David McGuinty

[Privilege, June 16th, 2021]

Madam Speaker, to my colleague for Yukon, maybe I will take a moment to go back to a theme that I think is important to tonight's debate, and that is the question of whether the Prime Minister may direct a committee to revise its reports, and he may, but the discretion to do so is not unlimited.

The Prime Minister may only direct NSICOP to remove information that would be injurious to national security, national defence or international relations where that is a matter of solicitor-client privilege. The use of the word “would” in the legislation is a high bar. The process that determines which information qualifies is modelled on the process used by the Federal Court to redact information from public decisions. Finally, on that point, since the creation of the committee and throughout our seven comprehensive reviews, the government has never directed the committee to remove information from a report that was not legitimately injurious.

[Privilege, June 16th, 2021]

Madam Speaker, as I have noted in my remarks, the NSICOP​ Act allows the committee to review any matter relating to national security or intelligence that a minister of the Crown refers to it. The committee carefully deliberates before beginning one of its reviews, and it undertakes them on a very consensus basis. Deliberations can include discussions with relevant officials or with other review agencies or open-source research. The committee, of course, posts the launch of each of its reviews on its website.

I can confirm this evening that the committee has received a letter of referral from the Minister of Health. I can also confirm that the committee has received documents forwarded by the Public Health Agency of Canada in unredacted form.

[Privilege, June 16th, 2021]

Madam Speaker, the hon. member is partly correct and partly incorrect. NSICOP is located halfway between Parliament and the executive. The committee is housed within the executive body of government and does report to the Prime Minister, but it is composed of parliamentarians. It is not bound by the procedural rules of parliamentary committees and operates at arm's length.

However, the Five Eyes organizations the member refers to for comparative purposes have their own variations on structure. As I mentioned in my speech, the ISC in the United Kingdom has a very similar, if not identical, reporting relationship with its Prime Minister, who also is involved in redactions of reports before those reports are made public by being tabled in their house, just as our reports here are made public by tabling through the Prime Minister.

Committee members from all political stripes contribute their unique perspectives as legislators to national security and intelligence matters. They have a range of experience, but together they represent perspectives from across this country.

[Privilege, June 16th, 2021]

Thank you, Madam Speaker, for your indulgence.

The committee, of course, has been reviewing the major threats for the country, such as terrorism, espionage, foreign interference and cyber actors, for example. We have reported very openly now for Canadians on the question of terrorism, the growth of ideologically motivated violent extremists, the rise of groups embracing xenophobic violence, anti-authority violence and gender-driven violence. We have seen a growing number of examples of neo-Nazis, white supremacists, misogynist groups and individuals planning or conducting attacks, a trend which is mirrored around the world.

Finally, while the restrictions imposed as part of the COVID lockdowns, such as limitations on travel, have disrupted terrorism facilitation efforts, the pandemic and the concurrent protests increased anti-government rhetoric connected to ideologically motivated violent extremism.

In conclusion, the point of this evening's speech is to illustrate there is a highly functioning committee composed of good members from all sides of the House of Commons and of course members from the other place as well. It has been working well now for over three and a half years, has produced seven fundamental reviews and three annual reports. I have tried to set out for members, colleagues and Canadians how we conduct reviews under the legislation, when we are asked to redact, how we are asked to redact and the limitations on being asked to redact.

The message I want to leave with all parliamentarians is the following: Committee members form a dedicated non-partisan group of parliamentarians from both houses who take pride in undertaking serious work on serious national security and intelligence issues.

[Privilege, June 16th, 2021]

I have the motion, and as I was saying earlier—

[Privilege, June 16th, 2021]

Madam Speaker, I will not be long and the relevance will become quite evident.

Following our examination of the documents provided to the committee and our meetings with DND CAF officials, the committee formed an opinion that DND intelligence activities conducted as part of overseas operations may not be in compliance with the Privacy Act. The committee referred this matter to the Attorney General pursuant to its obligation under section 31.1 of the National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians Act, which requires it to make such referral when, in its opinion, an activity may not be in compliance with the law.

The review built on the committee's 2018 recommendation that the government give serious consideration to providing explicit legislative authority to the conduct of defence intelligence activities and went further in recommending that the Minister of National Defence introduce legislation governing defence intelligence activities.

In 2020, members of the committee, like all Canadians, were faced with the unprecedented situation of the pandemic. As such, the committee decided to provide the Prime Minister the only consolidated overview of threats to Canada's national security.

The committee found that the threats posed by organized crime and the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction did not fundamentally—

[Privilege, June 16th, 2021]

Madam Speaker, I was saying that this is very similar to the process followed by the United Kingdom's intelligence and security committee, which must submit its annual and special reports to the prime minister for consultation and review prior to tabling, identifying at that time any redactions that have been made on national security grounds.

