That's a hard question, because it means going through a lot of statutes, and it's a lot of work. I would be hoping that the Department of Justice would help.
I'll give you an example within the context of the concept of terrorism, which obviously is a pertinent one for this conversation. There's a definition of something called “terrorist activity” in the Criminal Code. There's the concept of a “terrorism offence” in the Criminal Code. The Security of Canada Information Sharing Act talks about “terrorism”. The Immigration and Refugee protection Act talks about “terrorism”. Some of the provisions that relate to CBSA talk about terrorism-related activities. In other words, there's a proliferation of terms, and some of those terms, when they're applied in the context of actually ending up in front of a court, have been interpreted differently. The concept of terrorism in the immigration law has been construed differently by the Supreme Court from the definition of terrorist activity in the Criminal Code.
Imagine now that you have all these different terms, and you're the official who's trying to decide whether you should share information because of the invocation of terrorism in the Security of Canada Information Sharing Act. Which definition do you choose? My preference would be to have a consolidated definition of all the issues we think should fall within national security, one that is significantly less broad than what's presently in section 2, and to make sure that it becomes the hub in a bigger wheel. It would be the hub for the information-sharing provisions that exist in other statutes, so it would be a consolidated definition. That requires a lot of renovation, though, of the existing statutes, and that will be a lot of work, but it's probably a worthy endeavour, because I think it would simplify life.
I'll reiterate one of my core points at the outset, which is that even with the best legal language in the world, you're still dependent on people construing it, which means that you need independent review to ensure that those construals are reasonable.