National security oversight is inadequate
It’s the math, stupid.
Public Safety Minister Ralph Goodale wants you and I to believe that nine, count them, nine parliamentarians, handpicked by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, are somehow going to be able to keep watch over Canada’s vast, and still unaccountable, national security apparatus.
The nine parliamentarians will include seven MPs, four of whom will come from the governing party, joined by three opposition members and two unelected Senators.
That’s the nonsensical statistical makeup of the brand new, much-anticipated National Security and Intelligence Committee. Goodale’s many allies in the media and academia have rushed to give the popular minister high marks for finally establishing a so-called parliamentary mechanism to “scrutinize” this nation’s spooks, after he tabled Bill C-22 late last week.
The problem is that the minister’s cheerleaders clearly haven’t done the math, nor, it seems, have they carefully examined this ill-conceived legislation, which, rather than creating robust, independent and meaningful oversight over the sprawling, cob-web-like national security infrastructure has, instead, effectively enshrined the lousy status quo into law.
Goodale’s own figures reveal there are about 20 federal government departments and agencies that play a role in what he describes as the national security “architecture.” Conservatively, that translates into tens of thousands of civil servants involved in an untold number of espionage-related activities and operations conducted at home and abroad.
Does Goodale seriously expect us to believe that a ninemember committee, meeting infrequently and in secret, will have the time, resources or even the inclination to examine more than just a sliver of what that mammoth, governmentwide “architecture” is up to in the amorphous name of “national security?”
Not to worry, the bill’s cheerleaders insist, the committee will be supported by a “secretariat” headed by one lonely but, no doubt, experienced bureaucrat, who will apparently enjoy the powers of a deputy minister.
I’m not reassured and neither should you be, particularly since Goodale’s bill doesn’t provide any figures for how many staff the “secretariat” will employ or what its operating budget will be. If history is any guide, I suspect that both those mysterious, but telling, figures will be embarrassingly small.
Indeed, I confidently predict that, all told, ultimately less than 20 people will work for a committee that’s supposed to train a lens from time to time on a fat phonebook-sized number of spooks. As well, the committee’s budget will inevitably amount to, by Ottawa’s profligate standards, laughable chump change.
This is hardly a convincing recipe for attracting the best and brightest to man the committee. Traditionally, agencies like the Security Intelligence Review Committee (SIRC), which, on paper, is already supposed to review the conduct of CSIS, Canada’s civilian spy service, are populated by a revolving door of career bureaucrats who know little, if anything, about the Byzantine world of intelligence.
Remember, these loyal public servants are expected and conditioned to row, not rock the boat. In this regard, I think it’s unlikely Goodale will appoint someone like, say, Clayton Ruby as the secretariat’s “executive director.”
(By the way, Goodale’s bill essentially instructs existing review agencies such as SIRC to work out their jurisdictional differences with the new committee to “avoid duplication” as they go along. How’s that for planning?)
More troubling, anyone who has taken the time to watch MPs and senators “question” the mostly anonymous heads of our security-intelligence “architecture” knows they routinely behave — with a notable few exceptions — like poodles rather than determined “watchdogs.”
The last time a CSIS director got a remotely rough ride at a parliamentary committee hearing was in May1999, when then Progressive Conservative justice critic Peter MacKay had a prickly exchange with Ward Elcock over who decides what “national security” means when it comes to answering questions posed by MPs. Not surprisingly, Elcock told MacKay that he did.
This old, haughty attitude remains a signature staple of Bill C-22. The committee may have, on paper, “extraordinary access” to all the secrets, but the bill explicitly allows the prime minister and his ministers to refuse to disclose information to the committee and halt any inquiry when and if they decide — unilaterally — that it would compromise “national security.”
And who gets to review, censor and sign off on the committee’s annual report before Parliament can have a peek at it? Prime Minister Trudeau and the PMO. Well, so much for the committee’s “independence.”
Bill C-22 has all the trappings of a Father’s Day gift gone sour. Sure, the wrapping looks appealing, but once you take a closer look, you’re bound to be sorely disappointed. Andrew Mitrovica is the author of Covert Entry: Spies, Lies and Crimes Inside Canada’s Secret Service.