Since 2017, we have completed seven studies and produced three annual reports and two special reports. Every member of Parliament and every senator recently received paper copies of our 2020 annual report. This report and the others are also available on our website.

The very important thing for the House to note is that in each instance, NSICOP members reviewed and assessed information up to the government's highest classification. The committee did so with the utmost discretion, arriving at its findings and recommendations independently. Those were then provided to the Prime Minister and responsible ministers.

In our 2018 inaugural annual report, we provided a functional overview of the security and intelligence community, including the most significant national security threats as described by key members of the security and intelligence community. These were terrorism, espionage and foreign interference, cyber-threats, major organized crime and weapons of mass destruction.

Also in 2018, the committee reviewed the government's process for setting intelligence priorities as well as the intelligence activities of the Department of National Defence and the Canadian Armed Forces.

We recognized that defence intelligence activities are essential to the safety and security of our armed forces and the success of Canadian military missions, including overseas operations. The committee recommended, among other things, that the government seriously consider providing explicit legislative authority to the conduct of defence intelligence activities.

The committee also presented its first special report in 2018 regarding the allegations associated with the Prime Minister's official visit to India. One recommendation repeated in the subsequent review of the government response to foreign interference was that members of Parliament and senators be briefed upon being sworn in, and regularly thereafter, on the risks of foreign interference and extremism in Canada.

In 2019, the committee conducted a review of diversity and inclusion in the security and intelligence community. The review provided a baseline assessment of the diversity and inclusion of certain designated groups in the security and intelligence community. On the whole, it was revealed that there was not as much representation there as in the rest of the Canadian public service and that the rates of harassment and discrimination remained unacceptable. We recommended that the situation be re-examined in three to five years in order to assess progress. We also recommended improving data collection and analysis and developing a common performance measurement framework.

NSICOP also reviewed the government's response to the serious challenge of foreign interference. We found that the government's response to the threat was done on a case-by-case, even ad hoc, basis and that our engagement with other levels of government and the Canadian public was limited. In its review, the committee called for a whole-of-government strategy to counter foreign interference and build institutional and public resilience. We were specific in our recommendation about what such a strategy should include and we further recommended that the government support the strategy through sustained central leadership and coordination.

Finally, the committee reviewed the national security and intelligence activities of the Canada Border Services Agency. On the whole, we noticed that the powers that the CBSA has for conducting national security and intelligence activities are clear, well regulated and supported by several acts. However, the CBSA did not receive any instructions from the minister for conducting critical activities related to national security and intelligence. This situation was inconsistent with the practices of CSIS and the RCMP and, in the committee's view, represented a failure of ministerial accountability.

The committee recommended that the Minister of Public Safety provide CBSA directions in writing with regard to sensitive national security and intelligence activities.

That same year, the committee also prepared a special report on the collection, use, retention and dissemination of information on Canadians in the context of the Department of National Defence and the Canadian Armed Forces defence intelligence—

[Privilege, June 16th, 2021]

Madam Speaker, as chair of the National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians, I want to provide this evening an overview of the committee's composition, mandate and functions, given there have been numerous recent references to NSICOP in the House. I speak this evening exclusively as the chair of our non-partisan committee.

To begin, I wish to offer my sincere thanks on behalf of our committee to our out-going members, the member for Medicine Hat—Cardston—Warner, the member for Pickering—Uxbridge and the member for Provencher, all valuable members of our committee who offered their considered wisdom, enlivened our debates and provided an important contribution to our work.

I would also like to welcome our new committee members. We look forward to working with the member for Aurora—Oak Ridges—Richmond Hill, the member for Kootenay—Columbia, the member for London-Centre-North, the member for Mississauga—Erin Mills and the member for Montarville.

The committee was established in June 2017 with the passage of the National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians Act. In November of that year, the first committee members were appointed. After the 2019 federal election, the committee was reconstituted in February 2020, and yesterday its membership was again updated.

The committee was set up to fill a gap in Canada's national security review framework: first, to give parliamentarians the necessary clearances to conduct reviews of the security and intelligence community drawn from highly classified information; and second, to create a body that could look across the community at a range of issues without being constrained by the mandate of individual organizations or the narrow focus of their review bodies.

The act that established NSICOP is specific and very clear. It lays out, with precision, the committee's membership, the appointment process, members' security obligations, the rights and limits to access information for the committee's work, procedural rules and reporting obligations.

The act also provides that the appropriate committees of the House and the other place must comprehensively review its provisions and its operation five years after its coming into force, which will be in 2022.

