Public Safety committee  I don't support those constraints. I made that perfectly clear in my presentation, Mr. Brassard, that defence intelligence and military intelligence should be under the same oversight. I think those parts of the bill that exempt certain discussions, other than matters of criminal pursuit, which are outside the term of national security, are excessive and should be dealt with in amendments.

Public Safety committee  I always answer that question by asking myself, where are we starting? We're starting now from the circumstance where all the power is in the Prime Minister's Office, and with the cabinet, and with the Minister of Public Safety. If we're going to have a committee, what are its terms of reference going to be?

Public Safety committee  I agree with you that Bill C-51 was excessive in many respects. I agree with you that it needs to be changed. I agree with you that the position taken by the then third party in the House of Commons, that they would support the bill but make changes afterwards, was in fact strategically and tactically quite compelling.

Public Safety committee  No. What I said in my presentation briefly was that the support basis that operates, the bureaucracy that operates underneath the committee, should have the finest experts, the most competent people, with experience, to support the committee, but it should be a parliamentary oversight, where the expertise is used for the purpose of analysis and oversight.

Public Safety committee  That's a completely fair question. It strikes me that if we perhaps move from where the committee would start to a status that is similar to the present committee in the U.K. within the first five years, we will have achieved both. But if we move directly to where the committee is now in the U.K., while we're just starting for the first time to have real parliamentary oversight, I think we'd face some risks of being counterproductive.

Public Safety committee  It is. In my view, the mere creation of the committee is a dilution of the Prime Minister's sole discretion, which there has been historically on national security, and that's a good thing. If we're going to dilute that discretion through an oversight committee, we do have to leave the Prime Minister and the Minister of Public Safety, whichever government's in power, whoever they happen to be, the ultimate capacity to protect national security, because that is their responsibility, period, full stop.

Public Safety committee  Yes. I would argue that they would be more frank and more open, knowing full well that if something entered one of the reports prepared by the committee en route to Parliament, the Prime Minister, basically based on the advice of his national security adviser, could do what is necessary in the U.K. and remove whatever that one line may be.

Public Safety committee  But they also in the U.K. have to indicate that they have doctored the report in that paragraph and at that place, which will produce public interest in what that was about.

Public Safety committee  Let me first of all say, part of why I'm taking that view is because it's precisely the view that was taken unanimously by the Senate anti-terrorism committee in making recommendations to the previous government about the kind of oversight agency that should be established and what its terms of reference should be.

Public Safety committee  That's your second question. Let me answer this one. In the way in which governments proclaim legislation, as members of the committee will know better than myself, they can proclaim different sections at different times of any law and bring it into effect. There would have to be a managed phase-out for what SIRC now does, there would have to be a managed phase-out for the civilian oversight of the RCMP, all of which could be part of a two- or three-year transition process, but in the end, there would be one committee of parliamentarians with substantial resources.

Public Safety committee  That's simply because the notion of how the committee is now appointed in the U.K., the notion of not having the protections that existed at the beginning, would send a message to the security agencies that work on behalf of all of us—and I think all of us around the table share a high regard for the men and women who devote their lives to our national security—that this would be a committee that they could not necessarily be frank with or trust.

Public Safety committee  I'm generally of the view that those agencies have been restricted by three or four very serious constraints, which the committee and those serving it would not necessarily have to be constrained by. The fact that SIRC has been largely retroactive in its view, based on finding out about complaints that people have lodged, in my view, is insufficient scope.

Public Safety committee  That is essentially correct.

Public Safety committee  Yes, what I'm saying is that, for better or for worse, the British concept of oversight, when established, was not about retroactivity. It was about operational reviews that actually saw heads of agencies appear on a regular basis before the committee of parliamentarians, talk about their priorities, talk about their budgetary realities, and talk about what worried them the most.

Public Safety committee  Chairman, members of the committee, thank you for the opportunity to share my perspective with you. I am going to focus primarily on Bill C-22, the parliamentary oversight proposition, because I think it's central to the premise of accountability for our national security and intelligence services.