Let me answer that wearing two hats.
Of course, as a member of the RCMP and having worked extensively on the protective side with the Prime Minister's detail, with the VIP units and with the Governor General's detail, and having been involved in putting together several major events, as well as in my current role as director here, I can say that unless you've lived under a rock, the evolution and polarization of the population have grown significantly. Clearly, the people are right or left. Call it what you will. That's always existed, but now the temperature has changed. That has had a significant impact on security.
How do we do that, and how do we do that in a way that provides the people we serve—and, for that matter, the general public—whereby we find a balance?
The jobs our parliamentarians do, beyond the actual work they do every day, clearly represent something. They represent, of course, Canadian values, democracy and all of that.
How do we provide an adequate security posture that is commensurate to the threat, while leaving an impression—more than an impression, but the fact—of the proximity of the public to our parliamentarians?
I wish I could say there's an easy answer to that. There is no easy answer to that. In fact, we struggle with that on a regular basis. How do we do that?
As we're building the new Parliament in the LTVP context, the Centre Block and all of the projects, how do we find that balance of security, using modern technology—because technology is evolving greatly—while making sure that it doesn't look like a police state? We don't want to replicate that. We see that happening in other places on the planet, and that's not what Canadians want. It's not what this place represents.
We're constantly struggling. I wish there was an easy answer to that. All we can do is try to stay on top of the threats.
I think all police departments, law enforcement, the RCMP inside here and the Sergeant-at-Arms have all increased our intel capacity to try to get ahead of the threat and try to make the difference between what is an actual threat and what is a perceived threat. This is understanding that a person who is receiving negative comments or some kind of security threat, although it may not necessarily be something that's actionable, is going to be concerned. Of course, they won't be well. Of course, it may have an impact, if it's a parliamentarian, on how they do their job.
That's the crux of what this place represents—