Thank you, Madam Chair.
This is not our first chance to have a conversation, Mr. Brookson.
I think there's a reasonable expectation that Canadians have access to their parliamentary precinct. In the spirit of maintaining the openness that's here—the openness that's been here since I've been here, which is 2006—and seeing people come and go off the grounds and be on the front lawn of Centre Block, I can't wait for the day for that to be open again, to get Parliament looking the way it used to look.
Notwithstanding that, I've also seen significant security upgrades here. Basically, there are barricades now. We have two tiers of security even within our own precinct, not to mention the potential third tier that we're talking about, which is the outer boundaries of the parliamentary precinct and even the national capital region. In listening to your answers, I can understand where you're coming from. Your perspective, your mandate, is that you want to be able to secure this area as much as possible. Given those two solitudes, I don't think we can physically just restrict access and vet every single human being who wants to come in and out of the downtown core or even to the parliamentary precinct. I don't know if that's humanly possible. That means we have to rely not solely on physical infrastructure; we also have to rely on intelligence infrastructure.
I'm not sure what you're willing to share here, but based on conversations we've had in other places, I was left with the impression that the Parliamentary Protective Service was not treated as an equal partner in the eyes of the joint services that are providing security and protection and the sharing of intelligence. If we're going to extend your jurisdiction and your mandate, I would be remiss in my duties to protect people if you did not have the same capabilities to...or were not seen as being an equal partner with the Ottawa police and the RCMP, or an equal recipient of information from somebody like CSIS.
Can you tell me, if we were to recommend at this committee that the PPS expand its area of responsibility, that I can make that recommendation confidently, knowing that the PPS is completely capable and completely in the loop in the intelligence infrastructure of downtown Ottawa?