Title Checks: Sirc

Intelligence Business Dept: Not to worry, beyond a handful of reporters and academics, the digest of what the notoriously limp agency has been up to over the past year garnered little attention despite the report s intriguing, if somewhat opaque title: Checks and Balances Viewing Security Intelligence Through the Lens of Accountability , according to The Star. Undeterred, SIRC s brain trust has made a rather brash recommendation the centrepiece of its latest report in a likely futile attempt to assert that it can still be a serious player in the intelligence business and you probably missed it, but the Security Intelligence Review Committee SIRC , Canada s watchdog over this country s spy service, issued its annual report last week. As the report s moniker suggests, SIRC is supposed to be in the accountability business. But to some of its critics it long ago morphed into little more than a proverbial rubber stamp for our spies that few in or outside Ottawa regard seriously. Indeed, to SIRC s chagrin, the annual reports are often promptly shelved by the powers-that-be at the PMO and CSIS. (www.immigrantscanada.com). As reported in the news.