Mr. Speaker, on January 29, I asked the government House leader to let the House and Canadians know when we could expect the long-overdue, three and a half years overdue, review of the National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarian Act to be initiated. He stated at that time that he would “consider the matter and report to the House at the appropriate time.” Unfortunately, over two months have passed since I asked this question, and the House and Canadians have heard diddly-squat from the Liberal government with respect to the review that is already three and a half years overdue.
Since asking the question, I even decided to help the government out by introducing Motion No. 29, which would initiate this review by forming a special joint committee of MPs and senators from all the recognized parties and Senate groups. Ultimately, I am here tonight to ask once again when the Liberal government is going to initiate this long-overdue and mandated review. I will use the remainder of my time on why I believe this long-overdue review is necessary, with a focus specifically on the NSICOP Act. I have had the privilege of being a member of NSICOP for the last four years.
Number one is that it is the law. It is written into statute. Number two is that I would note that when I reviewed the debate around Bill C-22, which created NSICOP in the 42nd Parliament, there were many questions put to the Liberal minister of public safety at the time and to PCO officials, especially with respect to the perceived lack of independence of the committee. Ian McCowan, the deputy secretary to the cabinet for governance at PCO at the time, provided the following response to my predecessor, the former MP for Bruce—Grey—Owen Sound, the great Larry Miller: “Obviously something you'll have noted is that a five-year review is built in. I imagine there will be a regular review of the statute.”
My point is that the reassurance of the Liberal government at the time when addressing these concerns brought up by MPs during the standing up of this committee was that there would be a mandated review. Again, that is a review that is long overdue.
Number three is that NSICOP was built very much on the model of the U.K.'s Intelligence and Security Committee of Parliament, the ISC, but not fully. There are a few key differences.
One is that the chair of that committee is elected, not appointed by the Prime Minister. The second is that the ISC has a vice-chair but we do not have one in Canada. Third, the ISC tables its reports directly to Parliament following a redaction process, whereas NSICOP conducts a very similar redaction process but then our reports are submitted to the Prime Minister, who then has 30 sitting days to table them in Parliament. In my opinion, a good example of this tabling that had an unnecessary delay was NSICOP's latest report on lawful access. This report was given to the Prime Minister on March 4 of last year, but it was not tabled in Parliament until September 15, something that is really relevant to the current debate on Bill C-22 this week.
Finally, on resourcing, there is a lack of interpreters with the appropriate security clearance, and the size of the secretariat is a concern. There is a small and mighty team at NSICOP, composed of only 12 people.
These all need to be looked at. This is just a short list of the high-level reasons why I think this long-overdue mandated review is needed now. All the government needs to do is move Motion No. 29, or something similar, to form the necessary committee now to get this necessary review under way. I am hoping the government will make that commitment tonight and let Parliament know when we can expect the review to start.