Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
The chairman has already thanked you for coming, and of course I also thank you very much for taking on this role. I wish to extend our gratitude on behalf of our government, on behalf of our caucus colleagues, for your acceptance of this.
Going through your resumé is quite a daunting task in and of itself. I don't think we have any pertinent questions that would in any way judge your qualifications for doing the job, but I think what would be helpful, to me anyway, is if you could help expand a little bit on the breadth of the various organizations that would be affected--the RCMP and obviously National Defence--the breadth of all of the various types of information that you would have a look at.
In your statement here you said:
My role, as you well know, is defined under the National Defence Act...to ensure their compliance with the law, conducting any investigations I deem necessary in response to any complaints about CSE....
I would ask you, given the fact that it was established in 2001, can you give us an idea, a ball park number, of how many complaints there are and how many would be dealt with in a particular year?
In your next paragraph, you say:
...the functions of the CSE have basically been as follows (you will understand that I am reducing them to their essentials): a) gather foreign signals intelligence, b) help ensure the protection of electronic information and of information infrastructures of importance to the Government of Canada;
A few years ago, there was an attempted takeover of MacDonald Dettweiler, a private firm. Our government basically turned down that acquisition based on the fact that some of the technology and information there would have been important. I know it's before your time, but would that have been something that you or the CSE would have advised the government on, something of that nature?
Perhaps you could elaborate for me. On page 3 here, you say:
...every individual has a quasi-constitutional right with respect to his or her privacy. And every person has a constitutional right with respect to security of the person.
I'm not a lawyer. I'm a simple farm boy from Lacombe, Alberta. Could you explain to me what quasi-constitutional means?