Proceedings of the Standing Senate Committee on
National Security and Defence
Issue No. 46 - Evidence - Meeting of June 10, 2019
OTTAWA, Monday, June 10, 2019
The Standing Senate Committee on National Security and Defence met this day at 3:34 p.m. to examine and report on Canada’s national security and defence policies, practices, circumstances and capabilities.
Senator Gwen Boniface (Chair) in the chair.
[English]
The Chair: We will begin. I would like to ask senators to introduce themselves.
[Translation]
Senator Dagenais: I am Senator Jean-Guy Dagenais from Quebec.
Senator Boisvenu: I am Senator Pierre-Hugues Boisvenu from Quebec. Good afternoon, minister.
Senator McIntyre: I am Senator Paul McIntyre from New Brunswick.
[English]
Senator Oh: Victor Oh, Ontario.
Senator Richards: David Richards, New Brunswick.
Senator Griffin: Diane Griffin, Prince Edward Island.
Senator McPhedran: Mary Lou McPhedran, Manitoba.
Senator M. Deacon: Marty Deacon from Ontario.
[Translation]
Senator Miville-Dechêne: I am Senator Julie Miville-Dechêne from Quebec.
Senator Gold: I am Senator Marc Gold from Quebec.
[English]
The Chair: I am Gwen Boniface from Ontario.
Senators, today we have the pleasure to meet our colleagues from the National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians who are here to talk about the committee and their first annual report. We have with us today the Honourable David McGuinty, P.C., Chair of the National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians; the Honourable Senator Frances Lankin, P.C.; the Honourable Senator Vernon White; and Rennie Marcoux, Executive Director, Secretariat of the National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians.
Mr. McGuinty, you have the floor. We will follow up with questions from senators.
Welcome to all of you.
Hon. David McGuinty, P.C., Chair, National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians: Honourable senators, thank you for having us. This is our first opportunity to speak with you pursuant to our National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians Annual Report 2018.
I am joined by two of my colleagues on the committee, Senator Frances Lankin and Senator Vern White, as well as Rennie Marcoux, Executive Director of the Secretariat of the National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians, or NSICOP.
We are pleased to have this opportunity to present NSICOP’s first annual report on behalf of our parliamentary colleagues on the committee — eight members of Parliament and three senators from all recognized parties and groups.
[Translation]
National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians, NSICOP, is mandated to review Canada’s full national security and intelligence framework, encompassing statutes, regulations, policy, administration and finances.
It may also review any activity carried out by a department that relates to national security or intelligence.
Lastly, it may review any matter relating to national security or intelligence that a minister of the Crown refers to the committee.
[English]
Members are all cleared to top secret, have sworn an oath and are permanently bound to secrecy. We may not claim immunity based on parliamentary privileges in cases of unauthorized disclosure of classified information.
In order to conduct our work, we are entitled to have access to any information related to our mandate, but there are some exceptions, namely cabinet confidences, the identity of confidential sources or of protected witnesses, and ongoing law enforcement investigations that may lead to prosecutions.
Senators, 2018 was a year of learning for the committee. We focused on understanding our mandate, the role of organizations involved in security and intelligence, and on building trust.
We produced one special report on the allegations surrounding the Prime Minister’s visit to India and delivered our first annual report.
The committee also undertook extensive outreach and engagement activities beyond government officials. We benefited from the views and perspectives of numerous academics and civil liberties groups — a practice we consider to be essential. In this regard, I would refer to you Annex C starting on page 117 of our report.
The annual report is the result of extensive oral and written briefings — more than 8,000 pages of printed materials, dozens of meetings between NSICOP analysts and government officials, in-depth research and analysis, and thoughtful and detailed deliberations amongst committee members.
The committee took note of the breadth of issues facing the security and intelligence community and tried to determine where its review could add the greatest value. In choosing its reviews, members take a number of criteria into consideration, including whether the organization or the issue was previously subject to review; how the organization’s activities are governed, including its statutory authorities; the extent to which the activities involve the privacy or democratic rights of Canadian citizens; whether there was a high level of public knowledge and interest in the activity or issue; and, finally, whether Parliament or another review body had previously examined the issue or the activity.
[Translation]
The first chapter of the report describes the origins, mandate and approach of the National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians, including the factors that the committee considers when deciding what it will review.
The second chapter provides an overview of Canada’s security and intelligence agencies, threats to Canada’s national security and the way these organizations work together to keep Canada and Canadians safe.
[English]
In Chapter 3, the committee reviewed the way that the government determines its intelligence priorities. Why is this important? There are three reasons.
First, this process is the fundamental means of providing direction to Canada’s intelligence collectors and assessors, ensuring they focus on the government’s highest priorities.
Second, this process is essential to ensure accountability in the intelligence community. What the intelligence community does is highly classified. This process gives ministers regular insight into intelligence operations from a government-wide lens.
And third, this process helps the government to manage risk. When the government approves the intelligence priorities, it is accepting the risks of focusing on some targets and also the risk of not focusing on others.
[Translation]
The committee found that the process — from priority-setting by ministers to governance and performance measures — is robust and systematically applied across the intelligence community. Therefore, the committee’s recommendations focus on improving a process whose fundamentals are sound.
[English]
Chapter 4 reviews the intelligence activities of the Department of National Defence and the Canadian Armed Forces. The government’s defence policy of “Strong, Secure, Engaged,” states that DND/CAF is “the only entity within the Government of Canada that employs the full spectrum of intelligence collection capabilities while providing multi-source analysis.”
We recognize that defence intelligence activities are critical to the safety of troops and the success of Canadian military activities, including those abroad, and are expected to grow. When the government decides to deploy the Canadian Armed Forces, DND/CAF also has implicit authority to conduct defence intelligence activities. In both cases, the source of that authority is the Crown prerogative.
This is very different from how other intelligence organizations, notably CSE and CSIS, operate. Each of those organizations has clear statutory authorities to conduct intelligence activities, and they are subject to regular, independent and external review.
This was a significant and complex review, with four findings and three recommendations.
Our first recommendation focuses on areas where DND/CAF could make changes to strengthen its existing internal governance structure over its intelligence activities and to strengthen the accountability of the minister.
The other two recommendations would require the government to amend or to consider enacting legislation: specifically, that the proposed national security and intelligence review agency be required to report annually on the national security and intelligence activities of Department of National Defence and the Canadian Armed Forces; and that the government give serious consideration to providing explicit legislative authority for DND/CAF intelligence activities.
The committee has set out the reasons why it formed the view that regular independent review of DND/CAF intelligence activities will strengthen accountability over its operations. At the time of writing, the committee believed there was an opportunity for the government, when Bill C-59 was still before the Senate, to put in place requirements for annual reporting on DND/CAF national security or intelligence activities, as would be required for CSIS and CSE.
