During three days of lively debate in the Commons over the controversial anti-terror Bill C-51, Public Safety Minister Steven Blaney, Justice Minister Peter MacKay and other Conservative MPs have repeatedly characterized the Security Intelligence Review Committee (SIRC) as providing oversight of the spy agency, known as the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS). Prime Minister Stephen Harper has done the same.
Yet SIRC has no such mandate, its spokeswoman said Monday. “We review CSIS. We look at past activities,” to ensure they are lawful, appropriate and effective, SIRC’s Lindsay Jackson said.
“Recently the terms ‘oversight’ and ‘review’ have become almost interchangeable but they do actually mean separate things.
“Direct oversight implies a certain amount of involvement in the active political decision-making or the operational decision-making, and we are not involved in the operational decision-making,” at CSIS.
Under C-51 – which MPs have now sent to committee for study – CSIS agents would be allowed to actively disrupt threats to national security, a significant expansion from their current chief mandate of producing security intelligence for government.
CSIS would only be required to obtain judicial “threat disruption” warrants in instances where the activity was expected to be illegal or unconstitutional. The government argues all of CSIS’s other activities, including warrantless disruptions, would fall under the “robust oversight” of SIRC. Opposition MPs are less convinced.
The Canadian Security Intelligence Service Act of 1984 established both CSIS and SIRC. It was a completely new model for domestic intelligence-gathering and review to replace the disbanded and disgraced RCMP Security Service. The idea for both came from the 1977-1981 “Royal Commission of Inquiry into Certain Activities of the RCMP,” better known as the McDonald Commission.
“The modern history of western democracies has revealed that there is a danger of secret intelligence agencies being used by the government of the day for narrowly partisan purposes or to serve the personal interests of political leaders rather than the security of the nation,” the commission wrote in its final report.
“To avoid this danger and to strengthen public confidence in the integrity of security intelligence operations and their direction by government, provision must be made for independent review of security activities.”
The prime minister appoints SIRC’s five members (all are privy councillors). Currently, however, there are four part-time members, with the fifth seat vacant since last year. Former Reform and Conservative MP Deborah Grey, who worked closely with the prime minister, has been interim chair for more than a year. The committee meets about six times annually, usually for two days at a time, with additional times to attended complaint hearings.
It is backed by a small secretariat and its current annual budget is about $2.7 million. By comparison, CSIS employs more than 2,000 people, with an annual budget of about $500 million.
To ensure independence, objectivity and credibility, the McDonald Commission recommended – and the Liberal government of Pierre Trudeau adopted – that SIRC’s role would be strictly after the fact.
“If (SIRC) becomes involved in advising on or, worse, approving operations before they occur, it will be implicated in the agency’s operations and in effect will be reporting on itself. Therefore it should avoid giving advisory opinions before the fact,” the commission wrote.
In defending Bill C-51, the Conservative government has argued the 31-year-old CSIS needs updated tools in the world of post-9/11 terrorism. SIRC, however, gets no mention in C-51.
In a performance report last fall, the organization said it was “struggling to operate efficiently” and falling behind at investigating complaints.
Asked Monday about the current situation, Jackson chose her words carefully: “We consider ourselves professional, we consider ourselves effective, but we really do need to be able to keep pace with CSIS’s operational realities.
“There are certain checks and balances that were enshrined in our mandate and for those to remain relevant and effective, we need to keep up with any changes that take place at CSIS.”
Since 2006, SIRC has been telling government it needs the expanded power to carry out joint investigations, exchange information, and co-ordinate the preparation of reports with other national security review bodies, such as the Office of the Commissioner of the Communications Security Establishment (CSE). The CSE is Canada’s foreign signals spy agency.
“Given that there’s increased co-operation, increased information sharing among the intelligence agencies, we feel that the legislation should be expanded to include SIRC and the other review bodies so that we can effectively review CSIS activities when they cross over into these other departments and agencies,” said Jackson.
But “there is nothing Bill C-51 that gives us the ability to follow the thread or the ability to do joint reviews. Those legislative tools are not included. Nor are additional resources.”
Original Article
Source: canada.com/
Author: IAN MACLEOD
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