliken in 2010, the government and the opposition agreed to a memorandum of understanding that created an ad hoc committee of parliamentarians to review national security documents. It included safeguards and a panel of arbiters to determine how the relevant and necessary information could be made available to MPs and the public without compromising national security. A similar memorandum of understanding could be used for the review of the documents that the House has ordered.
As a second option, the Law Clerk and Parliamentary Counsel could be assisted by national security specialists.
The motion adopted by the House on June 2, 2021, states, in part:
(d) the Law Clerk and Parliamentary Counsel shall confidentially review the documents with a view to redacting information which, in his opinion, could reasonably be expected to compromise national security or reveal details of an ongoing criminal investigation, other than the existence of an investigation;
(e) the Speaker shall cause the documents, as redacted pursuant to paragraph (d), to be laid upon the table at the next earliest opportunity and, after being tabled, they shall stand referred to the special committee;
While the government accepts that the Law Clerk and Parliamentary Counsel has the appropriate security clearance to review the information, we do not believe he has the necessary training or expertise in national security-related information to make the necessary assessment. Disclosing sensitive information could have a number of negative side effects for our intelligence agencies. These include, inter alia, revealing covert methods of operation and tradecraft and investigative techniques; putting at risk human sources and their families; and identifying or helping to identify employees, internal procedures and administrative practices. Finally, it could have a severe impact on Canada's reputation as a responsible security partner.
Assessing the damage caused by disclosure of information cannot be done in the abstract or in isolation. Seemingly unrelated information can be used to develop a more comprehensive picture or “mosaic effect” when added to information already known, thereby revealing further tradecraft. Declassification of documents needs to undergo a review which takes into account the potential impact on covert methodologies, sources and relationships.
The government is open to providing the unredacted documents to the Law Clerk and Parliamentary Counsel if the House of Commons agrees that national security specialists can assist him in this process and that other appropriate safeguards be put in place.
It is our hope that the government and the opposition can come to a reasonable solution that ensures that the government can continue to respect its obligations to protect national security, and the House of Commons can effectively do its work.