NDP, Liberals want tougher oversight of spy agency
OTTAWA — Federal New Democrats and Liberals are demanding that the government increase oversight for Canada’s main spy agency, but otherwise they’re holding their cards close to their chests when it comes to the government’s proposed anti-terrorism legislation.
After reviewing the proposed laws over the weekend, the two main opposition parties on Monday reiterated their concerns about lack of parliamentary oversight when it comes to the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS).
Last week, the government unveiled a sweeping plan to expand CSIS’s mandate from intelligence gathering to include thwarting terrorist plots and other “threats to Canada.” But it did not build in any new monitoring mechanisms, despite dropping the agency’s internal watchdog in 2012.
Prime Minister Stephen Harper said Friday Canadians understand “their freedoms and security more often than not go hand in hand,” while Public Safety Minister Steven Blaney over the weekend described the notion of additional oversight as “red tape.”
“If we are going to be giving increased and enhanced powers (to CSIS), the public has a right to better oversight,” NDP leader Tom Mulcair said Monday. “Why does the minister call that red tape? Does he consider protecting Canadians’ rights red tape?”
Harper was not in the House of Commons Monday to reply, but Blaney said CSIS’s activities are already reviewed by the Security Intelligence Review Committee (SIRC), whose membership is appointed by the prime minister. It reports to Parliament annually.
“The security intelligence review committee will cover all activities that CSIS will be mandated by this Parliament to accomplish,” Blaney told the House of Commons.
Liberal deputy leader Ralph Goodale shot back by noting that former SIRC chairman Arthur Porter, who was appointed by Harper, is currently in a Panamanian jail facing corruption charges, and that other seats on the committee have sat empty for months.
“Every single one of our allies with whom we share intelligence has a parliamentary or congressional oversight mechanism,” Goodale said. “If it is right for the U.S., the U.K., New Zealand and Australia, why is it wrong for Canada?”
Yet neither the NDP nor the Liberals would say whether their parties plan to vote against the proposed anti-terror laws. Instead, they said they are still going through the fine print.
“We’re going to be very thorough in our analysis of this bill,” Mulcair told reporters. “There are some things that at first blush do seem to be helpful. Criminalizing incitement to commit a terrorist act, frankly, is a good idea, and it’s not something that could have been caught by other provisions of the law.”