Beyond that, the committee also believes that its review substantiates the need for the government to give serious consideration, once again, to providing explicit legislative authority for the conduct of defence intelligence activities. Defence intelligence is critical to the operations of the Canadian Armed Forces, and like all intelligence activities, involves inherent risks. DND/CAF officials expressed concerns to the committee about maintaining operational flexibility for the conduct of defence intelligence activities in support of military operations. The committee therefore thought it was important to present both the risks and the benefits of placing defence intelligence on a statutory footing. Our recommendations are a reflection of the committee’s analysis of these important issues.
To conclude, the committee is pursuing an ambitious agenda for 2019, with four significant reviews under way: foreign interference; Canada Border Services Agency; diversity and inclusion in our security and intelligence community; and collection of intelligence on Canadian citizens by the Department of National Defence and the Canadian Armed Forces.
[Translation]
The committee will cease to exist when Parliament is dissolved this year. The committee hopes the reports it has produced and the relationships it has built with Canada’s national security organizations will pave the way for the next committee.
[English]
We hope through our reports that we achieve the following objectives we set for ourselves.
First, we want our findings and recommendations to strengthen the security and intelligence community, both in effectiveness and in accountability, given that the fundamental role of parliamentarians is to hold government to account.
Second, we want our reviews and reports to inform and educate Canadians on the activities of the security and intelligence organizations that conduct much of their work in secret.
And finally, the committee hopes that its work will contribute to an informed debate on the challenges of providing security and intelligence organizations with the powers necessary to identify and counter threats, while ensuring that their activities respect and preserve our democratic rights.
I will conclude my remarks with one last comment. Our committee is multipartite and bicameral. We have MPs from the three major parties in the House of Commons and senators from all major groups. We bring a variety of perspectives and experiences to the discussions. This is indispensable, but we park our politics at the door.
Indeed, the committee has been scrupulously careful to ensure that our discussions, our interactions with security and intelligence officials, and our reviews and recommendations remain non-partisan. And our reports are unanimous. We hope this approach not only strengthens accountability, but also enhances the trust of Canadians in their national security institutions.
[Translation]
Thank you. I would be pleased to answer any questions you have.
Senator Dagenais: Thank you to the witnesses for being here. Mr. McGuinty, I have two or three questions for you. With Bill C-59 coming into force, the workload will surely increase. I’d like you to comment on the time and resource requirements needed to handle the additional responsibilities.
Mr. McGuinty: Would you mind clarifying which responsibilities you mean?
Senator Dagenais: Clearly, Bill C-59 will result in more work. A committee will be overseeing the country’s national security agencies, and the additional workload will require additional resources. That will come at a cost because those people won’t be working for free. Has the funding already been adjusted accordingly? How much funding will the new organization created by Bill C-59 receive?
Mr. McGuinty: You’re referring to the creation of the new review agency?
Senator Dagenais: Precisely.
Mr. McGuinty: I can’t comment on the National Security and Intelligence Review Agency (NSIRA). It’s not something our committee looked at in depth.
Obviously, the government is fully aware that the agency brings together the review mechanism for a number of organizations, which will mean additional responsibilities. That will mean certain changes such as more staff and a higher budget. To perform a comprehensive review function, appropriate funding and resources are necessary, and we think the government is well aware of that.
[English]
Hon. Frances Lankin, P.C., Senator, National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians: I want to add to the response to be sure that we’re all understanding that the NSIRA, as it is intended to be formed once Bill C-59 is passed, is being built on top of and out of the current Security Intelligence Review Committee. It is completely apart and separate from NSICOP. It is not our committee. It is not our budget. Our workload won’t grow directly as a result of that. That is another agency that is providing review on a different set of parameters than NSICOP does.
We have our staff and our budget, and, at this point in time, we have a projected workload that falls within the scope of the resources we have. There is not an immediate need nor request for a major enhancement.
Over time, there may come an obvious area that the committee feels is important enough to expand our work within the mandate we were given in the legislation that created NSICOP. Again, that’s an entirely different matter than NSIRA.
[Translation]
Senator Dagenais: The bill was already being studied. Everyone expected it to pass. I find it odd that the budget and resource requirements weren’t measured. When the government sets up a new agency, someone, at some point, has to determine the budget and resources that will go along with it.
I’m a bit surprised not to get an answer today. I’m not talking about just your committee. I’m referring more so to the fact that the bill is going to mean more work. There’s no way around that when a new security agency is established.
Mr. McGuinty: Bill C-59 hasn’t made it to the House of Commons yet. NSICOP isn’t responsible for reviewing the bill. Responsibility for the implementation of Bill C-59 falls on the Privy Council Office and Treasury Board. No doubt, they could provide you with an answer. They are in charge of allocating the resources, funding and personnel to implement Bill C-59.
The legislation clearly states that we have a responsibility to work with the National Security and Intelligence Review Agency, and that’s what we’ve started to do.
[English]
Senator Lankin: I would like to jump in again because I’m not understanding your question. I find it odd that that question is being directed to us.
A completely separate piece of legislation and a different review committee is being grown out of the current structure there, separate from our mandate. There is no responsibility that rests with us. We’re not a parliamentary committee that reviews legislation. We review the operations, effectiveness and adherence to the law of the security and intelligence community, which is a separate mandate than when you read the NSIRA mandate set out for the proposed new committee under Bill C-59. They are apples and oranges; they are not connected.
[Translation]
Senator Dagenais: We are talking about national security, after all. You’re a national security committee. Clearly, Bill C-59 deals with national security, establishing a new review agency.
It’s all connected. I realize different agencies have different budgets, but the fact remains that, when it comes to national security, Bill C-59 is all about national security. I realize you don’t have the answers I’m looking for today. That’s fine.
I’d like to ask you something else. What would you say the awareness level is when it comes to sharing information on Canadians? Are we vigilant enough in our collection of Canadians’ information? What have you observed?
Rennie Marcoux, Executive Director, Secretariat to the National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians: That’s not something we examined specifically in our annual report. We looked at the issue more broadly. We had briefings with security and intelligence agencies, which are required to comply with the legislation that governs them and their operations. Generally speaking, however, we haven’t yet looked at compliance as it relates to the collection of Canadians’ information. That’s something we’ll be doing in 2019 when we review the Department of National Defence’s intelligence activities.
Senator Dagenais: Thank you very much.
[English]
Senator McIntyre: Thank you, Mr. McGuinty, for your presentation. Thank you to all members of the committee for being present today to answer questions.
