Public Safety committee  It's a little difficult for me to get into that. It is a matter of public policy that the government, with the advice of this committee and concerned members of Parliament, would have to look at. They would have to decide whether there is sufficient oversight and review of these security and intelligence functions.

Public Safety committee  Our mandate, as we've talked about, with respect to even the Arar case, was to examine the actions and activities of CSIS. We couldn't go beyond that to examine, for instance, the RCMP's actions, let alone go to a foreign country and examine their actions. So we have to stay at that.

Public Safety committee  As my colleague Mr. Romanow has indicated, CSIS is doing its best to do an outreach. In fact, in places like Toronto, we had the discussion with them just a short while ago about their involvement in the various different communities that may be sources of or affected by terrorist acts and may be a focal point of attention with respect to terrorists or suspected terrorists.

Public Safety committee  Thank you, Mr. Chan. I should also say that your government appointed all of us.

Public Safety committee  On your first and principal point, with respect to our duties and responsibilities as they apply to CSIS, this committee sees as its principal mandate that we are the balance point between the public's right to live in a safe and secure society and the individual's human rights that need to be protected at all times.

Public Safety committee  Yes, I'm sure it is. I don't know what the right balance is there, because I think an argument can be made that they'd be putting themselves in jeopardy if they were too easily accessible and identifiable.

Public Safety committee  I'm just informed that they're in the phone book under “CSIS”--

Public Safety committee  Apparently so.

Public Safety committee  It does, both internal issues with respect to employees and issues with respect to denial of security clearance, and those are frequent matters of complaint that we investigate.

Public Safety committee  The answer is yes. Because our recommendations are not binding, we're very conscious of trying to persuade them that we had good reasons for them, so we do that by examining former reports and taking, shall we say, a checklist of matters to make sure that they do either give us satisfactory answers or do implement our recommendations.

Public Safety committee  I guess that's why, as my colleague said, they're trying to do more outreach, because it is difficult even for us who are knowledgeable to define the difference. Basically, the RCMP and police agencies are gathering information for evidentiary purposes for criminal prosecutions, whereas CSIS is gathering information that somebody is talking to somebody about something that might have terrorist implications, or that might put us in danger, or put our society in an insecure position.

Public Safety committee  In a sense, this committee is part of the oversight of CSIS. As well, there is the Inspector General, who is essentially the eyes and ears of the minister, and us. As I've indicated, we believe we have the powers and the authority to ensure that we hold CSIS to account on any and all of the things they are responsible for.

Public Safety committee  I'm not sure. I'll be honest with you, we'd have to know what the powers and terms of engagement of the parliamentary committee are. It's fair to say that when we go to meet with our counterparts throughout the world, any of the ones that have parliamentary or congressional committees of oversight don't have the powers that we do.

Public Safety committee  They have a website for sure. But let's face it, there is a matter of balance between accessibility and having a storefront operation. Very recently, in the case of the Toronto group of eighteen who are now in a process of going through a criminal proceeding—so we can't really talk very much about it—one of the threats that was undertaken was the possibility that they would do damage to the CSIS office in Toronto.

Public Safety committee  We always stand ready to do the work we're responsible for. If it is seen as something that ought to be done, then I think this committee would be happy to undertake it.