He said some people who called his office hadn't read the bill but they seemed to be opposed to it. Payne gave his comments on certain other bits of evidence and incidents that were happening, and that's fair enough. There's talk opposite about a filibuster, but the last three speakers came from over there, so it seems to me we are really engaged in the discussion of how much scrutiny this bill actually needs. They had not foreseen the use of an automobile as a weapon. I'm doubtful that it would, because peace bonds don't normally include things like a restriction on the ability to drive. Was the reason they were unable to get a peace bond actually that the bar was too high or that they lacked evidence because they hadn't devoted enough resources to the case to gather that evidence? I have some questions, in general, and again, I think we could hear legal testimony about this, regarding whether a peace bond would have had any impact on the incident that took place in Saint-Jean. What I would like, which we still do not have, is any report, before Parliament or public, on that incident that would allow us to draw a conclusion. One of the questions we have about the incident that took place in Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu and the very unfortunate loss of life there has to do with the fact that the police went to court and did not succeed in getting a peace bond. When challenged to give the relevance of that to the question in front of us today, again, one of the things the parliamentary secretary said in her opening remarks was that we need to lower the threshold for preventative arrest and detention, implying that the system does not work.
How is a review body like SIRC, which has been given big responsibilities to begin with, going to be able to provide review of these broad new activities of CSIS with a $10,000 budget increase? That's simply not to be believed. How can we expect these agencies to take on larger tasks and broader tasks in the context of fewer resources? As I said earlier, this also goes back to the elimination of the position of inspector general because, as we see in the estimates that were just tabled, SIRC is given an increase of I think $10,000 in the new estimates. So when a bill comes before us that suggests we're going to expand the activities of CSIS and that we're going to expand the number of people who are drawn into this net, then it's very clear to me that we do have a contradiction that we need to examine in the committee.
Since 2002 those resources have been reduced. That's a fact that you can see in the budget. What we're actually saying about this bill, and the reason I raise the issue of resources is when you have limited resources-and the government has limited the resources. As to the substance of what she just said, I think she just made my point inadvertently.
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