Give us sight

Wesley Wark outlines the necessity of a lasting solution to our current predicament.

A long-term solution is important, because Parliament has a role to play as a check on government power on national security issues. However deferential Canadian public opinion has tended to be in the past, we live in a time of vastly different national security problems and a higher level of public expectation about government transparency. There is more at stake than just parliamentary privilege, which might strike some Canadians as an arcane matter. Parliament serves, at least in theory, as an important channel for public education on matters of national security policy and threats. If Parliament is blinded by insufficient access to national security information, the public is blinded as well.