Unlike CSIS or the Communications Security Establishment, the defence intelligence activities of DND/CAF, as you have noted, are not explicitly defined in statute. Instead, they are carried out under the Royal Prerogative.
In your report and presentation, you noted the importance of providing DND/CAF with a statutory authority to conduct defence intelligence activities. What are the advantages and disadvantages of a statutory authority?
Mr. McGuinty: Thank you, senator. The first thing I would say is they are clearly laid out in very simple terms in the report, both the pros and cons, so to speak, the advantages and disadvantages.
In our deliberations as members, we decided to take the information provided to us by the Department of National Defence and the Canadian Armed Forces very much at face value. We agreed that the best way to proceed with this was to put it in front of parliamentarians and Canadians so they could draw their own conclusions. That is why the recommendation we put forward calls on the government to seriously consider providing a legislative framework and doesn’t come out as explicitly saying that we’re requesting that legislative framework be put in place.
We thought it was important to inject this debate into Canadian society. We have described the activities at DND and the Canadian Armed Forces on this front as an anomaly compared to and contrasted with the other organizations I referred to in my comments.
We examined the Crown prerogative in great detail. How did this come to be? We talk about the evolution of CSE and how it sprang forth from the Crown prerogative as well and was given its parameters with legislative footing.
We talked about CSIS and how it was given its legislative footing pursuant to activities by the RCMP and the Macdonald commission report of some time ago.
We really wanted to put it squarely in front of Canadians to have a better idea of what authority DND is using now and how it might be improved going forward. What we have captured is what we believe is an accurate depiction of the state of the debate on the advantages and disadvantages on that front.
Senator McIntyre: Thank you for your answer. My next question has to do with the proposed national security and intelligence review agency versus the role of your committee. As I understand, your committee is separate from the NSIRA, which would be established by the coming into force of Bill C-59.
According to your report, your committee and the proposed national security and intelligence review agency are intended to have complementary roles.
First, what are those complementary roles?
Second, are you satisfied that the proposed national security and intelligence review agency referenced in Bill C-59 would provide adequate review of the defence intelligence activities of DND/CAF?
Mr. McGuinty: Our committee has not examined Bill C-59 in detail. It’s not something that we have been seized with. It’s not a responsibility that our committee has in its mandate. Our counterpart committee in Australia is often the repository for bills like Bill C-59. They take it apart and put it back together.
There is a clear demarcation between our responsibilities and NSIRA. NSIRA is largely about lawfulness and whether or not the organizations — the agencies and departments that it is responsible for — are acting in a lawful manner within the four corners of their statutory authority. That’s why it’s often described as a “super SIRC.” It’s also got some complaints responsibilities that NSICOP does not.
NSICOP’s mandate is very much a review mandate looking retrospectively, not prospectively. NSICOP has the authority to follow the information across the full spectrum of the S&I architecture in the country.
I often say that our perspective is two-fold. At once we are at the top of the crow’s nest looking out at the overall architecture of S&I in the country: What’s the design? How well is it working? But at the same time, we climb down into the engine room and conduct activity reviews, which, for example, we’re doing right now with the Canada Border Services Agency as a specific organization. We do both the framework and activities.
So, it is complementary; both statutes. I believe Bill C-59 refers to the same — our act certainly does. We shall cooperate with and work with NSIRA hand in glove. We’ve already begun that outreach with other review bodies that are in place that will be merged into NSIRA.
Senator McIntyre: In other words, the proposed agency set under Bill C-59 would focus its reviews on specific activity and compliance of federal intelligence and national security agencies.
Ms. Marcoux: The proposed NSIRA, as I understand it, will look at exactly what Mr. McGuinty said, which is compliance with legislation and also reasonableness in the exercise of their powers. They will also assume some of the roles or the responsibilities that SIRC and the CSE commissioner have right now, which is to review and report annually to the respective ministers. And it will have a complaint function. They will also take over the national security function of the commission for the review of the RCMP.
Senator McIntyre: Should Parliament play a greater role in studying defence intelligence issues in Canada?
Mr. McGuinty: I think we just did. To give senators a perspective, in 2018, our committee met 54 times for an average of, I think, between four and five hours per sitting. That’s about four times the average sitting time of a house committee. I don’t know what it is for the Senate. A large part of that dealt with Chapter 4, which is the whole question of the defence intelligence activities.
We’re hoping — my senator colleagues can jump in here — that this has ignited an interest in exposing what is happening at the Department of National Defence and Canadian Armed Forces, which compelled us to come to both the House of Commons and the Senate committees to present the report.
Senator McIntyre: What I was talking about when I referred to a greater role, at one point you were talking about a periodic briefing for parliamentarians about the risks of foreign interference in Canada. That’s the point I was driving at.
Senator Lankin: If I may, I think the genesis of the recommendation to ask the government to seriously consider creating a legal framework for the exercise of intelligence activities by DND/CAF comes from the sense the committee had that there’s a benefit for Parliament to be more engaged in this.
When we identified the benefits of having legislation, there are risks that DND/CAF set out, and they’re in our report as well. We are dealing with a unique organization in terms of its mandate in battlefield operations, for example. We set out the benefits. The first one was parliamentary scrutiny, looking at laws and at the other points we set out. What is the extent and the limitation that should be in place on those activities? What are the definitions? People have different definitions for some of these activities. What is the requirement for cooperating across the S&I community with other organizations? What are the linkages, how are they done, and what’s the accountability across and up?
I think, Senator McIntyre, there’s a clear beneficial role for more parliamentary scrutiny of DND/CAF intelligence operations. As with everything we’ve looked at, we find that the appropriate balance always has to be struck, and that’s why setting out the risks identified by the department was important to us, but it’s also important for government to give serious consideration to this. As parliamentarians, I think it opens a door and gives more accountability and line of sight to the public.
Hon. Vernon White, Senator, National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians: I think the senator also had a question in relation to foreign interference. Certainly, that’s one of the reasons we took on the review of foreign interference in 2019. It’s obvious that we believe parliamentarians and maybe even Canadians don’t know enough about foreign interference in Canada. It’s probably discussed more outside this country than it is in this country. It’s something that we believe should be of greater interest as well.
Senator McPhedran: Thank you to each of you for such a comprehensive redacted annual report. Even redacted, I learned a lot in going through it.
I want to pick up on one of the priority areas that you’ve already identified, which is foreign interference. I have a two-part question.
Have you developed or are you in the process of developing clearer indicators for a definition of foreign interference? For example, is there anything in terms of foreign interference that you’ve already determined as outside the scope of your mandate?
The second part of my question is more specific. I’ll hold that until I better understand the process you’re following in terms of your parameters in dealing with and assessing foreign interference.
