Thank you very much.
Please accept my apologies for the technical delay.
Thank you, Mr. Chair and members of the committee, for inviting me and for giving me the opportunity to speak with you about an important issue, one that opens the door to many others.
Allow me to begin by summarizing my thinking, which is based on my over 40 years of experience serving this country and working in the private sector. This also ties in with my research and my work in the national security field.
When it comes to the use of one or more technologies that make it possible to intercept conversations or obtain information protected under the Privacy Act, I would say your examination revolves around four key things: relevance, lawfulness, legitimacy and accountability.
Right off the bat, I want to underscore the importance of protecting privacy as defined in Canadian laws and the charter. Privacy protection is one of the cornerstones of a healthy democracy, and without it, there can be no democracy.
That said, my remarks will focus on three points, which I will come back to.
First, the idea that the end justifies the means is not an acceptable argument when conducting criminal or national security investigations.
Second, partisan games have no place in this debate. It is the fruits of your collective efforts that will help to better protect democracy and Canadians.
Third, this committee has been tasked with a tremendous moral and ethical responsibility. By that, I mean building the necessary tools into the legal framework—the tools the men and women entrusted with our protection need to protect us adequately while respecting the underpinnings of our legal system.
My first point is that one major trap for anybody responsible for collective safety is to believe that the end justifies the means. It is the most dangerous deception that law enforcement officers are facing in the maze of bureaucracy and court systems. Eager to accomplish their work of protecting us and wanting to stop criminals and terrorists ready to harm us, some officers might be tempted to go around the law.
Our own Canadian history teaches us the mistakes of the sixties and seventies, when the RCMP was put in charge of stopping communist agents or separatist zealots. In the name of protecting us, RCMP officers broke the law, believing they were doing the right thing. They were misled and wrong.
I have listened and paid attention to the testimony given to you in the last days. I did not see or hear history repeating itself. I saw officers, under the pressure of not jeopardizing operational or tactical capabilities, who were answering your questions, I believe, to the best of their ability and as much as possible. Thanks to your important work, it is evident that we can enhance the approval process by improving consultation with the Privacy Commissioner, the reporting and evaluation mechanisms and the law itself.
In addition, I was pleased to hear that the court system has kept in place the checks and balances. That is good news and gives us hope that we are on a good track to improve our democratic system and accountability process.
The second point I mentioned concerns me more, given the troubling way I have seen certain members of the committee behaving. To ask questions, even tough ones, is a committee member's job and responsibility. Committee members should, however, abide by an overriding principle: their duty is to protect and promote the country's interests, not partisan interests or political agendas. The place to ask questions about technical, tactical or strategic capabilities is in camera.
We shall not forget that the hearings of this committee are public. Some of the bad guys, being criminals or foreign agents, are listening and taking notes. Asking questions while pushing to get, for example, the country of origin of a technology that must remain secret is to serve on a silver platter to the bad guys the means to counter tactical capabilities. To continue making fake allegations of mass surveillance when there is no evidence of it is misleading and dividing our society. Thirty-nine cases and 41 devices spread over more than five years is not mass surveillance.
As I mentioned at the outset, I have been watching and analyzing threats against society and Canadians for over 42 years. I was among those who served in the RCMP and dedicated themselves to protecting this country and its citizens. I have experienced the frustration and success that come with conducting an investigation and trying to stop criminals, spies and terrorists from doing us harm, both individually and collectively. I cannot adequately put into words just how an investigator feels when a bad guy gets off because of a flaw in our democratic or legal system.
Yesterday, Philippe Dufresne spoke to you about—