That's a good question, Chair. I think it was very uneven, to be honest. I want to be clear that I'm not directing this to a particular government. I'm talking about the entire time I worked. It was both a Conservative government and a Liberal government.
After 9/11, for example, security across the system was ratcheted up in a major way, and it impacted everyone. However, since Canadians don't generally feel threatened, slowly but surely after that we reverted to the status quo ante.
PCO, the Treasury Board and CSIS regularly sent out reminders to departmental security officers. I think there was the tradition of an annual meeting and conference. However, if there's not a sense, globally, within the public service that there's a significant issue, it's very hard to change, particularly in non-national security departments.
I don't know what you and your colleagues have concluded about the status of the lab. I think some people would argue that it's a national security establishment and it should be treated as such, period. A whole bunch of other people would say it's a medical lab and everyone should get a grip: “Yes, we don't want to share with everybody in town, but it's not a national security establishment.” I think the way the international environment has shifted, it has become a national security environment.
I used to head the Canadian Food Inspection Agency. We had a significant component of work at that place. That's quite a few years ago, but at the time, it was not regarded as a national security institution. For a variety of reasons, security was pretty heavy, but that was because of the risk involved in all the material it was producing.
To go back to your question, it's been very uneven across the years as central agencies try to remind departments to abide by the rules, to enforce them and to push things along.