In the last Parliament, I appeared on Bill C-26 and talked about some of these issues when legislation aims at giving more power to the state to protect infrastructure and to disable and to take certain steps. As commissioner, I've always stated that privacy is not an obstacle to public interest, and it's not an obstacle to national security or to a strong economy, but we need to make sure that by protecting national security, we're not doing so at the expense of privacy.
In cases like this, what I said to the committee was that we needed to put into the legislation a criterion on necessity and proportionality, making sure that the exercise of those powers is going to be tested from a privacy perspective, and to say, “Is this necessary? Does it achieve the result for which it's been put in place and is it proportional?” That's the substantive element.
You mentioned secrecy. In certain instances, secrecy is necessary, but it should be challenged, and there should be ways for some reports to be made to appropriate authorities. It doesn't have to be necessarily that we make it public: reports to my office, reports to a national committee of parliamentarians or other means.