Mr. McGuinty: My answer might disappoint you, senator. As a committee, we decided early on to be extremely circumspect in discussing reviews that are ongoing. We’re not really in a position to answer a number of elements in the question you just posed. I think we can speak a little bit about the process that we might follow as members of the committee.
We did decide to focus on the question of foreign interference in terms of foreign actors and the effects they may be having on Canadian institutions or ethno-cultural communities.
We deliberately chose not to address the question of cybersecurity, electoral integrity or the foreign acquisition of Canadian companies. We believe those are three areas where the Government of Canada is already considerably seized with those three challenges, and different actions have been put in motion to deal with them.
We really are focusing on foreign actors. What do they look like? What are they doing? How well is Canada responding to those threats?
That’s as much as I can say about the review that’s under way on foreign interference.
The way in which we pursue the work is we have an incredibly talented and very experienced group of analysts who work with us. They would provide a clear scoping document for us to examine the merits of these questions. Then, of course, we would write to the ministers who are involved, inform them that we’re pursuing this kind of review. Then we would set out to obtain all the documentation that we are looking for from the affected agencies and/or departments.
When we get that information, we pore over it, thousands of pages. I don’t think it’s betraying any confidences. On the CBSA front, on one of the reviews, I think we received 16,000 or 17,000 pages of documentation, and there’s more to come. Of course, it’s winnowed down and the committee does its job. It reviews most of the information, and we decide what we want to say and how we want to say it.
On this question of foreign interference, I think you’re implying foreign interference versus something else. We are relying now on the definition of threats to the security of Canada from foreign-influenced activities as set out under the CSIS Act. That has kept us in lockstep with the government’s nomenclature on foreign interference.
That’s as much as we can say, but maybe my colleagues have a bit more context to add.
Senator McPhedran: The second part of my question might generate a very short answer.
As you approach your closer examination of foreign interference, Saturday was World Oceans Day. Are you going to be looking at, for example, foreign interference in relation to our underwater cable networks and the impact that would have on national security?
Mr. McGuinty: Senator, we’re not in a position to answer that question.
Senator McPhedran: That was my hunch.
May I ask a more technical question, which I think can be answered? Thank you.
You know, I think, that we were not successful in making the changes to Bill C-59 that you recommended. Do you have any thoughts on something that could be done to address the concerns that caused you to recommend amending Bill C-59 that would meet, partially or wholly, the concern that drove your recommendation?
Mr. McGuinty: I think it’s fair to say the committee remains hopeful. NSIRA, once created, has the option, the discretion, to revisit the question of defence intelligence activities. We were hoping to compel it to be required to do so on an annual basis.
We’re encouraged by the fact that when we turned NSICOP’s spotlight on the Department of National Defence, for the first time in its history, it was the first time that defence intelligence activities have ever been examined by an outside body and reviewed. The good news is that the Department of National Defence and the Canadian Armed Forces created a separate unit within the department to actually respond to external review. That’s encouraging.
We are also taking close note of these kinds of issues as we come to almost two years of activity, remembering that we have a five-year opportunity to review the mandate of NSICOP, and we might very well be looking at this kind of issue. I think the fact that we’ve raised it so explicitly amongst parliamentarians and Canadian society has a lot of folks asking questions about the legislative underpinnings of these activities at the Department of National Defence and Canadian Armed Forces.
Senator Lankin: Just to add to the chair’s comments about NSIRA’s capability to set their own scope of work, as you know, it will grow out of the existing review functions of CSE and CSIS. The Security Intelligence Review Committee, of which I was a member for five years, had a number of areas that they, by policy, determined were appropriate for ongoing or annual reporting on. So that might be something they may take up, just based on the recommendation.
I think it’s an important area because the fact that historically we have not had any kind of “review” — and I want to distinguish something. A couple of people have talked about “oversight.” I know sometimes we use the words interchangeably, but these are review functions. We don’t have external oversight bodies in Canada for any of these security and intelligence activities.
If this bill is returned and proclaimed, we will be finally following the recommendations that will allow a review agency to be broader than the walls of the single agency and legislation that frames one agency’s work. There is the fact that DND/CAF has not had any external review before, and there’s a lot that can be done over the years. For example, as you would be aware from our report about what we’re working on this year. We can’t talk about the content, but we’re looking at the capture, retention and treatment of any intelligence with respect to Canadian citizens. It’s an area that we’re looking at. I think there’s lots that we will dive down into and that there will be sufficient mandate within NSIRA to do as well.
I would hope this recommendation, while not forwarded by the Senate, would find life. I think it’s an important one.
Senator McPhedran: On the theme of external review, have you taken a position yet on external review of the Canada Border Services Agency?
The Chair: Before we move to your last question, senator, Senator White had an additional comment on the previous one.
Senator White: If I may, just for clarity, because I’m not sure it was completely in there: We are not seized with any legislation. Unlike Australia, I think it was, which receives legislation and actually hears witnesses on the legislation, we don’t have that mandate. In fact, that’s your job and the House of Commons’ mandate.
Realistically, any work we would have done on our report wouldn’t have come from a review of a piece of legislation, for example. There’s no connection between those two. It’s a coincidence of sorts, but certainly that isn’t our mandate.
As Mr. McGuinty said, Australia does a lot of that. Maybe during the review of NSICOP going forward, there will be suggestions as well, but certainly that’s not in our mandate today.
Senator McPhedran: Except that you did recommend amending Bill C-59.
Senator White: But not as a result of us reviewing Bill C-59. In fact, if you look at what was recommended, it was recommended that there be oversight. We didn’t review Bill C-59 and come out with a recommended amendment, and none was brought forward by any of the senators in the Senate or, I don’t believe, any members of Parliament in the House of Commons.
David, is that correct?
Mr. McGuinty: Senator, the question you raised a moment ago was this: Given that our amendment to Bill C-59 idea did not see the light of day, what’s next? It wasn’t an all-or-nothing proposition for us.
If you turn to pages 97 and 98 in the report, you’ll see that we make a series of recommendations for improvement in the internal workings now in place with respect to the Department of National Defence and the Canadian Armed Forces’ intelligence activities. There is a series of recommendations for improvement in the way things are managed presently and this additional idea that Bill C-59 would have been amended. As I say, we remain hopeful.
Senator McPhedran: So given your work plan for 2019, a somewhat similar process will be applied to the CBSA. Do I understand that correctly?
Mr. McGuinty: Yes. We’re looking at CBSA as an organization that has never received outside scrutiny or review.
Senator McPhedran: Exactly.
Mr. McGuinty: Which is one of the factors we use to choose reviews — one of the factors among many. We are in the throes of performing that now. We’ll have a lot more to say about it.
