Thank you, Chair.
In the hope that they might be useful to you, I'd like to offer a few contextual remarks about departmental security generally. I make these comments drawing both on my national security experience and on my experience in, I think, eight departments while I was still working.
Outside of core national security departments and agencies, absent a crisis, departmental security is not a priority. It would not engage the attention of deputy heads and certainly not that of ministers.
In these non-national security core departments, it's policy, operations or science that gets attention, not security or, for that matter, any other matter relating to corporate issues, like finance. As long as people are paid, they're happy. They're not going to spend a lot of time worrying about finance, procurement or things of that nature.
Having worked in two science-based departments, I think this is especially true of science and scientists. They are not particularly interested in security. I'm not ascribing ill intent to either departmental security or scientists, but rather disinterest and insufficient training and resources, which can lead to security violations—some minor, some serious.
At the same time, I think it's fair to say that most departmental security units are not equipped to deal with significant national security issues. If, for example, you're in a department like Canadian Heritage, you don't worry about national security, even if there is a threat there, because people move around. You are, to some degree, like a medium-sized city's general-purpose police officer. You don't have national security training, and I think that's increasingly a problem today.
Additionally, I think the overall national security environment has an impact on how seriously departmental security can carry out its duties or is equipped or resourced to do so. In Canada, over the last few decades, I think it's fair to say that the national security environment has not been consistent, especially as it concerns China. If you're a departmental security officer wondering how seriously you should apply rules and whatnot, you find comfort in the fact, I think, that up and down the system, nobody is jumping up and down and telling you to do things very seriously.
All of the above is not to suggest that I disagree with the final decisions taken at the Winnipeg lab concerning the two scientists. Rather, I wanted to try to paint a picture that I think still applies today in most departments. It's a significant cultural and resource issue, and I think it's indicative of a serious, systemic range of issues that I hope the committee might be able to deal with, not only with respect to labs, but also with respect to departments and agencies generally.
Thank you, Chair.