Good morning.
My name is Ray Boisvert. I'm the assistant director intelligence for the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, CSIS. I'm joined by the service's chief financial officer, Laura Danagher. We're pleased to join our colleagues from partner agencies here today to speak to the costs related to security for the G-8 and G-20 summits.
The mandate of CSIS, as spelled out in the Canadian Security Intelligence Service Act, is to collect and analyze threats to the security of Canada and to report on them to our various government partners so they may take appropriate action in accordance with their mandates and responsibilities.
In the context of the summits, the primary responsibility of the service was to assist the RCMP and Canada Border Services Agency to provide accreditation to those requiring access to secure sites linked to the summits. The service's main focus in this process was to ensure that only those with legitimate requirements to access these sites were accredited. This was done in adherence to the service's continued efforts to circumvent terrorists or foreign agents from entering Canada, or sensitive areas, under false pretenses. It is estimated that CSIS conducted security checks on up to 20,000 accreditation requests received in relation to the two summits.
CSIS was also called upon to support its partners, including the RCMP, in evaluating and monitoring threats before and during the event. CSIS contributed to summit updates prepared by the Integrated Threat Assessment Centre (ITAC) in the months and weeks leading up to the event, and to daily updates issued during the summits.
CSIS was also active on the ground as part of the Joint Intelligence Group (JIG), the multi-agency intelligence fusion centre that worked to ensure the safety of summit sites and participants.
As the CSIS director stated prior to the summits, the service's primary concern at the time was the threat posed by multi-issue extremists and violent anarchist organizations. Much of the intelligence that we provided to our government partners in the context of the summits related to our knowledge of possible violence being planned or contemplated by individuals associated with these groups.
In total, as of September 30, 2010, CSIS expenses related to our work in support of security at the two summits totalled just over $2 million—$2,009,000, to be exact.
We thank you for the opportunity to appear before you today and, of course, we look forward to your questions.