Bill C-70

Countering Foreign Interference Act

An Act respecting countering foreign interference

Part 1 amends the Canadian Security Intelligence Act to, among other things,
(a) update provisions respecting the collection, retention, querying and exploitation of datatsets;
(b) clarify the scope of section 16 of that Act;
(c) update provisions respecting the disclosure of information by the Canadian Security Intelligence Service;
(d) provide for preservation orders and production orders as well as warrants to obtain information, records, documents or things through a single attempt;
(e) expand the circumstances in which a warrant to remove a thing from the place where it was installed may be issued; and
(f) require a parliamentary review of that Act every five years.
It also makes a consequential amendment to the Intelligence Commissioner Act .
Part 2 amends the Security of Information Act to, among other things, create the following offences:
(a) committing an indictable offence at the direction of, for the benefit of, or in association with a foreign entity;
(b) knowingly engaging in surreptitious or deceptive conduct at the direction of, for the benefit of or in association with a foreign entity for a purpose prejudicial to the safety or interests of the State or being reckless as to whether the conduct is likely to harm Canadian interests; and
(c) engaging in surreptitious or deceptive conduct, at the direction of or in association with a foreign entity, with the intent to influence, among other things, the exercise of a democratic right in Canada.
It also amends that Act to remove as an element of the offence of inducing or attempting to induce — at the direction of, for the benefit of or in association with a foreign entity or terrorist group — by intimidation, threat or violence, a person to do anything or cause anything to be done, that the thing be done for the purpose of harming Canadian interests when the person who is alleged to have committed the offence or the victim has a link to Canada.
It also amends the Criminal Code to, among other things, broaden the scope of the sabotage offence to include certain acts done in relation to essential infrastructures and ensure that certain provisions respecting the interception of “private communications” as defined in that Act apply to certain offences in the Foreign Interference and Security of Information Act .
Finally, it makes consequential amendments to other Acts.
Part 3 amends the Canada Evidence Act and makes consequential amendments to other Acts to, among other things,
(a) create a general scheme to deal with information relating to international relations, national defence or national security in the course of proceedings that are in the Federal Court or the Federal Court of Appeal and that are in respect of any decision of a federal board, commission or other tribunal;
(b) permit the appointment of a special counsel for the purposes of protecting the interests of a non-governmental party to those proceedings in respect of such information; and
(c) allow a person charged with an offence to appeal a decision, made under the Canada Evidence Act with respect to the disclosure of certain information in relation to criminal proceedings, only after the person has been convicted of the offence, unless there are exceptional circumstances justifying an earlier appeal.
It also adds references to international relations, national defence and national security in a provision of the Criminal Code that relates to the protection of information, as well as references to international relations and national defence in certain provisions of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act that equally relate to the protection of information.
Part 4 enacts the Foreign Influence Transparency and Accountability Act which, among other things,
(a) provides for the appointment of an individual to be known as the Foreign Influence Transparency Commissioner;
(b) requires certain persons to provide the Commissioner with certain information if they enter into arrangements with foreign principals under which they undertake to carry out certain activities in relation to political or governmental processes in Canada;
(c) requires the Commissioner to establish and maintain a publicly accessible registry that contains information about those arrangements;
(d) provides the Commissioner with tools to administer and enforce that Act; and
(e) amends the Public Service Superannuation Act , the National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians Act and the National Security and Intelligence Review Agency Act .

[Marcus Kolga]

I think it will have a tremendous impact if it's properly implemented, and, again, if it's enforced. That update in Bill C-70 to the Security of Information Act will go a long way to helping defend vulnerable communities, activists, journalists and of course parliamentarians who are being targeted with transnational repression. I think that's positive.

There's the update to the CSIS Act and the fact that the update will allow CSIS to now communicate with non-governmental organizations when it's relevant, perhaps to warn individuals and groups when they are being targeted by these sorts of operations and to let civil society organizations know when they detect these sorts of operations, so that we can be better prepared to defend Canadian democracy and society against them. That's a major improvement.