Senator Gold: Welcome to you all. You are to be commended for what is a great report and, for us in Canada, a groundbreaking report. It was clear, well written, accessible to all interested readers, and it was direct. It was a pleasure to read and did a service in providing an overview of the agencies, which, except for those of us who were seized with Bill C-59, shed a light on important institutions.
The process of setting out the intelligence priorities in Canada was a real contribution to our understanding, to say nothing of the deep dive into DND, which will bear fruit, I’m sure, in further work and reform. It is a major step forward in transparency and accountability.
It was enormous workload. You’ve mentioned the hours, Mr. McGuinty, and I can’t help but imagine how many thousands and thousands of pages you had to go through. So thank you on behalf of all of us who care about these matters.
I have two questions. The first has to do with the work plans for the future that you addressed. I wonder if you could speak to us about the question of continuity, given that Parliament is about to rise. Can you talk about that, for the benefit of those watching and those around the table? Do you carry on? At what point do you not? And who replaces you?
And what about the secretariat Ms. Marcoux, perhaps you could talk about that.
Mr. McGuinty: The secretariat is really good.
Senator Gold: That, we knew.
Senator Lankin: Ms. Marcoux heads a fabulous staff. They are the keepers of the documents, the archives and the continuity, really.
This committee dissolves upon the dissolution of Parliament, and it will be up to the next government to determine when the membership will be named and who will be named. So we can’t speak to whether there will be continuity of committee membership and a carrying over of the knowledge.
One of the things I think it’s fine to say, in the work that we are doing now and the report that we are working to complete before dissolution of Parliament, there are issues from time to time that make us think, well, we would want to come back and do more work on that. We’re keeping note of those to forward to the next committee, whoever they are in the next government, as possible areas for consideration.
Senator White: I understand the government will be required to bring forward a new committee within 60 days after Parliament resuming. They’ll have 60 days, but that could mean any or none of the people on the committee today will be on the committee next time?
Senator Gold: It’s presumptuous of me to say, but I would hope the government takes seriously the importance of continuity not only in the excellence of the secretariat but in the knowledge that you brought before you started and that you’ve accumulated since.
I want to really drill down into the report. I should just say, as the Senate sponsor of Bill C-59, I was gratified to hear how much it’s still on people’s minds, but I’m not going to ask you anything about that.
You made an important finding with regard to the use of intelligence by DND and the requirement that’s set out in the directives that there be a connection, a nexus, between the intelligence and the military operation that’s being contemplated. You also found that it didn’t go much further than that in the sense that there weren’t rules or principles or, if I read it correctly, consistency in how it was interpreted. In your report, you suggested or offered that DND consider adding two fairly well-known principles in the area in law: that the nexus be both reasonable and proportionate to the activity that the intelligence is to serve.
Can you comment on why, in your actual recommendations, you didn’t explicitly recommend that? I’m not quoting but, from memory, you suggested that DND establish an appropriate standard to flesh out — I’m putting words in your mouth — the nexus requirement. Why did you not carry forward your observations in the text to the recommendation itself?
Mr. McGuinty: As Ms. Marcoux is reminding me, we were being careful not to overstep and micromanage the internal workings of the department. We wanted to highlight the inherent challenges in this concept of nexus. We wanted to explore it and explain it for Canadians, which we’ve done in great detail on pages 76 and 77 and beyond.
From there, we were highlighting some of the challenges and the rationale or perhaps the lack of a legislative footing as robust as one might hope for.
We explored the Crown prerogative and, from there we graduated or transitioned into the question of legislation. That is why we termed that particular part of the report, “The question of legislation.”
I can’t offer you any more insight, unless my colleagues who were part and parcel of that debate might recall more. Ms. Marcoux might. We were being judicious and careful in highlighting this question of reasonableness and proportionality. We simply wanted to expose for senators, for House of Commons members of Parliament, for provincial legislatures, for Canadians, for the academic folks involved in this that this is the lay of the land. This is the state of the art and we’re going to point in certain directions, but we never came down that hard, as you rightly point out.
Senator Gold: As we say in French, c’est tout à votre honneur. It is important that we, as parliamentarians, recognize we have an important role to play in reviewing and holding to account. However, we shouldn’t assume our expertise extends into the operations, the nitty-gritty, where, thank goodness, very competent and experienced organizations, institutions and personnel can deal with that. It’s salutary to leave it to them to come back. I’m sure you’ll have an opportunity to comment further, as will others.
Mr. McGuinty: It’s interesting; one of the articles that followed the report included an interview of the head of the defence intelligence unit. His name escapes me; forgive me. His comment was that when it came to legislative underpinning or new legislation to authorize, he felt the Department of National Defence was agnostic. He felt there might indeed be benefits to move forward.
Then, of course, he went further. We were very pleased to see that he came out and commended the report and its objectivity. It’s something that I think folks inside the Department of National Defence are looking at very carefully. It has prompted an internal debate, so we’re very proud of that.
Senator Lankin: I’d like to add to the response. With regard to your comments about appreciating our caution of not stepping into the actual administration and operational detail of the department, I would agree that’s an appropriate caution for us.
Speaking for myself, I found the whole process of understanding this concept of a nexus — I thought I understood Crown prerogative from a legislator’s perspective, but the dive down into how they operationalize that was fascinating to me. Starting with a lot of probing, there was their declaration that it starts from the government’s approval of a mission and the intelligence activities we need to conduct that mission. There’s the nexus.
When we talked to them about reasonableness, for them it was, “Do we need it to keep our troops safe and to safeguard the interests of Canada in this approved mission?” When we talked about proportionality, they didn’t see nexus as a constraint of any type on their activity. They saw it as the permission to do the work that was required.
It is really about the operational understanding you have when you’re out in the field in the many situations that they kept bringing back to us. If you haven’t had that experience, it’s difficult in the beginning to comprehend what that means. That said to us, as a new committee, that we should take the steps and do the work to bring transparency to what was going on. We should share our understanding, often through the words the department gave us, and then provide a parliamentary view of that on behalf of Canadians.
In looking at the balancing, we always drew back to the democratic rights of Canadians: We know what you’re doing to protect us and we appreciate it; how you’re doing it, we want to understand. We present to you our state of understanding; thus the recommendation around considering a legislative framework to bring more clarity.
It’s clear to them. It is becoming more clear to those of us who are looking in from the outside and who would like to progress with that transparency.
The Chair: I remind senators that I have a number of people on the list. I’m asking you to keep your questions direct, and, similarly, to the panel, if you could be brief. Thank you.
Senator Griffin: You’ll be pleased that I’m probably going to have probably the shortest questions here.
