I fully appreciate that between 3,000 and 4,000 reports or memos come in a month, as you said, but what I'm finding out today is deeply troubling. We thought the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs had better things to do, but it turns out that the work we are doing is extremely important.
Previously, communication and reports weren't handled the same way. All the witnesses the committee heard from talked about the epidemic of over-classification by Canada's intelligence agencies, even describing it as a culture within the intelligence community. In fact, we are only talking about it now because someone was brave enough to bring it to the media's attention. Otherwise, we wouldn't be trying to put things right as we speak.
How did we get to this point? I'm giving you an opportunity to answer frankly, in order to restore people's confidence.