OTTAWA – Responsible for overseeing the newly expanded powers of the Canadian spy agency CSIS, the Security Intelligence Review Committee has just moved into a 240 square-foot office complex at the local YMCA.
“We were worried when budget shortfalls made us move to a smaller office,” said Martin Chang of the SIRC. “But when further budget shortfalls reduced our staff and resources, we knew we were going to be A-OK.”
Although the government initially rented SIRC one of the cheaper rooms at the Y, the members of the committee each decided to chip in an extra three dollars per week for an office that wasn’t right next to the steam room.
Chang maintains that, thanks to state-of-the-art technologies like a sink, fax machine, and copy of Windows ‘98, the SIRC will still be able to perform its oversight duties.
“Since they eliminated the oversight positions at CSIS, our staff has gone up to 16, not counting the bedbugs,” Chang said. “So that’s only 156 and a quarter CSIS employees for each one of us.”
“If you do count the bedbugs, we actually have more staff than CSIS does. Thousands more.”
Justice Minister Peter Mackay echoed these sentiments, telling the House of Commons that oversight of CSIS was ‘very robust indeed’, and that he should know, having been to the gym at that YMCA, and others like it, many, many times.
At press time, the Harper Government had earmarked over a hundred million dollars for the creation of an oversight committee for the CSIS oversight committee.