As part of Bill C-70, we also saw the adoption of the foreign influence transparency registry, which will also be critically important. The implementation we'll have to keep an eye on, but this will also be an incredibly important measure in defending against these sorts of operations in the future. I hope that the legislation will be implemented very quickly and that it will be enforced.

[Parm Bains, Liberal, Steveston—Richmond East, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to our witnesses for joining us on this very important study.

I'll draw your attention to Bill C-70. Are you familiar with motion 112, which was also introduced in the House? What we're talking about here is information.

Some important recommendations came out of this study. On the misinformation piece, what Mr. Cooper ended with in his question was that there was misinformation. The Liberal Party did not amplify the claims that he's talking about. We've seen evidence of him drawing different conclusions earlier in this study today as well.

However, I will stick to the important matters here—namely, the solutions and what you're talking about in terms of what we can do better. On the issue of information that's being shared, we can look at the Security of Information Act. In fact, a former director of CSIS came into the study and talked about how important it was to use that as an enforcement tool. I talked about motion 112 and sharing information with hostile nations and some agreements we have that already exist and that need to be reviewed. Motion 112 is something I co-authored with MP Dhaliwal.

Can you expand on how important the Security of Information Act is, within your scope of knowledge on that? What impact can the fact that it hasn't been updated for over 20 years have?

[Marcus Kolga]

Thank you so much for that question.

We have Bill C-70 coming into place now. Ultimately, it comes down to ensuring that it is implemented properly to ensure that we are enforcing the legislation that's already in place.

I mentioned during my opening remarks that Canadians were working directly with RT. The U.S. DOJ indictment about that case clearly indicated that Canadians received payment into Canadian bank accounts. The timelines that were presented in that indictment would indicate that those payments were made during a period when RT was under Canadian sanctions. Services were delivered to RT and payment was made from RT to Canadian bank accounts. That, to me, would indicate a potential violation of our sanctions legislation.

My question would then be this: What is the Canadian government doing about that? Is there an investigation into sanctions violations? Are we going to enforce the legislation that we already have in place? If we don't do that, that will send a message to all of these foreign regimes that engage in foreign influence operations and information operations that it's the Wild West: They can do anything in this country.

We need to begin right now by enforcing the current legislation that we have in place.

[Marcus Kolga]

I would agree. I think it's at all levels. For quite some time, I've been advocating greater transparency when it comes to collaboration with foreign governments, especially authoritarian foreign governments. I think Bill C-70 will go a long way to helping with that, so yes, I would agree with you—

[Marcus Kolga, Director, DisinfoWatch]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, for the privilege to speak about the threat of disinformation, specifically Russian information and influence operations targeting our democracy.

Over the past decade, we've witnessed a disturbing increase in the Kremlin's efforts to undermine our democratic institutions, erode our social cohesion and advance its geopolitical interest through state media, proxies and collaborators within Canada. While significant attention has been directed toward Chinese government interference in recent years, we've not fully addressed the equally dangerous and sophisticated information campaigns waged by the Kremlin.

The threat to Canada is real, and it cannot be ignored, as recent actions to disrupt these operations by the U.S. government have highlighted. The U.S. Department of Justice recently indicted two employees of Russia Today, RT, a Russian state entity that operates not merely as a media outlet but, as the U.S. Department of State and Global Affairs have noted, as an important component of Russia's intelligence apparatus. This indictment, which implicates Canadians in RT's operations and as its targets, is nothing less than a smoking gun. Canada is a key target of Russian information warfare.

An FBI affidavit that was published at the same time as the indictment details Kremlin documents and minutes from meetings with one of Vladimir Putin's top advisers, highlighting the regime's commitment to weaponizing information. The tactics exposed include developing and spreading lies and conspiracies, manipulating social media algorithms and using Russian and North American influencers to amplify them in efforts to destabilize democratic societies, and that includes Canada.

