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Decentralized Democracy

House Hansard - 330

44th Parl. 1st Sess.
June 12, 2024 02:00PM
Context: House Hansard - 330 - Jun/12/24
Ms. Jennifer O'Connell
  • Jun/12/24 4:36:37 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, unfortunately, I cannot accept the hypocrisy in the question from the Conservative member. The fact is that it was in 2010, under Stephen Harper's government, that the alarm bells went off to alert the government to the issue of foreign interference. Mr. Harper did nothing to address it. In fact, he refused to create a committee of parliamentarians to review and provide oversight. When the current opposition leader was democratic institutions minister, we asked him why he did nothing to strengthen and protect our democratic institutions. He essentially said that it was not politically advantageous to him at the time to do so. Since we formed government in 2015, we have taken action while Conservatives have sat complicit. They have not provided a real approach to working with us and putting country over party on the issue of foreign interference.
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Context: House Hansard - 330 - Jun/12/24
Ms. Jennifer O'Connell (Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Public Safety, Democratic Institutions and Intergovernmental Affairs (Cybersecurity), Lib.)
  • Jun/12/24 5:19:08 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I thank my hon. colleague for his work at committee. The member raised, toward the end of his speech, something that I care deeply about, that I know he shares, which is finding that balance. It would ensure that, as he said, we meet this moment. However, we then, through legislation, must ensure that we keep the right balance for protecting Canadians' rights. In this, we took great care and concern. We asked our officials as well to ensure that this legislation would still have the oversight and protections to ensure that it is not misused, that it is to deal with foreign interference and national security measures and not regular, normal, domestic politics.
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Context: House Hansard - 330 - Jun/12/24
Mr. Alistair MacGregor
  • Jun/12/24 5:20:07 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, a lot of my initial concerns with the bill, after I had the chance to speak with officials from Public Safety Canada, CSIS and the RCMP, were addressed. However I do have to admit that as a legislator, if the bill passes, I would be putting a lot of trust in the executive's hands. We can be very glad we have oversight bodies like NSICOP, NSIRA and the intelligence commissioner, because those are very important feedback loops to keep the agencies within the confines of the law they are operating under. Again, this is one small part I get to play in helping us as a country address foreign interference with the seriousness it deserves.
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Context: House Hansard - 330 - Jun/12/24
Mr. Alistair MacGregor (Cowichan—Malahat—Langford, NDP)
  • Jun/12/24 5:34:27 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, part 1 of the bill has pretty significant proposed upgrades to the CSIS Act, particularly with how CSIS handles its dataset regime. That is following a fairly scathing report from the NSIRA, which showed that CSIS had regularly broken its legislative guidelines with respect to datasets. As legislators, we are being asked to put a fair amount of trust into the executive branch and our intelligence agencies. I have no doubt that they do great work. However, is my hon. colleague satisfied that our existing accountability mechanisms, our oversight mechanisms, such as NSICOP, NSIRA and the intelligence commissioner, are sufficient enough to maybe avoid reading another NSIRA report about how CSIS has breached its statutory guidelines in a number of years?
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