The explicit provisions in SCISA allow for sharing only of information already collected, but because it provides a number of agencies with the impetus to begin to look for threat information, primarily on the front line, it may affect the manner in which they approach the information that they collect and retain, because that is now a new consideration they will be using in assessing their own information-sharing practices. At that stage, it could indirectly facilitate the additional collection of information.
When you're talking about the Government of Canada, which is an immense bloc, it's been compartmentalized with regard to the data it collects for good reason, because when you're dealing with the tax agency, you're not dealing within an investigative context, and you're sharing information with the government for tax-assessment purposes. When you're dealing with education insurance, you're not dealing with the government in an investigative context.
Historically, it's been addressed as separate, compartmentalized agencies with different types of information, with the exceptions for information sharing being very specific and targeted. If SCISA facilitates a more generalized information sharing—and I realize it hasn't to date, but it could, as these types of provisions have facilitated that in other jurisdictions—then that could be seen as our facilitating surveillance in a very direct sense, even though the information was already held by one government agency but maybe not by others.
Does that help?