The objectives are clear: to ignite domestic conflicts, to deepen social divisions, to weaken nations that oppose Russian aggression in Ukraine and to erode public support for Ukraine.

Canadian parliamentarians have also been targets of these operations over the past decade. Following our government's strong stance against Russia's illegal annexation of Crimea in 2014 and our leadership of NATO's enhanced forward presence mission in Latvia, we witnessed Russian information and influence operations targeting Canadian officials and policies. Prime Minister Harper's government was an initial target, including during the 2015 federal election. This was followed by the targeting of then foreign minister Chrystia Freeland and other outspoken parliamentarians.

It's important to note that the Kremlin does not favour any specific Canadian political party. Instead, as the Kremlin documents clearly outline, they seek to exploit existing divisions and create conflict to undermine our democracy and further their interests. This includes diminishing support for Ukraine and weakening international alliances like NATO that oppose Russia's aggression. We've now learned that RT invested $10 million in a company founded by two Canadians aimed at advancing Russian narratives in the U.S. and within our own borders.

A recent poll we conducted at DisinfoWatch with the Canadian Digital Media Research Network indicates that most Canadians have in fact been exposed to Russian disinformation about Ukraine and are vulnerable to it. Canadian influencers play a key role in advancing the Kremlin's narratives in Canada and in the U.S., as do the Canadian academics and activists who collaborate with Kremlin-controlled think tanks like Vladimir Putin's Valdai Club and the Russian International Affairs Council, which are on Canada's sanctions list.

To disrupt and deter these well-documented Kremlin operations and to protect Canadians, the Canadian government, law enforcement and the intelligence community must acknowledge the seriousness of the threat they pose to our democracy and society. We must conduct thorough investigations into Russian collaborators and proxies operating within Canada and hold them to account under our laws. This includes any sanctions laws that may have been violated, including the foreign influence transparency registry and Bill C-70.

Given Russia's ties to foreign intelligence services, Canada must follow Europe's lead in banning all Russian state media from public airwaves and the Internet. This should be extended to Chinese and Iranian state media and state-controlled outlets as well. We should also introduce new legislation based on Europe's Digital Services Act, holding social media companies accountable for the content on their platforms and the algorithms that amplify it.

By enforcing transparency, content moderation and reporting requirements, we can make it significantly harder for hostile actors to weaponize these platforms to spread disinformation in Canada.

Finally, we need to acknowledge and address the rise of foreign authoritarian transnational repression targeting Canadian activists, journalists, diaspora communities and, indeed, parliamentarians.

The persistent efforts of foreign authoritarian regimes to undermine our democracy and social cohesion must be met with equally persistent measures and resources to confront, disrupt, deter and, ultimately, prevent them from succeeding.

Thank you again for this privilege. I look forward to your questions.

[Michel Juneau-Katsuya]

There are several models, but they're not all infallible. I repeat that, at present, there is certainly a lack of collaboration between parliamentarians and intelligence agencies.

For a very long time, the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, or CSIS, and the Communications Security Establishment, or CSE, weren't even allowed to inform anyone except the prime minister or the Minister of Public Safety. Bill C‑70 looks set to change all that. It remains to be seen how this will play out in practice.

One thing is certain: prevention is needed. Equipment can't do everything, and it can't stop everything. We need to develop a new business culture. I'm not talking about spyware or James Bond, but a business culture. We need to acquire new reflexes, because we're still very vulnerable. If we create a breach, we're literally letting everyone into the house.

The TikTok app has been cited as an example. Why is TikTok problematic? If someone blindly signs the terms and conditions and gives access to his or her phone, contact list, camera and microphone, which can be activated remotely, it becomes nothing less than clandestine wiretapping equipment.

Let's say I'm a teenager going to CEGEP or school. I'm not necessarily the target of cyber-attacks, but my contact list may contain information about my uncle, who works for the Department of National Defence, my mother, who works for the government, or my sister, who works for a very important strategic company. So we've just given a foreign power, like China, access to all this information.

