WATCH: Privacy Expert Craig Forcese on the government’s new security oversight legislation

Must-watch analysis of the government's new oversight bill from privacy coalition member Professor Craig Forcese

Last week, Public Safety Minister Ralph Goodale and House Leader Dominic LeBlanc announced new legislation—Bill C-22—intended to improve accountability and transparency for nearly 20 Canadian security agencies, including the CSE, CSIS, and RCMP.

Notably, the legislation proposes to establish a new Parliamentary National Security and Intelligence Committee, tasked with ensuring that these agencies comply with the law. As our own Laura Tribe wrote, this is an important first step toward reining in the long series of privacy abuses that have been shown to be systemic within Canada’s security agencies.

That said, while the announcement was, on the whole, encouraging, privacy experts are raising important questions about the challenges ahead.

One of Canada’s top experts on these issues is the University of Ottawa’s Professor Craig Forcese (also a leading member of the Protect our Privacy Coalition).

Long-time followers will recall the excellent analysis that Prof. Forcese did with Prof. Kent Roach at UofT on Bill C-51 last year. Now Forcese has turned his attention to the government’s new oversight legislation with a 10 minute video that aims to “identify the justification for review; identify our present challenges; discuss the implications of bill C-22; and identify remaining gaps.”

The video is well worth watching in full: 

Help spread the word by sharing this video with your friends on Facebook and Twitter — and don’t forget to join the Privacy Coalition to keep in touch as we work to improve this legislation over the weeks and months ahead.