Having these kinds of sessions is profoundly important, as is having officials, both current and previous, from the national security and intelligence community share what they can in a public environment about what the threat is.
Personally, I also believe there can be far more transparency from Canada's security and intelligence communities. We have the ability to speak to the public, to parliamentarians and to others around the issues of foreign interference in, I think, a more regular and more frank way.
Part of the challenge has been a long history of reticence and risk aversion when it comes to having those conversations, and I think one of the effects of that history of risk aversion to regular, forthright conversations is that many Canadians—and unfortunately a number of parliamentarians—lack a deep understanding of the way security and intelligence works and how we can work more effectively together to counter the threat posed by hostile state actors and other threats to Canada's national security.