[Michael Cooper, Conservative, St. Albert—Edmonton, AB]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Look, we have a lot to get done. This motion simply provides for the minister to appear for one meeting of two hours. That hardly pushes back our schedule. In fact, I would submit that it might help move our schedule forward by probing the minister on certain matters that the committee is seized with.

Yes, the minister will appear on Bill C-65, otherwise known as the “loser Liberal pension protection act”, but that might not be for several weeks from now. In the meantime, we have a minister who has a lot to answer for on matters relating to the government's continued obstruction of Madam Justice Hogue's inquiry by refusing to turn over documents. We have the steps the government has taken to counter foreign interference with the passage of Bill C-70, which we fully supported and called on the government long ago to pass in order to create a foreign influence registry. We have the failure or refusal of the minister to name the compromised members of Parliament, as well as his refusal to provide the assurance, when I put it to him at the public safety committee in June, that not one of those 11 sits on Justin Trudeau's cabinet. He refused to answer that straightforward question, which is very telling.

All of these issues are pressing and fall within the broader study we have been undertaking on foreign interference. This ties in as well to the question of privilege before this committee, which takes precedent over all other matters.

For all of those reasons, it is important that we have the opportunity as a committee to probe the minister, not just on the loser Liberal pension protection act, but on many of these other issues relating to foreign interference: the government's continued obstruction and efforts to cover up what the Prime Minister knew, and who is compromised in his caucus and in his cabinet.

[Dr. Charles Burton]

With Bill C-70 there does seem to be more provision for CSIS to be able to advise elements outside of CSIS of information they have derived from intelligence about Chinese espionage activities and other ways that China is engaging in activities to obtain intelligence and undermine our democracy.

It's a very complicated issue. I think the Chinese government would like to drive a wedge between Canadians of Chinese heritage and the Canadian mainstream by on the one hand creating suspicion about Chinese researchers—that they might be collaborating with China—and on the other hand wanting to get persons of Chinese origin, who are Canadian citizens and therefore should be loyal to Canada only, to serve the Chinese interest in various ways, particularly if they have access to information that could serve the regime. There's a degree of coercion that's used if these people have family inside China who can be leveraged by the Chinese Communist regime.

It's a serious issue. I think we should be doing much more to expel agents of the Chinese regime under diplomatic cover who are coordinating this massive approach through the Chinese Ministry of State Security and the Chinese Communist Party's United Front Work Department.

I suspect that our intelligence agencies know a lot about these agents and people but that we are reluctant to expel diplomats even if they're engaged in activities inconsistent with their mandate as diplomats under the Vienna Convention. I'm just puzzled as to why we don't address this issue much more seriously and protect our Canadians of Chinese origin from harassment and coercion by a foreign state.

[Dr. Charles Burton]

I think it's the implementation of the legislation that has been problematic. In one case, some clothes that were seized, alleged to have been using Chinese cotton produced by forced labour, were eventually released. The determination was that there wasn't justification for withholding those on a forced labour basis. As you say, other countries are seizing a lot of stuff from China by identifying the forced labour and putting the responsibility and incumbency on the importer to demonstrate that there is no forced labour involved.

I feel a lot of regret that Canada is so far behind on this, but this is perhaps characteristic of Canada's being behind other nations in terms of recognizing Chinese malign activities and coming into compliance with the United States, the U.K., Australia and so on in forming legislation and regulations and practices that meet the challenge. We need to put many more resources into our intelligence and CBSA to try to realize the will of Parliament to stop these kinds of activities from occurring.

We'll face the same thing with Bill C-70. It's nice legislation, but will we be able to implement it effectively?

[Michael Barrett, Conservative, Leeds—Grenville—Thousand Islands and Rideau Lakes, ON]

For the kids, we're bringing in Shakespeare as we talk about the disinformation spread by the Liberal government. We saw it, and that's a great example.

