In an interview with host Evan Solomon, the genial but haltingly ill-informed Strahl essentially confirmed that he intends to be a loyal government man rather than become the fearlessly independent watchdog over CSIS that this nation requires.
If CSIS director Richard Fadden bothered to watch Strahl’s tepid performance he will have come away happy and confident that yet another SIRC chair understands that the position is largely titular and that the committee he nominally leads will continue to provide only a veneer of accountability over CSIS.
This became apparent as Strahl was pressed to respond to unprecedented criticism levelled recently at SIRC and Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s government by Eva Plunkett, the former inspector-general (IG) over CSIS.
Plunkett retired late last year on the eve of the Conservative government’s self-serving decision to shutter the IG’s office as an alleged cost-saving measure. The IG’s office, despite its paltry staff and budget, provided a measure of meaningful oversight as the public safety minister’s “eyes and ears” over CSIS’s day-to-day operations.
It is important to note that SIRC’s traditional responsibilities were, in comparison, limited to administering complaints about CSIS’s modus operandi and, from time to time, issuing special and mostly uncritical reports to Parliament about the espionage service’s clandestine operations.
To her credit, Plunkett, unlike SIRC, earned a reputation as a spirited and incisive critic of CSIS. Plunkett and her staff produced annual reports that routinely rankled CSIS’s leadership. So it wasn’t surprising when Plunkett unloaded on SIRC and the Harper government in a refreshingly candid Canadian Press interview.
Plunkett described Ottawa’s decision to abolish the IG’s office as a “huge loss” for Canada and dismissed as “ridiculous” the notion that SIRC can assume the IG’s oversight duties.
“They don’t do the same kind of work at all,” Plunkett told CP’s Jim Bronskill last week. “They don’t go into the same depth, the same detail. And they’re basically part-time people.”
Ouch.
Then she proffered this diplomatic yet stinging rebuke: “I feel bad for Canada. And I feel kind of bad for the minister, because I think it was poor advice to suggest to him that (the IG’s office) wasn’t worth having.”
Plunkett is right in her blunt assessment of SIRC’s inadequacies and the impudent, but convenient, decision to abolish the IG’s office.
Plunkett echoed a sentiment I have often expressed about SIRC’s inexperienced leadership: Strahl and his fellow part-time, politically connected appointees, know little, if anything, about the netherworld of intelligence. They are also likely unaware of CSIS’s unofficial but guiding motto: “Lie. Deny. Then act surprised.”
“It takes you at least a year in the job to learn the right questions to even ask the service,” Plunkett said. “If (SIRC) staffed up with the proper kind of people and they had the will and a full-time chair, possibly they could do it . . . but not the way they currently function.”
Ouch again.
Predictably, Strahl, an ex-Tory cabinet minister, trotted out hollow talking points in reply to Plunkett’s indictment.
“I think we can do a good job with the resources that we’ve been handed,” he said. Strahl added that SIRC had hired two full-time staff to help the committee complete the industrious work previously undertaken by the IG’s office. Strahl is in small company indeed if he actually believes this nonsense.
Nevertheless, Strahl is already facing his first and perhaps defining test.
Last week, it came to light that after years of official lies and denials, the supposedly sacrosanct telephone calls between Toronto lawyer Rocco Galati and two of his clients considered by Ottawa to be national security threats had, in fact, been intercepted for more than a decade by CSIS.
“I couldn’t believe the degree to which the judicial process had been corrupted,” Galati told a reporter.
This represents a dangerous breach of solicitor-client privilege by a security service that has profound implications for Canadians. For too long, CSIS officers and their bosses have avoided accountability for such egregious actions. (I assure you there are many other examples of this kind of grievous misconduct.)
So I urge Strahl to accept the following challenge if he wants to even remotely prove Plunkett and me wrong.
As SIRC chair, he must promptly get to the core of these disturbing revelations. He must discover who ordered the bugging; who conducted it; who was aware of it; who lied about it, and covered it up. He must also make his findings public and hold those responsible to serious account. Finally, if necessary, he must refer the matter to the RCMP for possible criminal investigation.
We shall then see whether Strahl really has the will to do “a good job.”
Original Article
Source: the star
Author: Andrew Mitrovica
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