Bill C-22 (Historical)

An Act to establish the National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians and to make consequential amendments to certain Acts

This enactment establishes the National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians and sets out its composition and mandate. In addition, it establishes the Committee’s Secretariat, the role of which is to assist the Committee in fulfilling its mandate. It also makes consequential amendments to certain Acts.

National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians Act

[Anthony Housefather, Liberal, Mount Royal, QC]

Mr. Speaker, the principle of this legislation is incredibly important. It is important for us to have parliamentary oversight of the security apparatus in this country. I do not think any member of the House would think any differently. We may disagree about the framework for the proposed committee, but we should agree that such a committee should exist.

I believe that the committee worked exactly as a committee should work. It worked across party lines to adopt a number of amendments. The government accepted a good number of the amendments made by committee members. The government listened to the committee, the committee listened to the witnesses, and the bill was improved. That is how committees should work. It is not that all government members vote one way and all opposition members vote another way. At the public safety committee, government and opposition members joined together, back and forth, to support amendments. That was a highlight of and a compliment to the parliamentary process.

[Rachel Blaney, NDP, North Island—Powell River, BC]

Mr. Speaker, today I rise to speak to Bill C-22, an act to establish parliamentary oversight of our security and intelligence services. Bill C-22 aims to plug a gap by giving a unique committee of nine security-cleared and secrecy-sworn MPs and senators substantial but not complete access to classified information and a whole-of-government mandate to review security and intelligence operations, policy, legislation, and administration.

Canada has not seen any progress toward security accountability in decades. In 1977, the government created the McDonald Commission to investigate the security services activities of the RCMP. The commission resulted in two key recommendations in its final report in 1981. The first was to separate security services from the RCMP, a recommendation that was fully implemented in 1984 with the establishment of CSIS. The other key recommendation, to create a special oversight committee of parliamentarians, was ignored and has gone ignored for decades.

Time after time, governments have resisted the call to create a body for parliamentary oversight of security and intelligence services. They have ignored experts in this country and around the world who have insisted that parliamentary oversight is crucial to bridging the gap between ordinary Canadians and the women and men of our intelligence services.

In 2005, a Liberal government bill was introduced that was almost a carbon copy of Bill C-22 in its original form. An interim committee of parliamentarians on national security, when studying that bill, actually toured allied nations and met with their oversight bodies. It too came to the conclusion that an oversight committee must be provided with complete access to classified information. Unsurprisingly, the Liberals rejected that provision.

Without oversight, Canada has been left behind. All of our closest allies, including those with parliamentary governments similar to ours, have adopted legislative oversight to ensure that national security efforts are being executed in the best interests of all citizens. In fact, Canada is the only member of the Five Eyes intelligence-sharing alliance with the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia, and New Zealand that does not have any parliamentary oversight of its security and intelligence services.

It is not good enough to simply look at past mistakes and attempt to evaluate where we went wrong. We need proactive, ongoing parliamentary oversight to ensure not only that everything is operating properly but to stop activities that we believe are not in the best interests of Canadians.

Canadians expect a watchdog with teeth. This committee must have full access to classified information, adequate resources, independence, and, subject only to justifiable limits, the power to share its findings with Canadians in an informative and transparent manner.

Without adequate access to information, the committee would not be able to do its job. This work is far too important to do half-heartedly or ineffectively. We will not support creating a committee that simply wastes time and erodes Canadians' trust.

While the Liberals insisted on watering down Bill C-22 to strip parliamentarians' access to crucial information, we believe that committee members must have full access in order to provide full and thorough oversight. When law professor Craig Forcese, from the University of Ottawa, testified at committee, he remarked that "Unless the committee can access information allowing it to follow trails, it will give the appearance of accountability without the substance''.

This is exactly what the Liberal government has become known for: all talk and very little action, no real commitment, just smoke and mirrors, just as we have seen with Bill C-51.

If the government truly believes that there should be a committee of parliamentary oversight of security and intelligence issues, it must stop trying to strip the committee of the ability to do its job effectively.

Since Bill C-51 was introduced in 2015, there has been a true awakening about the balance we expect the government to uphold between our privacy rights and national security objectives. This awakening did not happen overnight. In February 2015, 82% of Canadians supported Bill C-51, but by April, the level of support was down to 33%. The more Canadians learned about the bill, the less they liked it, and for good reason.