We're lucky to live next door to our friends in the United States, because they've provided great cover to the incompetence of these Liberals on matters of terrorism and foreign interference. We're so fortunate that they brought it to light for Canadians, because it would have died in darkness with Ms. Khalid and her colleagues.

We very much look forward to more information about the effects of misinformation. It would be interesting to get some of the people cited in the article—not just the authors, but those who intentionally and without evidence spread false information. That's a damning indictment of this Liberal government after their nine years. They're unapologetic about it.

Ms. Khalid talked about wanting to strip partisan politics out of it. I have an amendment that looks to achieve some of that. I also have an amendment that looks to solve some of the scheduling challenges it creates. The quantity of the meetings is of no issue. The broad substance of the subject is important.

My goodness, look at the ineptitude and failures of the Liberal government on foreign interference and its intentional spreading and amplification of disinformation. We know it should be more concerned about exposition potentially than foreign governments. I think that domestic interference or domestic deception is a giant problem with these Liberals, who also want to seek, of course, to censor what Canadians see on the Internet.

They create the disinformation, limit the channels or the ways Canadians can receive it and then say anything that's offside with their narrative is a lie, when we've seen countless examples that these Liberals are, in fact, the perpetrators of the very thing they claim to detest. It's very timely that we're going to deal with this. I think it's important that we do it.

In paragraph (a), the motion reads, “The devastating impact of malicious, artificially generated online bots used by foreign and domestic actors.” That's fine. It continues to read, “This includes Russia's propaganda machine to manipulate....”

I'll ask the clerk to take note of this. My amendment would strike the word “the” and continue to leave in “public discourse and fake bot accounts”. Then strike all of the words after that up to paragraph (b). That way, we're capturing all incidents of this, not just the one that was already studied. It would include it, of course, and it would allow us to call the witnesses and the experts from the Canadian Digital Media Research Network who created this report.

The last two changes to the motion are in the final paragraph, where it reads, “that the committee”. I would strike the word “immediately”, leave the word “devote” and strike the words “the next”. I would leave the words following that, including “three meetings”.

I think you've probably been able to capture that. It expands the scope in paragraph (a), so it's actually more substantive in its amended form, including the incident that's cited, but it goes beyond that as well.

Because we have a subcommittee meeting after this to talk about scheduling.... Oh, we don't. We have a meeting scheduled Thursday. It would step on that meeting and probably also not give us enough time to spool up witnesses for it. We'll be able to schedule that as part of the other study and for the three meetings that are requested.

Let's get to the bottom of this. Let's do that. I think it's important as part of the public discourse. People are concerned about this. Canadians are rightly concerned about it. They've asked and been begging the government for action on foreign interference. We dragged them, kicking and screaming, to bring in Bill C-70, and though it doesn't go far enough and is not a perfect bill, it got some things right. We're pleased that it's moving forward—and, indeed, with no thanks to the Liberals—so let's do that. Let's have this conversation. Hopefully, these amendments can be included so that we can get the speedy passage of the motion.

Note, Chair, that side conversations didn't require any kleenex over here.

[Michael Barrett, Conservative, Leeds—Grenville—Thousand Islands and Rideau Lakes, ON]

Thanks very much, Chair.

I want to share with the committee an example of real-life disinformation, and it's been propagated by Ms. Khalid and her colleagues: disinformation while talking about disinformation. I'm going to share a Canadian Press story from August 28, 2024. It deals exactly with some of the contents of the motion and what Ms. Khalid talked about before.

It reads:

There is no evidence that indicates the federal Conservatives were behind a bot network on social media that praised a Pierre Poilievre rally, a new study has found.

The Canadian Digital Media Research Network launched an investigation after hundreds of X accounts posted about the Conservative leader's July rally in Kirkland Lake, Ont., all using the same language with phrases like “buzzing with energy” and “as a northern Ontarian.”

The fact that the posts were so similar immediately raised questions about who was behind the network of bots, with the NDP and Liberals pointing the finger at the Conservatives.

The Conservative Party denied having any involvement.

Results from the investigation were published on Wednesday.

