Public Safety committee  Thank you, Mr. Chair. Members of the committee, I'm honoured to be invited to appear before you regarding this important bill, which has certainly captured the attention of so many Canadians from across the country and internationally My interest and background concerning this

Public Safety committee  I will. Why not absorb Bill S-220 into this discussion and provide for it to come into force on January 1, 2016? In this way, I think Parliament could fulfill its position as an effective watchdog, and you could have a five-year review process in place for this bill, which would

Public Safety committee  Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you for scheduling us in the first panel, so we'll be finished well in advance of the start of the baseball game. We'll see it, and we'll come back and report the score to you. Thank you for this kind invitation to appear before you on the impo

Public Safety committee  Mr. Mendicino, the legislation is in conflict with itself. The provisions of subsection 12.1 mirror in many respects section 12 in the granting of a warrant under normal surveillance circumstances, and there are some 22 or 23 conditions the judge has to be satisfied with, many of

Public Safety committee  But reversing that situation, if you're sitting as an appellate court judge looking at a situation in camera, a judge may say, “Well, I don't have to act in a proportional context in this particular case; it's so egregious that I don't care what the Charter of Rights and Freedoms

Public Safety committee  I have a view of the committee of parliamentarians as a body for overview of security matters dealing with all departments of government. I don't ever see the committee of parliamentarians having the detailed staff and the time and the ability to go into the in-depth types of mon

Public Safety committee  I think the two will work together. I think they will work responsibly. I don't think they'll compete. I think they're complementary to each other, and I think the committee of parliamentarians will come to rely on SIRC.

Public Safety committee  I think the committee of parliamentarians will welcome having a body like SIRC reviewing CSIS and maybe CBSA, if that's in their future jurisdiction, to be able to hand off the detailed work that has to be done in order to properly analyze the situation and provide a report back

Public Safety committee  Don't get bogged down in the detail. The detail is for the expert bodies.

Public Safety committee  Don't miss the forest for the trees, or whatever situation you want to describe. I think having an overview body of parliamentarians is extremely important, but not to get bogged down in individual cases, not to get involved in adjudications of individual complaints, but to deal

Public Safety committee  That's very perceptive, Mr. Oliphant, and it's deliberate.

Public Safety committee  I think you should not get involved in oversight in terms of approving and being part of the direct operations of the security agencies.

Public Safety committee  Overview is less than review. Overview is the oversight that's taking the overarching broad view of things.

Public Safety committee  Quite the contrary, I think in other parts of my remarks today I was saying there should be co-operation, sharing of information, and the removal of some of the stovepipes between organizations, and the review body should be able to exchange information. Similarly, Parliament—

Public Safety committee  Let me be very clear. I avoid the word “oversight” because I think it would be a mistake for the committee of parliamentarians to get involved in oversight, as I understand that, and I've spent some time with the intelligence oversight bodies in the U.S. Congress and the Senate.