It is the New Democrats who fought against a very strong current to make sure that Canadians knew the rights we were all signing off and losing forever. It was politically risky, but we knew it was the right thing to do.

Still, to this day, Bill C-51's broad interpretation allows the government to cast a wide net, with the potential to scoop up union members, environmentalists, and aboriginal rights activists. The language in this bill is so broad that the definition of terrorist was watered down to individuals who practise their legal right to dissent. Under this legislation, police forces have the power to detain people they suspect of planning to break the law. The Canadian Security Intelligence Service will have new powers to arrest. These are only some of the examples of what the NDP stood against, whereas the Liberals in opposition were decidedly unreliable. They flip-flopped, ultimately deciding to amend the bill when they got into power. The problem is that they have not. The government is still playing lip service to its campaign promise. It is disappointing and frustrating that the Liberals are not living up to their commitments on Bill C-51.

To rebuild trust, the committee must be strong, independent, and effective. The current government must fulfill its promise to repeal the problematic elements of Bill C-51. Even the Canadian Civil Liberties Association agrees that legislation is needed to undo the damage done by Bill C-51.

While we agree that oversight of our national security and intelligence apparatus is badly needed, we cannot use such a bill as this one to cover up the inaction on Bill C-51.

The former auditor general has stated that review powers must be proportionate to the intrusiveness of powers wielded by security agencies and that anything less falls short of true oversight. In light of Bill C-51's expansion of security powers, should this committee's oversight powers not also be greater than what was envisioned a decade ago in a previous government's bill?

The original version of Bill C-22 gave committee members substantial access to classified information, but not complete access. Based on expert testimony and study, the public safety committee presented evidence-based amendments to the bill. These amendments aimed to give the committee the powers and access to information it would need to do its job effectively.

Furthermore, the bill aimed to limit the power of the Prime Minister to censor committee reports. Other efforts to amend the bill, like including a provision to elect the chair of the committee, were rejected by the government, even though it had the support of all opposition parties. Despite this, we were happy with Bill C-22 when it was amended. The amended bill fulfilled a crucial campaign promise by both the NDP and the Liberals and ensured that the committee would be both independent and well informed. However, it is clear that the government intends to neglect the evidence-based decisions of the committee and to bring Bill C-22 back to its original, watered-down form.

In The Globe and Mail op-ed on January 27, four national security and legal experts stated this point clearly:

Should the government choose to force a return to the restrictive original bill, it risks potentially undermining a new and historic Parliamentary ability that it has enthusiastically championed.

I strongly urge the government to keep the amendments as made by the committee. These amendments were made after hearing from 25 expert witnesses and with the united support of all opposition parties.

This country needs strong parliamentary oversight of our security and intelligence services that is transparent and accountable and serves the best interests of Canadians. I hope this government will live up to its election promises, respect the work of the committee, and pass this legislation as amended.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, I was here during the debate on Bill C-51. The Liberal Party, in opposition to Bill C-51, raised a number of concerns. Ultimately, we saw fit to support Bill C-51. The NDP opposed it straight through. However, we understood the importance of rights and freedoms. We also understood the importance of security.

We made a commitment to Canadians to bring back parliamentary oversight. We have had professionals and scholars indicate that this was good, sound legislation, even before it was amended. I would suggest that the NDP critique of the legislation could be applied to other pieces of legislation that other Five Eyes countries have. Canada does not have a parliamentary oversight committee. Other countries do. We will find that in many ways, our legislation is more robust than those other countries', and this is our first time with it.

Will the NDP be voting yes for parliamentary oversight?

[Rachel Blaney, NDP, North Island—Powell River, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I want to mention again about the great integrity I felt as a candidate in my riding when people would come to talk to me about the real concerns they had about Bill C-51. It opened up the doors for people to have their ability to protest, their ability to speak out, vastly limited. A lot of indigenous leaders came to me and talked about their very serious concerns around what their rights would mean and how they were going to fight for their indigenous rights in their province and in their country. I think it is important that we remember that sometimes we have to stand up and speak up against these things, because they really silence people. We could do better. That is what we stood on.

