That is, of course, a notion that has to be interpreted based on each situation. In the case of government, if we go back to the law enforcement context with which I'm most familiar, police and security agencies already have certain authorities. If they were to ask for additional authorities, I would ask whether those were necessary, whether there were sufficient existing authorities to achieve the ends they needed in order to meet the protection of the public, and, if there were a need for new authorities, whether it was well crafted, whether it was of proper scope, and whether there were alternatives to the authorities being granted. In that sense, a legitimate need, in the case of government, would be to protect the population, but we would need to go beyond the label and go into what was truly necessary to achieve that end. That would be, I think, a big part of my role: to ensure that claims for additional powers to assist the population—and I'm absolutely in favour of measures to protect the population—were well crafted and that they did not go further than what was necessary to achieve the end.
On June 3rd, 2014. See this statement in context.