Our committee is unprecedented in Canadian parliamentary history. It is unique in terms of our security clearances, the physical requirements of our secure workspaces and our structure. The nature of the committee is multi-party, bicameral, and a membership with a broad range of experience brings a unique perspective to these important issues. We act as a proxy group for Parliament and for Canadians in examining issues related to national security and intelligence.

The committee consists of a chair and up to 10 other members, all of whom are members of one of the two Houses of Parliament. Up to three members may come from the other place and up to eight members may come from the House. No more than five of them can be members of the government, which means that government members never form a majority. With yesterday's announcement, we now have our full complement in place with eight House members and three senators.

Members all hold a top secret security clearance, have sworn an oath and are permanently bound to secrecy under the Security of Information Act. In the course of its work, the committee may review highly classified information with only a few narrow exceptions. The committee is not entitled to have access to cabinet confidences, to information protected by the Witness Protection Program Act, to information relating to the identity of confidential sources and to information relating directly to an ongoing law enforcement investigation.

We cannot claim parliamentary privilege in the case of unauthorized disclosure of classified information. That is a point I want to emphasize. Members of the committee, myself included, are necessarily circumspect in what we can say in Parliament and in public. It also means that NSICOP members are subject to prosecution under the Security of Information Act should they disclose information they learned in the course of their duties on the committee.

The National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians is mandated to review the legislative, regulatory, policy, financial and administrative frameworks for national security and intelligence. It may also review any activity carried out by a department that relates to national security or intelligence.

Finally, the committee may review any matter relating to national security or intelligence that a minister refers to the committee.

NSICOP reports are unanimous and non-partisan. The committee prepares and finalizes its reports through consensus, following painstaking deliberations, and all members agree on final content, assessments and recommendations. NSICOP's reports are informed by the documents that departments and agencies undertaking national security and intelligence activities must provide as well as by the committee's meetings with relevant officials, outside experts and members of civil society.

The workload is heavy. Normally, the committee meets for eight hours a week and sits extra hours when it needs to examine classified documents in a designated secure workspace. Committee members often meet during the weeks when the House is not sitting, as well as during the summer.

NSICOP provides an annual report to the Prime Minister that includes its substantive reviews as well as the committee's recommendations. The Prime Minister may then direct that the committee prepare a revised version of its report. The information to be revised is set out clearly in the act. It is information the disclosure of which would be injurious to national security, to national defence or to international relations, or is information that is protected by litigation privilege, or by solicitor-client privilege or the professional secrecy of advocates and notaries.

There are no other reasons under which a prime minister may direct the committee to remove information from its reports. Information cannot be redacted because it may be embarrassing to or critical of any government.

The redaction process is similar to the one used by the government when determining what information can be released in court proceedings, typically under section 38 of the Canada Evidence Act. The Prime Minister tables the revised report in Parliament, and the report is referred to parliamentary committees in both Houses, as required by our statute.

The committee may also submit a special report to the Prime Minister on any matter related to its mandate. Unless the committee has notified the Prime Minister of its intention to prepare a summary of the special report, it also is revised if necessary and tabled and referred in the same manner as the annual reports.

This is very similar to the process followed by—

[Michael O'Reilly, June 7th, 2021]

Mr. Speaker, Ottawa has lost a true legend. Michael O'Reilly, the remarkable local artist, musician and comedian, has passed away. Born in England to a Canadian World War II serviceman and a Devonshire girl, Mike was raised in Ottawa. He studied at Glebe Collegiate and the University of Ottawa, and then earned a teaching degree at Queen's University.

Mike O'Reilly was a world-class bluegrass performer and a true festival favourite. He wrote more than 200 songs and formed many bands over the years. He was the front man for Cody, The Radio Kings and Bolt Upright. Mike O'Reilly was also half of the comedy duo Delmer and Cecil, known for gems like “Meadow Muffin Blues”.

To his wife Rosemary, his children Rylan and Devon, his mother Mary and his many, many friends and fans, Mike's legacy will live on in our countless happy memories of this amazingly talented artist.

[Metro Dry Cleaners, May 26th, 2021]

Mr. Speaker, it is an honour to congratulate my constituent and a true community builder, Mrs. Lamia Dib, on the 50th anniversary of her outstanding local business, Metro Dry Cleaners.

In 1958, Lamia came from Lebanon to join her siblings in Canada. In 1962, she married Maurice Dib and, together, they saved every penny to purchase a dry cleaning machine. They worked very hard to establish themselves as leaders in the industry in Ottawa. Since Maurice's passing in 2001, Lamia and her family continue to provide exceptional service to a multitude of clients.

Metro Dry Cleaners has served three prime ministers, MPs, MPPs, our mayor and countless local residents looking for consistent high-quality work and always a friendly smile at the counter.

I congratulate Lamia and her family on 50 years of excellence.