As for this issue, I think it is important to remember that if this committee does not have the tools it needs to get the job done, it will be a waste of time and money for the taxpayer. Canadians in this country want to see something that works well. When we have a committee that works together, that comes together and has good discussions, and comes with amendments, and then suddenly it is changed again by the governing party, we have to ask these questions. That is why we are here. We are here to ask those questions and make sure that when a parliamentary committee is put together around a very important issue, that it is done well, that it is done meaningfully, and that it is done in a way that there are actual teeth to it. I think Canadians want to know that they are being protected and that the oversight is there. It is very unfortunate that the government has seen fit to water down this important bill.

[Marjolaine Boutin-Sweet, NDP, Hochelaga, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I will quote Suzanne Legault, the Information Commissioner of Canada. Because of Bill C-22, there will be a “ministerial override of the committee's review function”.

Does my colleague feel that the committee's loss of autonomy could put Canadians at greater risk?

[Rachel Blaney, NDP, North Island—Powell River, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I think this is what we are talking about today. If the Prime Minister or the ministers have the ability to put things aside so this committee does not have access to the information, how is it supposed to do its job?

Again, I think Canadians are looking for a process and a committee that will work hard, that will have the information it needs, and that will provide the accountability that it needs to move forward. If it does not have the information it requires, how is it supposed to show the Canadian people that it is doing the work it is legislated to do?

I appreciate this question. I think it is very important that this is part of the debate. Are the folks on this committee going to be allowed to do their work in a meaningful way? Or is this going to be a symbolic thing that does not fulfill its commitments but is there to look good for the government?

[Karen McCrimmon, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Transport]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise during this report stage to continue our review of Bill C-22, which would create a committee of parliamentarians on national security matters.

I am pleased to see that today this bill has not only been through committee scrutiny, but thanks to all of that work, the advice of experts, many stakeholders, and the voices of Canadians, we have landed on a version that balances all those concerns. We have agreed to an expanded mandate. We have agreed to remove certain exclusions to the unprecedented level of classified information that this committee will be able to access, and we have balanced concerns about ministerial powers of redaction and national security limitations with reasonable compromises.

As we have moved this significant legislation forward, much has been made about how Canada's committee will compare with counterparts in other Five Eyes countries. Indeed, Bill C-22 would have favourably compared to them as initially introduced. However, this amended version will make it even stronger. If we look closely at another country with a Westminster system comparable to Canada's, for example, the United Kingdom, we see very interesting comparisons with parliamentary review of national security and intelligence. There, in particular, the balance between access to highly sensitive information and protection of national security is reflected in the U.K. Intelligence and Security Committee of Parliament.

In the U.K. model, ministers may choose to withhold certain types of sensitive information, as long as the disclosure would be counter to the interests of national security. Specifically in the U.K., its Justice and Security Act states that if asked to disclose information, the government can withhold the information because it is “sensitive information” and that “in the interests of national security, should not be disclosed..”

If we look to the Australian model, similarly, the government cannot be compelled to provide operationally sensitive information, including intelligence sources, operational methods, or foreign intelligence, if that information is deemed injurious to either national security or foreign relations. All international partners agree that access to information must be balanced with the need for safety of sources and the integrity of the national security framework, and that ongoing investigations should be free of political interference.

Under Bill C-22, Canada's committee would have a statutory right to access highly classified information in any department, any agency, and now, thanks to an amendment adopted by the Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security, any crown corporation, making our committee an international leader in terms of information access.

To continue with comparisons, Canada's committee would also be in line administratively with other Westminster systems, for example, on security clearances. However, Canada's committee would go further still in the scope of its mandate, as its jurisdiction would not be limited to the main national security agencies.

Also, unique to Canada, the committee would be able to engage and collaborate with existing expert review bodies, including the Civilian Review and Complaints Commission for the RCMP, the Security Intelligence Review Committee for CSIS, and the Communications Security Establishment Commissioner.

What is more, Canada's committee would have a unique membership. We are now proposing a body with up to eleven members, including up to three senators, and with a limit of five MPs from the governing party. Certainly this will be reflective of Canada's diversity in advice and expertise, in experience, and in opinion. It will ensure that the government does not control the committee.

I also want to emphasize that this is a made-in-Canada approach. We have taken the best of what we have learned from our allies and applied it to our own system and reality, establishing a body that is unprecedented in Canadian history. It has been lacking for a long time. This goes further than what the government under Prime Minister Paul Martin envisioned in 2005, and it goes further than what many of our allies actually have. What is more, I want to remind hon. members about the checks and balances we have in place to ensure that the committee can evolve and become stronger in the future.

