Proper oversight is key. I just mentioned how I don't necessarily have the full picture. It's important to have an oversight body that has access and can view the full picture. There can be a danger in terms of stovepipe oversight, whereby oftentimes the overall harm of a particular system is greater than the segmented harm of each individual component of it, so it's important to allow an oversight body to get the full picture and to have access to classified information that would let them fully see if the measures that are being taken are appropriate to the needs of the security agencies.
I want to echo what we heard previously about the need to make the case not only internally in that regard but also to Canadians, and to show why we necessarily need to expand our powers more than they've already been done.
I think that we've seen that the tool kit, the level of powers of investigation, of data processing, of law enforcement and security agencies have all expanded exponentially over the past few decades, and I don't necessarily think that there's been a concomitant understanding about the implications of this to privacy rights of Canadians. I think there needs to be a consideration of the significant expansion of information sharing and surveillance that has taken place in the historical context, but also I think context is important in terms of the threats that we face today. Terrorism has been around for a long time, and I think we need to ask ourselves if we are necessarily facing unprecedented threats. Are we facing threats that are greater than they were during the FLQ crisis, greater than the U.K. faced in the 1980s from the IRA?
These are challenges that we've dealt with previously, and we've been able to establish safeguards in place that properly respect Canadians' privacy rights. I'm not sure if the case has been made that there's a new challenge that justifies additional legislation.