There are lots of questions there, Madam Chair.
First of all, our threshold is too high, potentially. It is something that has to be examined. Again, CSIS is limited by the act. I know the director will have a view of this for you when he is here.
The culture in the intelligence community is to protect information and to continue to collect more information. I think that changes to the CSIS act, working with RCMP, perhaps, and the ability to move intelligence from intelligence to evidence will aid in our ability to do something of consequence with this intelligence.
I don't agree with chaos as a characterization. There are some extraordinarily good, analytical minds working on intelligence analysis in CSIS, CSE, the Privy Council Office and other departments. What we do with that analysis is where we need to raise our level of sophistication and our level of clarity.
I agree that we need to speak more about national security. We have to do it in a manner that is transparent, clear and understandable in French, English and other languages. We are not good at that, because we are protecting information all the time. That leads to my concern about a public inquiry. There would be very little more than what I've said here today that I would be able to say in a public inquiry. The Security of Information Act protects it. Protecting the sources of the intelligence is critical. Protecting the techniques in terms of how we collect intelligence is critical.
I think, with the hearings that Mr. Johnston has recommended and will be undertaking, it's really important that they be as open and transparent as possible with stakeholders, with diaspora communities and with you, about what the next steps are.
I think an inquiry could mean that we are examining this rather than moving forward with change. I think we have an opportunity right now to make change in how we do things that would be very important to the national security discussion and the level of understanding and sophistication of Canadians about national security issues.