ANNEX E: SECTION 39 OF THE CANADIAN SECURITY INTELLIGENCE SERVICE ACT (R.S.C. 1985, c.C-23)

Canadian Security Intelligence Service Act
CHAPTER C-23

39. (1) Subject to this Act, the Review Committee may determine the procedure to be followed in the performance of any of its duties or functions.

(2) Notwithstanding any other Act of Parliament or any privilege under the law of evidence, but subject to subsection (3), the Review Committee is entitled

	(a)	to have access to any information under the control of the Service or of the Inspector General that relates to the performance of the duties and functions of the Committee and to receive from the Inspector General, Director and employees such information, reports and explanations as the Committee deems necessary for the performance of its duties and functions; and
	(b)	during any investigation referred to in paragraph 38(c)¹, to have access to any information under the control of the deputy head concerned that is relevant to the investigation.

(3) No information described in subsection (2), other than a confidence of the Queen’s Privy Council for Canada in respect of which subsection 39(1) of the Canada Evidence Act applies, may be withheld from the Committee on any grounds.²

¹	Paragraph 38(c) refers to the Security Intelligence Review Committee’s complaints functions.

A precedent was set in the early years of the Security Intelligence Review Committee’s existence which instituted a system whereby the Minister responsible for the Canadian Security Intelligence Service transmitted Cabinet instructions to the Service by means other than a cabinet document, thereby making the Government’s instructions available to SIRC.