The Liberal government has announced outgoing NDP MP Murray Rankin will chair a new review agency overseeing all of the federal government’s national security and intelligence activities.

Rankin will head the new six-member National Security and Intelligence Review Agency (NSIRA), which was created as a result of Bill C-59, which became law in June.

The bill overhauls Canada’s security apparatus by introducing a single national security review body with a mandate to probe any security or intelligence-related activity conducted by the federal government.

It includes overseeing Canada’s spy agency, the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS), as well as the country’s signals intelligence service, the Communications Security Establishment (CSE).

The RCMP as well as any other federal institution with a security or intelligence-related power, such as the Department of National Defence, will also be overseen by NSIRA.

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The review agency will also have full access to all information held by the federal government, including its most classified and sensitive documents, with the sole exception being information subject to cabinet confidence.

The NSIRA will also hear public complaints regarding the activities of the federal institutions, as well as complaints regarding the federal government’s security clearance process.

NSIRA replaces the Security Intelligence Review Committee (SIRC), which was limited to the review of CSIS, as well as the former Office of the CSE Commissioner, which reviewed the activities of the CSE.

The four former members of SIRC will join the NSIRA panel, serving out the remainder of their terms.

It includes former chief justice of the Federal Court of Appeal Pierre Blais, former diplomat L. Yves Fortier, dean of the University of Calgary law school Ian Holloway and Marie-Lucie Morin, national security adviser to former prime minister Stephen Harper.

University of Ottawa national security expert Craig Forcese will also join five members on NSIRA.

Rankin and Forcese were selected by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau after consultation with opposition parties.

According to a bio provided by Trudeau’s office, Rankin had served as legal counsel to SIRC and as a special advocate under the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, conducting hearings on issues of national security.

Rankin was also a member of National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians. He said in January he would not run for re-election, telling CBC News he “wanted to do other things with my life aside from politics.”

NSIRA is required to table annual reports in the House of Commons and the Senate as well as present them to the prime minister. The first report will be tabled in Parliament in 2020.

Previously, the individual review bodies lacked statutory authority to probe beyond their agency of focus, which would allow for a fuller picture of Ottawa’s national security activities.

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