Everybody has made reference to this committee reviewing Bill C-59. One of our early witnesses was the Privacy Commissioner. He very clearly and forthrightly gave us his impressions of the bill, one of which was that there was a particular flaw in the bill: While there are many agencies to which he can proactively give information, he does not have the ability to give information to your particular committee. Obviously, he saw that as an impediment to information flow. If Bill C-59 had given you that ability, would that have been helpful to you as a committee?
Ms. Marcoux: I’ll take the question, if you don’t mind.
I’m aware of the Privacy Commissioner’s concerns and his position regarding the sharing of information between our two organizations. The committee met the Privacy Commissioner early on in 2018 to discuss shared concerns about national security and intelligence. We’re not able to share classified information with him. What we’re hoping is that the reviews that the committee has done will be used by him to perhaps further do his own reviews within his legislative framework on privacy.
Senator Griffin: In this particular case, he was concerned that he couldn’t give you information rather than vice versa.
Ms. Marcoux: Yes, I guess that’s exactly it. It’s probably something that will be identified in the upcoming five-year review of our legislation. But at the moment, there is no authority to exchange.
Senator Griffin: Yes. Our committee made an observation that it would be desirable to enable him to be able to transmit information to your committee.
[Translation]
Senator Boisvenu: Welcome to the witnesses. Will the position of commissioner be part time? I don’t think it’s full time.
Mr. McGuinty: Which commissioner are you referring to?
Senator Boisvenu: The security commissioner.
Ms. Marcoux: Do you mean of the new organization?
Senator Boisvenu: Yes.
Ms. Marcoux: I believe the bill states that the position can be filled on a permanent or temporary basis.
Senator Boisvenu: I believe the commissioner will have the authority to sign the minister’s decisions. Isn’t that right?
Mr. McGuinty: Do you mean the intelligence commissioner?
Senator Boisvenu: Yes, the intelligence commissioner.
Mr. McGuinty: It’s a full-time position, of course.
Senator Boisvenu: That answers my question. My other question has to do with the verifications that are carried out and the requirement that they be reasonable as opposed to legal. Why does the bill refer to the “reasonableness” of intelligence activities, rather than their legality? The bill refers to the authority to consider the “reasonableness” of an intelligence activity.
Mr. McGuinty: Are you talking about the 2018 annual report?
Senator Boisvenu: No. Your mandate is to review activities and determine whether they are reasonable. Is it not?
Mr. McGuinty: No. Our power is much broader than that under the mandate. The legislation is very clear about that. Are you perhaps referring to the intelligence commissioner’s mandate?
Senator Boisvenu: Yes.
Mr. McGuinty: We aren’t in a position to comment on that. We can’t speak for the individual who will be appointed to the position. I can’t provide a detailed answer to your question.
Senator Boisvenu: To my mind, legal and reasonable are totally different concepts. Verifying whether an activity is legal versus reasonable is not the same thing. What’s more, the term “reasonableness” isn’t defined in the bill. Should the bill lay out what “reasonableness” means?
Mr. McGuinty: Are you still referring to Bill C-59? We can’t comment on the bill since our committee didn’t examine it.
Senator Boisvenu: The committee heard from Minister Blair. Many Canadians have concerns regarding the return to Canada of individuals alleged to have been involved in acts of terrorism in Iraq or Libya.
A lot of countries decided not to take those individuals back because of the risk they pose. I asked the minister how sound the intelligence gathered by the service from those countries was, considering that, in many cases, Canada has no direct relationship with their leaders or with embassies. How sound is the intelligence? Will your committee be involved in validating intelligence that the government may gather on terrorists who travelled to those countries or wish to return to Canada?
The government can decide to allow individuals who have committed acts of terrorism abroad to return to the country. Will you have a hand in determining whether the intelligence was gathered as securely as possible or whether the country’s national security was jeopardized?
[English]
Senator White: Thank you very much for the question, senator. We really don’t have any value to offer to your question. As you can see, the work we’ve done hasn’t focused on that, and the work we are doing now and will try to complete in the next two and a half months also has no focus there.
Certainly, I think all Canadians have concern, but it’s not something that we’ve put our minds to at this point and time, nor are we anticipating doing so in the near future for sure.
[Translation]
Mr. McGuinty: Nothing prevents us from examining that at some point, senator, but that isn’t consistent with what we are already doing review-wise. It’s not something we discuss publicly. The only thing we do publicly is announce what we are doing. We wait for the reports to come in and, then, we share the findings.
Senator Boisvenu: When I put the question to the minister, what concerned me was that he had no clear or specific information on data Canada may collect through all kinds of activities. Is it information that could protect the country from acts of terrorism committed by individuals upon their return to Canada? Without sound intelligence, these people could slip through the cracks. I think your committee could help determine whether the departments in question had the best possible tools to ascertain how dangerous these individuals were so that they don’t commit further acts of terrorism.
Mr. McGuinty: Those are all very pertinent questions, but I’m not able to answer them right now. I don’t know whether the committee is going to take an in-depth look at that.
Senator Boisvenu: Thank you.
[English]
Senator Oh: Thank you, witnesses. I want to follow up on the question from Senator McPhedran about foreign interference.
In your report, you talk about foreign interference. Can you define or tell us more about what foreign interference is exactly?
Mr. McGuinty: We certainly can, senator. In the next report we will. We promise we’ll define it better for you.
We touched tangentially on the question of foreign interference in this report, relying on open sources. The work that we’re doing now relies on open sources and, of course, an extensive amount of classified material. We’re not in a position to expand at this stage except to let you know that we are seized with this question of foreign interference, as I said, with the caveat being that we are narrowing in on the question of foreign actors and their activities, and the threats they pose to Canadian institutions and to Canadian ethnocultural communities. We have circumscribed the report to that in order to be able to deal with it in as detailed a fashion as we can.
Senator Oh: You mentioned Russia and China among the handful of states that conduct espionage and foreign influence activities in Canada. What are the other few countries that you are concerned about?
Mr. McGuinty: I’m not in a position to answer that question, senator. The commentary around Russia and China was drawn exclusively from open-source information.
That was a deliberate decision in the drafting of the report, and we’re carrying forward the analysis now on foreign interference. We’ll have a lot more to say about that in due course.
Senator Oh: So CSIS is doing well on counter-interference, and are we collecting more information from foreign countries? Because today is all about collecting information here or there.
Mr. McGuinty: As you know, these types of questions may be the types of questions the committee is examining in great detail. The report, of course, is produced; it is delivered to the Prime Minister; and the report then goes through a mandatory redaction process involving Department of Justice counsel and the entire team that does redactions inside the Department of Justice. Ultimately, a report is made public and tabled in both the House of Commons and the Senate. But in terms of specific questions around the activities of CSIS or any other agency, we’re not in a position to answer those questions at this time.
