Thank you for the question, Ms. Hepfner. It's not often that I get to compare notes on prior professions in the kind of alignment in which you just posed it, your being a former journalist and I being a former federal prosecutor.
Yes, I am familiar with the rigorous steps that have to be followed in order to deploy this kind of electronic surveillance technique. It is not an easy thing to obtain. There are numerous steps that have to be followed, as I pointed out in my prior answers to Mr. Bezan.
First and foremost, there needs to be an application submitted to a superior court judge. That judge then has to take a look at the facts in very meticulous detail, which will offer some evidence or information of a very specific offence that is being breached. I would point out that, as I think is implied in your question, you can't apply for this type of investigative tool or indeed wiretaps generally for any old criminal offence. There are a limited number of very serious offences that are listed under part VI of the Criminal Code for which this technique would be eligible.
After that, the judge has to engage in a balancing exercise to determine, among other things, whether the interception, the technique, is necessary and whether it's pressing and urgent enough that it requires the technique to be afforded to the state for the purposes of acquiring information that could then be potentially used as evidence in a subsequent criminal proceeding.
Again, there is a lot of attention to detail. It is not uncommon for the courts to put questions back to designated agents before approving these judicial authorizations, precisely because we place paramount value on the protection of people's privacy, individual privacy rights and other protections under the charter.
There is a lot of protection built in to the Criminal Code, precisely to strike the balance of ensuring that the state has the tools that are necessary to protect the security and safety of all Canadians while at the same time upholding people's charter rights.