“Despite this significant speculation and associated accusations, we find no evidence that indicates a political party or foreign entity employed this bot network for political purposes,” said Aengus Bridgman, Director of the Media Ecosystem Observatory and a contributor of the report.

Instead, the researchers said they believe it was an amateur experimenting with a bot pipeline by sourcing content from news stories, and the Poilievre event was caught in the mix. The rally had been reported on in mainstream media in the days leading up to the mass posts.

“This is not done with intent to manipulate, it's with intent to experiment,” Bridgman said.

Very few Canadians saw original bot posts and the report said their impact was considered to be insignificant, but Bridgman said the narrative about the bots was “hijacked”.

The followup conversation about the posts ended up getting millions of views on X, and millions more through amplification by media, the report shows.

Many of those posts attacked the Conservative party and Poilievre for attempting to mislead Canadians about his popularity.

It also says:

Liberal MP Mark Gerretsen, too, pointed the finger at the Tories, claiming without evidence that the Conservative Party of Canada purchased the bots on social media.

...Ultimately, nearly half of the Canadians who heard about the bots believed a political party was to blame, with a vast majority of them thinking it was the actions of the Conservatives....

Bridgman described the political discourse around the bot campaign as “toxic” and said it should serve as a lesson for future Canadian elections.

Also, this quote is really important:

“The finger-pointing without evidence is actually quite destructive and leans into the hyper-partisan, hyper-polarized information ecosystem that we find ourselves in today in Canada....

Here we have the Liberal MPs who are talking about disinformation actually propagating it. They actually spread disinformation. The false claim they made was disproven by experts, and the report went on to say that it's only because of their disinformation campaign that the effect of these bots was amplified—hook, line and sinker.

Ms. Khalid has said that she wants to put partisan politics aside, but they've put them in the shop window. They've put them to the forefront. We heard her say we're better than this. No, they're actually not. They are actually called out for spreading disinformation.

Let me tell you that I have a few minor amendments to the motion, but we think this is an excellent study. We think it's terrific. I think there are some great witnesses who are listed in this Canadian Press report.

We think the impact of foreign interference in our democracy is troubling. We think that, irrespective of the country, any foreign meddling in our democracy is unacceptable. That's why we've had to drag the Liberals, kicking and screaming, to implement legislation like Bill C-70 on foreign interference or a foreign agent registry. My goodness, it was worse than pulling teeth to try to get the Liberals to do it.

Also, like in many such cases, we needed the FBI to tell Canadians what these Liberals deny and, actually, the public safety minister, a minister in Trudeau's Liberal government, lied about Beijing-operated Chinese police stations in Canada. He lied about it.

Again, that's disinformation—

[Vanessa Lloyd]

Mr. Chair, I will start by responding to the honourable member's comments with regard to what I can and cannot say at committee. Unfortunately, I'm unable to answer in detailed specifics about the capabilities, methodologies and tradecraft that we employ in this or in any other case. To do so would jeopardize the integrity of our operations and our ability to conduct our operations securely.

I do thank the honourable member for referencing the changes to legislation that we received through Parliament under Bill C-70, which is an act countering foreign interference. The honourable member is quite right. There were changes to the permissions to and authorities to the service under the act, both with respect to our dataset regime and also with regard to information sharing.

Perhaps I would suggest that it is the latter piece of the change that may be most helpful in this instance, because the permissions that are given there are for the organization to share, beyond the federal government, classified information in order to increase resiliency against threats. As such, the information sharing provisions that we will move forward on under those changes will allow us, in fact, to inform Canadians more about the threats that exist and to be able to equip them to be resilient with regard to those threats.

[Alistair MacGregor, NDP, Cowichan—Malahat—Langford, BC]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

I think I'll send my first question to Interim Director Lloyd of the service.

Again, on this video, I'm not going to get into the specifics because I understand the limitations you have in answering in a public forum.