As with any new institution, there will be early experiences that can lead to subsequent improvements. There will also need to be a confidence-building process with the security and intelligence community, as well as with the Canadian public, and with us as parliamentarians. In fact, when Dominic Grieve, the chair of the British committee, visited Ottawa last year, his advice was to start small, build trust, and enhance the committee over time. With Bill C-22, we will actually be starting rather large, with a committee that would have more access and more teeth than many of its international counterparts, including the United Kingdom. A mandatory five-year review included as part of this bill would ensure that the committee's effectiveness and experiences could be studied and lessons applied, so that this new institution in the Canadian national security landscape could become as effective as possible.

I see no reason at this stage of this bill's journey to hold back this truly collaborative and long-overdue legislation. It reflects values that we have long agreed upon, and the final version will incorporate, with the government's agreement, a significant number of amendments proposed by the public safety committee. I commend all members for their valued input, and I applaud the Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security for its review. We are at an important juncture in the history of our country's security framework, and this bill gets to the root of the dual objectives that Canadians have told us they want achieved: keeping our country safe while protecting our values, rights, and freedoms. I urge all members to support this bill.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, I want to take this opportunity to express some thoughts in regard to the importance of this legislation, in the sense that for many years Canada did not have parliamentary oversight. In fact, this will be the first time that we will have parliamentary oversight. With other countries, specifically the U.K., Australia, New Zealand, and the United States, we are all a part of the Five Eyes organization, and we are the only country that does not have a parliamentary oversight committee. Therefore, passing this legislation is somewhat historic, in the sense that we will have parliamentary oversight for the very first time.

There would be parliamentary oversight of the many different agencies of government such as the member made mention of, including corporations and departments and so forth. Parliamentarians would be chosen to be on this committee, and the number of government members appointed would actually be a minority of the committee. This would be a first, and it is important for us to recognize that it would be a great balance in holding accountability and ensuring more transparency, and at the same time protecting the rights and freedoms of Canadians by their knowing that the committee exists.

Could my colleague share her thoughts in terms of the importance of what we are passing today as being something that is somewhat historic?

[Karen McCrimmon, Liberal, Kanata—Carleton, ON]

Mr. Speaker, we have missed having a committee that could do this kind of parliamentary oversight in terms of national security. What we have proposed is a committee that would be effective in being able to review and oversee national security. It is balanced. It is responsive to the security situation. It would be much less partisan, by virtue of what is at stake. It is a made-in-Canada solution, and I believe that is absolutely essential. Also, when we look at what we want to do with this committee, which is to keep Canada safe and at the same time protect our values, our rights, and our freedoms, we have hit the right balance.

[Luc Berthold, Conservative, Mégantic—L'Érable, QC]

Mr. Speaker, in her speech, my colleague talked about the work of the parliamentary committee that studied this matter. I feel that, in a parliamentary committee, each member's work must be recognized. A non-partisan parliamentary committee can be said to do excellent work and to deliver positive results when the government accepts recommendations from all political parties. Unfortunately, few of the recommendations from the official opposition have been adopted by the government, specifically those pertaining to the appointment of the chair and to the fact that we really do want a non-partisan committee.

My colleague was full of praise for the quality of the committee's work; what does she have to say about the fact that the recommendations have unfortunately come from one side only?

[Karen McCrimmon, Liberal, Kanata—Carleton, ON]

It is always a balancing act, Mr. Speaker. It is about finding that best compromise, about trying to build that consensus.

The member is right that people do not get everything they want, but what we came up with is a compromise that would best suit Canada, that would best balance the need for national security oversight with rights and values and freedoms. We must remember that this legislation will be reviewed again in five years and that we will have learned lessons in those five years. There will be opportunities to improve if such improvements are needed.

This is just step one. There are many more steps ahead of us.

[David Anderson, Conservative, Cypress Hills—Grasslands, SK]

Mr. Speaker, I am glad to be here this afternoon.

I am not sure I have seen a bill more emblematic of the Liberals than this bill. As I sit here and listen today, I see there is all kinds of enthusiasm over there, but no assurance of any kind of effectiveness. There is all kinds of work being planned here, but it is likely to have no results. There are all kinds of appointments in the mix, but it does not look as though there would be any balance either.

