Public Safety committee  Thank you. Thank you very much for having me here today. I'm particularly happy to be able to talk about a topic that I've thought about over the years. I think the time has come for an effective role for Parliament in national security matters. Although this new role may not g

Public Safety committee  I think basically it would be because, Mr. Chairman, the committee of parliamentarians and SIRC have somewhat different mandates. If you look at the CSIS act and the mandate that is provided to SIRC, it really directs it to detail, to making sure that its ongoing operations are l

Public Safety committee  Yes, I think so. It's one of the reasons why I think the relationship between the review bodies and the committee needs to be clarified. I think there's something to be said for the committee of parliamentarians to have the authority to mandate SIRC, for example, to do a review o

Public Safety committee  I think it is. I was sitting in and listening to part of Mr. Portelance's conversation with you. It seems to me that if there's one thing that oversight or review would benefit from, it is a clear understanding that the committee and the review bodies can share information both w

Public Safety committee  True enough, but that's often the case in this area.

Public Safety committee  In my view, yes.

Public Safety committee  I see your point of view. I simply take the position that there are some limited categories of information, and when it is not absolutely necessarily for anybody—be it a parliamentarian or anybody else—to have them in order to discharge their functions, then they shouldn't have t

Public Safety committee  I agree with you, and again, I don't think the world is going to come to an end if your view prevails over mine, but in the case of the Treasury Board, those circumstances where you had those ultra-secret bits of information were relatively rare. It was easy to put into place the

Public Safety committee  That, Mr. Chairman, is quite the question. I start from the premise that, except for the three or four core national security entities, all of the others that are listed in the annex to the act do national security part time. I think that's an important thing to keep in mind. It

Public Safety committee  No. I think the committee should organize itself in such a way that for anyone who believes that for a department or agency working in national security and is aware that the law has been violated, there should be a means of providing that information. I wouldn't call it whistle-

Public Safety committee  I was director of CSIS for four years, and during that time, no, although we did have a few discussions about whether they really needed the information. On a few occasions, we came to an understanding that it wasn't really necessary. Also, there's a difference between a SIRC a

Public Safety committee  To some degree, you are picking up on the conversation I had with Mr. Clement. I think you have to go back to what you expect the committee to do. As I understand the bill—and I am subject to correction—the committee is not intended to do detailed investigations. To the extent

Public Safety committee  That is consistent with what I said at the very beginning, so the short answer would be yes.

Public Safety committee  I think, Mr. Chairman, that it would be largely in those circumstances where it's other work: either policy review, regulatory review, or general discussions with the review bodies, or when the departments and agencies involved in national security suggest to them that there is a

Public Safety committee  I don't believe that happens often between committees of the House. You don't really report to one another, but surely there would be some means, such as by exchange of letters between the chairs, or between the staff, for that matter. I don't really have a view, but it seems to