Public Safety committee  Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Public Safety committee  It's a very important question, Mr. Chair, because, again, it is such a dynamic environment. Whether it's quantum or artificial intelligence or the Internet of things or cloud computing, or whatever the new technology is going to be in the future, our sense is that this legislation will allow us to be able to respond and be proactive in looking at what those threats of the future are.

Public Safety committee  I think we addressed this question before. I won't give you the same answer again, which doesn't seem to be completely answering the question, but I will ask Dom to speak a bit about publicly available information and how it has to fit within our mandate.

Public Safety committee  Maybe I can talk about the composition of the organization overall. Sometimes it's hard to parse a person who perhaps, for example, is working on cyber-policy within our group, looking at cyber-policies, versus the person who is out there building the defensive tool versus the person who is collecting foreign signals intelligence that might identify a foreign threat.

Public Safety committee  CSE overall has about 2,300 employees right now. We have Canada's best and brightest mathematicians and computer scientists, and we are hiring, in case you still are interested, in the IT field.

Public Safety committee  In case there's anyone else out there.... We're about 2,300 people overall. If you look at Mr. Jones's organization, he's in particular focused on the IT security component of the organization. I think, Scott, you've provided numbers in the past about the magnitude of your organization.

Public Safety committee  Thank you, Mr. Chair. The reality is that it is a formidable task. That's why it's something we take extremely seriously. Again, we've been in the business for 70 years, and I'm sure we have the best technology, the best people we can have to work on this task, and to work on it in partnership.

Public Safety committee  Sure, and I will ask Scott Jones, our deputy chief of IT security, to come in. Perhaps to answer the question, Mr. Chair, I'll go to three different pieces of the proposed legislation. First of all, to prevent cyber-attacks, we need to have not only good capabilities and tremendous Canadian men and women working on this but also good intelligence to try to understand what those threats are before they even come to Canada.

Public Safety committee  Of course. Scott.

Public Safety committee  Mr. Chair, as the chief of CSE, I can answer that the way the legislation is laid out, we report to the Minister of National Defence. He is the responsible minister for the Communications Security Establishment.

Public Safety committee  For Bill C-59 and the CSE act in particular, CSE is responsible to the Minister of National Defence.

Public Safety committee  I want to ensure I'm understanding the question correctly, Mr. Chair. I'm taking that this is with respect to our cyber-defence mandate, under which we have a responsibility to protect Government of Canada systems and to provide advice and guidance for systems of importance to the Government of Canada.

Public Safety committee  Sorry, I'm not sure I understand the question.

Public Safety committee  Dom, do you want to pick that up based on your earlier conversation?

Public Safety committee  I'll talk quickly about the parts of CSE's mandate. From a foreign intelligence collection perspective of the mandate, we have a responsibility to collect foreign intelligence across the intelligence priorities that the government sets. To your point, those intelligence priorities definitely go beyond solely supporting military and Canadian Armed Forces function.