The Liberals made a promise in the campaign. Their promise was that they were going to set up a non-partisan parliamentary national security oversight committee. Bill C-22 is another broken promise from a government that is becoming famous for breaking them. I will talk about how it has broken that promise, but certainly there is no opportunity for this to be non-partisan or to be a real parliamentary committee, and it certainly is not going to have the oversight it should have.

There are several ways to set committees up around here. The one we thought the Liberals were promising was a non-partisan parliamentary committee. I assume that if we put that in place, we would be talking about equal numbers such that the opposition would be able to contribute on an equal basis and the power on that committee would be shared, perhaps through dual chairs or sharing the chairmanship. It would have the powers of a parliamentary committee. If it was a security committee, it would probably have to deal with some sort of secrecy issues around the content of what it is looking at.

There is a second opportunity, which is to set up a regular parliamentary committee that has parliamentary powers. All of us in the House sit on those types of committees. They always pretty much favour the government, because the numbers on the committee are set by the numbers we have in the House. Those committees are under the control of the government, and we recognize that.

There are also advisory committees of parliamentarians that can be set up, and then there is an advisory committee to the prime minister. We know the specialization that the Liberals across the way have on consultation, but typically those committees are appointed by the prime minister himself.

It is interesting that we saw the Liberals promise number one, a non-partisan parliamentary committee. What they are actually trying to deliver today is number four, which is that advisory committee to the prime minister, a committee that can consult with him and that he can talk to about these issues, but one which has very little power.

I want to take a bit of a look at some of the other countries involved in these committees. One of my colleagues across the way in the government a while ago talked about the United States intelligence committee structure and was actually trying to compare this structure to that. He talked about how there needs to be fairness and justice and that the rule of law must be guaranteed and protected by the bill. Bill C-22 does not do that. It does not compare in any way to the structure that is set up in the United States.

The previous speaker talked about the United Kingdom model being similar too. I am going to go through that a bit as well. I think we will find out that this committee does not have much similarity to the authority and power that the United Kingdom committees have either.

There are a number of other Commonwealth countries that do have oversight committees. New Zealand, for example, has a committee, but it basically is to examine issues of efficacy and efficiencies for budgetary matters, policy settings, and those kinds of things. It really does not have much to do directly with intelligence oversight. The members of that committee are the prime minister, two members of parliament nominated by him, the leader of the opposition, and one member nominated by the leader of the opposition. We can see in that situation that the Government of New Zealand would control that committee at all times. It is basically focused on budget oversight, not intelligence gathering.

The Australian model is a little bit different. It has a committee that is administrative. Its main functions are to do expenditure review and oversight there as well. It can also review matters that relate to some of the agencies that are referred to it, but it does not review intelligence gathering or operational procedures or priorities, and it does not conduct inquiries. Again, we see it is an oversight committee, but it is not what the Liberal government has promised to set up as a committee for Canadians.

The United Kingdom has a little stronger committee. It has a committee of parliament with greater powers. It was actually set up in 1994 as more of a monitoring committee, and in 2013 it was restructured or reformed to give it more powers and increase its strength. It now includes oversight of operational activity and the wider intelligence and security activities of government.

When people were thinking about this committee that the Liberals were promising during the campaign, they really thought that is what was going to be brought in, and it certainly is not, as we see when we look at the legislation, what the Liberals are doing to the legislation, and the work the committee did.

Bill C-22 is called the “national security and intelligence committee of parliamentarians act”. Usually a committee is named for what it really is, and if that is the case here, it probably should be called “the Prime Minister's advisory committee”, because while the bill may establish a committee, it clearly fails to meet either the election promise or to establish a real and true intelligence oversight committee.

It is a bit of an embarrassment, I think, for the government to find itself having to completely change its direction from what it promised. It is unfortunate that it is using time allocation this afternoon to cover what I would call its incompetence on this issue. It is unfortunate that we find ourselves once more in the situation of the government wanting to limit debate on a bill that is clearly not going to meet the priorities and needs of Canadians.

We have a Prime Minister who seems to love running around and appearing on stages more than he likes to do this kind of hard work, so it is not surprising to see legislation, time after time, that is written in ways that the government itself is unable to support. It has to reject the work of the committees, reject the amendments made by members from all parties in this Parliament, and basically turn its back on the promises it made.

