The Future of Democratic Regulation

• Jurisdiction: Canada
• Author: Craig Forcese
• Pages: 256-262

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 

The Future of Democratic

Regulation

In Chapter , I described three modern generations of democratic

regulation of security services in Canada: the McDonald Commission

period (–), the post-/ period (–), and the mod-

ernization period beginning during Ralph Goodale’s tenure as public

safety minister ( forward). Over these three periods, security ser-

vice powers have changed (and expanded). Over the same period, the

legal obligations of these services also increased, and new institutions

dedicated to democratic regulation appeared (especially the National

Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians [NSICoP]

and National Security and Intelligence Review Agency [NSIRA]). In

this chapter, I summarize my key observations and oer brief thoughts

on the future direction of democratic regulation of the security services.

I. SUMMARY OF OBSERVATIONS

In this book, I have argued that history frames the functions of both

the security services and those who hold them to account. From this

history, I have proposed three values that underpin Canada’s national

security system and against which security service conduct should be

assessed. Ecacy/eciency is the most obvious value: does the secur-

ity service meet its mandates with minimum waste? It is also, however,