My question is more on the process, and it's going to be related also to the recent changes that Parliament enacted through Bill C-70 and to the complete overhaul that we did with the dataset regime that is under the CSIS Act.

I have a couple of questions for you, Interim Director Lloyd.

Many Canadians are not very familiar with the dark web and the millions of images and videos that are present there. Could you tell the committee about the magnitude of what it's like and about the challenge of sifting through those images and videos in terms of finding that important data that you can then share with relevant agencies to determine whether there are any security threats that have a potential of entering Canada?

Also, what about recent changes in Bill C-70, notably the computational analysis of datasets? We essentially took an analog law and brought it up to speed in a digital era. What do those changes allow the service to do now in sifting through those images and videos in order to make these kinds of important determinations?

I think, on behalf of Canadians, this committee is serving a very important role. While we may not be able to ask you about the specifics of this case, I think Canadians also deserve to know about the kinds of tools the service is employing, about the strategies going forward and about the lessons you've learned from this so that these kinds of instances are not going to happen in the future.

[Dominic LeBlanc, Liberal, Beauséjour, NB]

Ms. Damoff, thank you for the question.

I'm happy to see you as well at this committee again. You did important work here, in your role as a parliamentary secretary, on many of these issues.

Our government has sought to increase resources, for example, to CSIS. One of the most significant investments in both technology and capacity at CSIS happened in budget 2024 a few months ago. I think all of us should be very proud as parliamentarians and of our colleagues in the other place as well for adopting Bill C-70, which gave, for the first time in decades, new authorities to CSIS in a digital age.

To the comments about the existence of videos on the dark web, I think it's important, Ms. Damoff, for people to understand that I hear this from the security agencies. I have never, myself, been on the dark web, looking for these kinds of videos. It's called the dark web precisely because these kinds of videos don't normally come with credits and contact information at the end of them, so the idea that there's some simple way that security agencies and partners around the world are able to have access to the sickeningly thousands and millions of images of this kind of thing is why partnerships are so important. That's why working with the 150 other countries that Vanessa described is the best way for CSIS and for its partners in the RCMP and CBSA to do this work.

They need access to the technology. They need legislative authorities, which this Parliament gave them a few months ago, which is terrific, and they need their government to support them with the funds necessary to modernize. I believe that work is being done.

I'm lucky enough, with this super interesting job I have, to see that work up close every week and every month. As I said in my opening comments, Ms. Damoff, I was briefed by CSIS on July 24. When Deputy Commissioner Larkin and his colleagues, Mark Flynn and Commissioner Duheme, updated me on July 28 that these people were in custody and that a successful arrest had been made, it reminded me of the remarkable work done by these women and men in the agencies represented here, of the danger of their work and of the value of working constructively with partners around the world.

If we're not constructive and if we're reckless in releasing information, discussing origins of information and commenting on media reports of certain images and on the existence of evidence that may end up forming part of a criminal prosecution, we'll increasingly be unable to get that information, and we won't look like the reliable partner that we are with those agencies.

I heard from the director of MI6 himself, the chief, in London, about how much he values the work that CSIS does and the information that CSIS gives MI6. I thought it was reassuring for Canadians to know that somebody as interesting in the world as the chief, who would be C in the films we've all seen.... When Sir Richard Moore told me that MI6 is absolutely dependent on CSIS and other partners, it told me the system is working quite well.

[Nathalie Drouin]

Let me start with something that you as parliamentarians have just done. You have just adopted Bill C-70. Bill C-70 will give us new tools to address new realities—for example, being able to talk about foreign interference with other levels of government, the private sector and academics. That alone is a new tool that is very important.

Through the commission, we have also worked very hard in terms of trying to sanitize and do summaries when it comes to foreign intelligence documents. This is a new reality for us. We haven't done that before. This is in order to make those documents more accessible and transparent.

Other countries, yes, it's true, are doing declassification. We've heard many times the U.S. talking about the fact that they declassified information before the invasion of Russia in Ukraine. We can also learn from that and do that differently in a more regular manner.