The bill to set up this committee was introduced in June of 2016. The interesting thing is that the Prime Minister actually appointed a chair to this committee months before the legislation was even presented and long before it was even debated. I understand the member has been travelling around the world. I guess he thinks he is doing some work on this in his committee, but it is probably a pretty good gig to be appointed before the parliamentary committee is even set up and have the government pay to travel around to examine some of these issues. At least there is one person getting something out of this, if the rest of Canadians are not.

As I said, forming an effective non-partisan committee was a Liberal campaign promise. Every one of us in the House would like to ensure that there is an appropriate review of our national security agencies. Conservatives believe that is important and would like the committee, when it is set up, to have the capacity and the tools to be able to do what is required. I think we would all be glad to support a committee that would properly supervise and provide oversight to our national security and intelligence organizations, but the way it is being done in the House this afternoon is a clear demonstration that this whole project is far more about optics than it is about effectiveness.

If this committee is put in place, we need to make sure that it has the tools to do what is required, and that clearly has not happened. I just mentioned that the Prime Minister appointed a chair of the committee long before the legislation was written, or certainly before it was presented and long before it was debated. The person appointed, from my understanding, has very little expertise and does not have a history in these issues.

One of the issues here is that committees usually elect their own chairs and do not have ones imposed by the Prime Minister's Office.

The Liberals promised they were going to form this committee. It is not a parliamentary committee. It is controlled by the Prime Minister and the Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness. I do not know how anyone in the House could possibly see a committee set up like that to be non-partisan. What does it mean when the Prime Minister has the authority to appoint the members of the committee? Again, as I mentioned earlier, if Liberals really wanted to treat this matter seriously, why would we not be talking about co-chairs and an equal number of party representatives in the House? Without that, we really have nothing useful.

This is just one more broken promise. The budget is being presented this week, and we will be reminded again of how many promises the government has broken. This is one more of those broken promises. This will not be a non-partisan committee. The Prime Minister will be controlling it. It will not be a parliamentary committee. It will not have the powers of a parliamentary committee. What the committee gave the legislation in its work the government is now taking away.

The point is that if it were going to be effective, it would not be under the control of the Prime Minister and the Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness. It would be under the control of the members of Parliament who sit on that committee. If there were equal numbers of members and a sharing of the chairmanship, Conservatives could see how this committee might work effectively, but the government has made a decision that it is not going to do things that way, and that is unfortunate. It is unfortunate that the government finds itself in a situation like this today, but it is even more unfortunate that Canadians will end up paying for another mistake that has been made by the Liberal government.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, what I find unfortunate is that the Conservative Party is completely out of touch with what Canadians really want on this issue.

The Prime Minister made a commitment to bring in parliamentary oversight, and that is exactly what the bill would do. It is a promise kept by the Prime Minister. It seems it is only the Conservative Party that really does not support parliamentary oversight.

The member across the way focuses his attention on the powers of the Prime Minister. The Prime Minister works in consultation with the leaders of the opposition parties to assist in some of those appointments. Government members are actually a minority on the committee itself.

In many ways, this legislation is more robust than legislation where there is parliamentary oversight as part of the Five Eyes nations. Would the member ultimately argue that the EU parliamentary oversight system and the New Zealand parliamentary oversight system are fundamentally flawed? We have some areas that are more robust than those areas.

It just seems to me the Conservatives are—

[The Deputy Speaker, Bruce Stanton]

The hon. member for Cypress Hills—Grasslands.

[David Anderson, Conservative, Cypress Hills—Grasslands, SK]

My colleague across the way is scrambling this afternoon, Mr. Speaker.

I understand the committee did a lot of hard work on this and it came up with a number of amendments that would have given powers to this committee. It would have made it non-partisan. Appointments would not have been made by the Prime Minister. It would have brought in an acceptable level of accountability and transparency. The government rejected those amendments.

Canadians need to be paying attention tonight when we vote. They need to look at what the government is doing to this committee, because when it is done, the committee will have little review. It will have no transparency. It will not have the accountability it should have. It will not have powers of subpoena, even though other parliamentary committees do have that authority.

This committee does not need to be an extension of the Prime Minister's Office. That seems to be what the government is bound and determined to make it.