Senator Oh: Thank you.
[Translation]
Senator Miville-Dechêne: My questions are in the same vein as my colleague’s. I imagine you won’t be able to tell me whether Canada is doing enough to combat the threat of foreign interference, so I’ll focus on something a bit more specific. This is something that interests me, the transparency you talked about.
You seemed to indicate that you wanted parliamentarians, in general, to be better informed about foreign interference. I think that’s a good idea, but how are you going to inform us of anything given the secrecy that surrounds what goes on in your committee and the confidential nature of the information you deal with?
In other words, you’re going to tell us that you can’t tell us anything but that it’s very beneficial. Clearly, I find that a bit frustrating, even though I fully appreciate the need for confidentiality.
Mr. McGuinty: All I can tell you is that we’re going to do our best. We have a mandate. We have an act, and we have to operate within the parameters of that act. Of course, information is redacted, but it’s important to know that our committee always favours greater transparency.
It’s something we’ve noted, and we keep a close eye on the redaction process. We compare Canada’s approach with that of other countries such as Australia, the U.S. and the other Five Eyes nations.
We pay very close attention to the process, and I believe the committee members are in favour of a mandatory process review five years after the committee’s establishment. The committee may have more to say on the subject down the road.
Senator Miville-Dechêne: Great. In five years, then.
Mr. McGuinty: Three, actually.
[English]
Senator White: Just quickly, I think the responses about what we can and can’t speak to now flow primarily from the fact that the report is not out. I think, like you saw with the annual report and the special report we did last year, that both of those reports were enlightening for people who read them. I would hope that any reports coming forward would be enlightening as well.
I think, for the most part, the responses today about what we can and can’t speak to pre-empt the fact that we haven’t released a report yet.
[Translation]
Senator Miville-Dechêne: I have a follow-up question, and it probably has to do with the fact that I’m new to the Senate. What impact does the committee’s reporting relationship to the Prime Minister have on your work? I mean as compared with the work of parliamentary committees, in our case, Senate committees.
How does that affect the way you work, or does it?
Mr. McGuinty: It gives us the ability to influence members of Canada’s security and intelligence community as needed. Having top secret security clearance gives committee members access to other material. We have a certain degree of flexibility and are completely independent of Parliament. We are an independent committee of parliamentarians. We are all directly appointed by the Prime Minister, pursuant to a separate act.
The authority to conduct our work doesn’t stem from the Parliament of Canada Act. It comes, instead, from the act establishing the committee. As a result, we have a certain amount of independence, and, further to the decision we all made at the outset, I think our approach is entirely free from partisanship. That’s a tremendous boon as regards our ability to influence the Prime Minister and the government.
However, as Senator White likes to remind us, we can’t lose sight of our role, which is to conduct reviews, produce reports and submit them to the Prime Minister.
What happens next is up to the government.
Senator Miville-Dechêne: Thank you very much.
[English]
Senator Mercer: I’m going to be very brief. First of all, I apologize for being late. Travel in this country sometimes makes that happen.
I looked at the regional makeup of the committee, and you had 11 members. Four were members of the Queen’s Privy Council. I know that you have top-secret clearance. But has the absence of the Privy Council honour and title been a hindrance to the seven members of the committee who are not members of the Privy Council? Would it be of any help if they were members of the Privy Council?
Mr. McGuinty: Rennie, do you want to take that?
Ms. Marcoux: Whether or not they are Privy Councillors has nothing to do with access to the information or their role on the committee. I think that was separate from their membership on this committee.
What counts in terms of being on the committee is that they have and maintain top-secret security clearance, swear an oath, and are subject to the Security of Information Act.
Senator Mercer: Thank you.
Senator Richards: Senator Lankin, I think, answered this question in a way, but how timely and definitive is the information your review panel gets? And how long, given the amount of documentation, would it take before you offer your recommendations? Should it be done in a more timely manner? If you could answer that.
Mr. McGuinty: I could begin by saying that there are some statutory requirements. We deliver a report to the Prime Minister within 30 sitting days. The report must be redacted, and we must be advised of those redactions.
I think there are many things for us to learn as we continue with the work of the committee. The time it takes to hear back from the government on some fronts can sometimes be a bit difficult for us. However, we have developed great trust and good relationships with the community writ large.
I hope that answers the first part of your question.
The amount of material can sometimes prove to be difficult to pore over, digest and reconcile. It often leads to more questions, more material, more asks for material.
As a general rule, we received incredible cooperation from the community. In some instances, we have had to poke and prod a bit. That’s where we leave it to the incredible team in the secretariat to work with their counterparts and get the information we need.
I forget the second part of your question.
Senator Richards: That answers it. More timely and more secure is what I’m trying to get at. The more timely the recommendations and the more timely you would get the documentation, the more secure the country and the organizations that protect us are going to be. That’s kind of what I’m asking.
Senator Lankin: I would simply add that we do have the ability, beyond our annual report — you can appreciate, seeing the breadth of it and seeing the topics we’re working on for the next report, that it’s very time-consuming work. We have the ability to undertake special reports, as we did in the case of the allegations around foreign interference in the Prime Minister’s trip to India.
I would underscore the point that I made earlier. This is not oversight, so it’s not current practice of what is going on. It is to review what has gone on, but within that, you make a good point around the timeliness. I think both the special report and, for example, what we announced this year with respect to looking at DND and the collection of information regarding Canadians is very timely as well.
Senator Richards: Thank you.
Senator M. Deacon: Thank you for being here today. It is a great report, and a report that I commend for how it was written and put together with all Canadians in mind. My work outside the Senate has involved those eight core areas of security, so it has been interesting to read all this together.
I would love to, if we had an extra day, hear about what surprised you and concerned you in all of those thousands of hours you spent reviewing the documentation that you put together. However, for the purposes of this moment, I’m focusing on pages 110 and 111 of the report, which are the statements about future work.
We have talked about foreign interference and about taking a look at organizations that weren’t included in this annual report. Are there other buckets that are ruminating for you that may have come close to the surface for you since printing and publication, if there is anything else that is kind of ruminating as the bronze medal, the third area as we move forward?
I’m delighted to see, of course, that you have included the equity perspective. I know there are interesting things going on with the “four other eyes” in this area and how they are going about it, so kudos. I want to hear about what else might be on the plate that didn’t quite make the roster here.
Mr. McGuinty: I think it’s fair to say there are a lot of options in the window, and we’re looking at all of them.
