Public Safety committee  I'm not aware of any, but you have to understand also, if you look at the Five Eyes partners, for example, they have a separate foreign intelligence security service with a clear mandate to operate overseas. They don't have the issue we're debating today, because they have separate agencies where their mandate is to operate overseas.

Public Safety committee  Not to reveal my age, but I was working with the RCMP in 1984. The threat has evolved in a number of ways. You just talked about technology. The Internet has changed.... You don't have to go back to 1984; it was10 years ago, so the pace at which technology is evolving, as we all know, is extremely rapid.

Public Safety committee  That's something, Mr. Chair, we'd like to get back to the committee on, because that's a very technical, legal question.

Public Safety committee  But I just want to go back to what I said earlier, that you have to recognize the type of environment and the type of countries we're talking about. Again, if you're talking about a situation where activities that we were going to do overseas had to be lawful in the country where they were going to take place, again, I'm not sure that's a viable, practical system.

Public Safety committee  It is important to know that the current legislation provides this protection to individuals who are involved in these activities at present or who were in the past. Bill C-44 adds individuals who could be involved in this type of activity. There is a problem if we try to provide a tighter definition of who we are talking about: the threat and context are changing so quickly that there are individuals involved now in this type of activity who, five or 10 years ago, I could not have imagined that they would be involved.

Public Safety committee  You're right that since 1984 warrants have been issued, but in terms of activities here in Canada. Starting around 2009.... The Federal Court decision last November by Justice Mosley called into question the authority of the service to operate abroad, certainly the authority of the service from Canada, because the interception had to be done from Canada, to be able to do it when the targets or investigations are overseas.

Public Safety committee  Bill C-44 has no impact on our relationship with the RCMP.

Public Safety committee  There are no differences. It's not a question of where the source is actually residing. It's a question of whether we promise confidentiality. So there is no difference in terms of a source living here or living abroad.

Public Safety committee  As we mentioned previously, Bill C-44 does not provide new powers or tools. It simply clarifies what we are already doing and a certain part that we had stopped doing following the Federal Court ruling last fall. There is nothing new in terms of what we can do. No powers or tools have been added.

Public Safety committee  The service, like any other organization, works within the framework of its budget. We must establish priorities and allocate resources based on them, which are determined from information provided by the government. Then, we have our ways of evaluating the matrices to determine the threat that various subjects of investigation represent.

Public Safety committee  No.

Public Safety committee  The first way to facilitate the investigations, as I mentioned earlier, is the certainty—with a few exceptions—of protecting the identity of the sources. More people would come forward with information. It would be easier for the service to obtain the cooperation of individuals who would become sources if they were certain that their identity would be protected.

Public Safety committee  Not the last part, I'm sorry.

Public Safety committee  First of all, in terms of CSIS conducting activities outside Canada—and you talked about the McDonald commission but I'm not going to quote it—I'm pretty sure the report does talk about the creation of CSIS and that you would have to be very careful, but they were already seeing the possibility that we would have to do this.

Public Safety committee  Again, I don't think it's a new area. When you stated it's putting it into law explicitly in the act, I think that's correct, but I don't think it's a new area. In the second part, again, you have to look at this in terms of thinking about our acting in other countries. When it's with like-minded partners most of the time this is done jointly, with the acknowledgement of that country, just as we expect them to do the same here.