Senator M. Deacon: Right, and you can’t share those with me.
Mr. McGuinty: A few things surprised us about the report. One of the things that surprised us from the get-go — which is why we carved out 32 pages at the front end to provide a national security and intelligence 101 briefing for Canadians, written in very plain English or plain French form, very understandable — was the extent of the lack of understanding in Canadian society about security and intelligence activities. Only 3 per cent of Canadians, for example, could identify what CSE stood for. Most Canadians don’t know what their state apparatus and actors are doing; they don’t know what the mandates are; they don’t know what the resourcing is; they don’t know what the challenges are; they don’t know about some of the powers invested in them; and they don’t know about the challenges around those powers and protecting rights and freedoms. That was a big revelation to us, which is why we decided at the beginning — to repeat myself, there are 32 pages that provide a foundational picture of the threats and the different actors trying to address the threats.
Other than that, as we go along, there is always a plethora of issues that we keep a watching brief over.
Someone asked the question earlier about the institution continuing on after this membership fades away or comes back together. We’ll have to wait and see what happens post-election, but the secretariat is tracking and actively building a research database and analysis of and classified materials on a whole series of areas that we may want to pull out of analysis and scoping now and elevate it into a review. That is something we reserve the right to do as members of the committee.
We don’t talk about what we’re examining until we decide what we’re examining. After we announce what we’re examining, we don’t say anything about it until we’re done. When we have conclusions and a report like this, we let the report speak for itself.
Senator Gold: It goes without saying that I won’t ask you and you won’t answer anything you can’t answer. You have had the unique privilege of dealing with all of our agencies and having them share information with you that they cannot really share beyond.
Could you comment on two related things that have preoccupied me and others who were looking at national security through the lens of the other bill that we have been talking about today? One is the level of cooperation between our security and intelligence agencies as they hand information off to each other, advise each other, and the extent to which silos may be breaking down, and whether you’re able to comment on the degree of satisfaction or work that still needs to be done, so that the agencies working within their mandates do collaborate where appropriate.
The second is the challenge of gathering intelligence and translating it into usable evidence, whether it’s for the prosecution of foreign fighters or any number of things. It’s an area that in one of our observations, if I recall in Bill C-59, that we recommended the Senate continue to look at. Would you comment on that, please?
Mr. McGuinty: Where to begin? The Australians are performing a very interesting analysis right now. They have hired an outside expert. They are performing a review of their entire national security and intelligence apparatus, the overall architecture, whether all those grapple grommets connect properly or don’t. We’re aware of that exercise.
I think what we have tried to do in the first year is build trust and have officials from all of these organizations that we review come into a committee, which is a safe space for the sharing of classified information without fear of a leak, a safe space where we readily remind folks who meet with us that we’re not a “gotcha” committee. That’s not something that we play in. That kind of partisanship is everywhere, and we have tried to cultivate a different approach. That safe space is where we can talk to front-line practitioners and ask them where there is room for improvement.
We believe that national security intelligence is a work in progress. That’s an organic process in some cases. You’re looking back historically in that there is always progress to be made. We need their best advice and their best experience on the front lines.
We are constantly looking for what I call the “soft spots.” They are basically places where, for example, democratic rights or privileges or freedoms are at risk, and the way in which agencies conduct their business or exercise their powers.
On the intelligence to evidence question, we’re aware of that question, and that is pretty much as much as I can say about that.
Senator Lankin: I’ll add that in the section of the report that we’re here to talk about today and not our ongoing work, the intelligence priority-setting process was very important for us to understand — the structure and the anatomy of how departments work and how they interact with the ministerial directive and cabinet decision making to break down silos, because they are talking with each other about priorities and surfacing up and back down, and the mechanism of ensuring from a whole-of-government perspective that silos are not being fostered.
I think in much of the examination, even in some of the areas that we reported on already, we saw evidence of new methods of cross-departmental collaboration that haven’t existed in the past. So the chair says it’s a work in progress, and it is.
One of the things that we identified in terms of the need for examination of the question of legislation around intelligence activity by DND/CAF was the requirement for cooperation.
So we’re surfacing it and we’re hearing a lot. It will become more fulsome as we go forward with departments like CBSA that Canadians haven’t had the benefit of having a review of before.
Senator McPhedran: I want to switch gears a little bit and ask a question about your special report into the allegations associated with Prime Minister Trudeau’s official visit to India in February of last year.
You recommended a review of the role of the National Security and Intelligence Advisor, the NSIA, and you also suggested that there should be a statutory approach taken. That’s in that report.
Then in your annual report you recommended that the NSIA and the Privy Council Office should actually take a larger managerial and leadership role in setting these priorities.
Can you say a little bit, please, about how you would see the NSIA and the PCO talking on that role? What kind of resources would be required to follow through on your recommendation well?
Mr. McGuinty: I think it’s fair to say the committee concluded that the National Security and Intelligence Adviser of the Prime Minister is a pivotal position in the overall national security and intelligence architecture for the country. In the case of the India report, obviously the NSIA was front and centre. That’s clear in the report.
In the context of the annual review, we have highlighted areas where the NSIA might take on a greater role. I don’t think we went as far as calling for a statutory framework for the NSIA. I can’t recall, but I don’t think we did. We’re hoping for more shape and more definition, senator, because of the importance of that role.
I’m not sure if my colleagues want the add something to that, but I think it’s as far as we’ve gone.
Senator Lankin: We haven’t looked at the resources, and I wouldn’t opine without having done that work. That’s not something we’re in a position to do because we haven’t looked at that yet.
Senator Griffin: When your committee was set up, we had some discussion, at least in the Senate, of having one more senator on the committee. I realize you’re an eight-member committee, but there are three senators and five MPs. After the election, it’s hard to say what the landscape will look like. In terms of keeping more corporate memory of the potential members who would be appointed to the committee when the committee is reconstituted, there would be some desirability in perhaps having one more senator on the committee.
I’m not sure that I need an answer to the question, I’m just making a point that there is risk of losing corporate memory either due to the results of the election or that members aren’t re-offering. Murray Rankin has already indicated he isn’t running again for the next Parliament.
We discussed it at the beginning of the setting up of NSICOP. It’s still an issue.
Mr. McGuinty: Very quickly, there are eight members of Parliament, three senators, one chair, and the other ten are five men and five women.
The question of membership is something that can obviously be looked at in several years when we undertake a five-year review.
Senator Griffin: Thank you.
The Chair: Let me, on behalf of the committee, express our thanks to the Honourable David McGuinty, Senator Lankin, Senator White and Ms. Marcoux. I think this has been helpful, and I congratulate you on your first-year accomplishments and on your annual report.
(The committee adjourned.)