I thank the member for her question.
In answer to your question—and this is what I was trying to get at in the way I framed my remarks—I think anyone who is the leader of an opposition or who aspires to be the leader of a G7 country, or any country, frankly, should recognize that they are very likely to be targets for foreign intelligence agencies, for foreign governments. Those could be targets of influence or targets of interference.
We certainly build profiles in this country on all sorts of people in other countries, because that's what our national interests demand. It is important to know the background of, the inclinations of, the likely policy positions of leaders and opposition leaders in other countries.
I tried to say several times that there is nothing necessarily nefarious in a foreign government building a profile on a prominent Canadian. As I said, this is part of what we do via our embassies. Frankly, it helps make our diplomacy more effective if the Prime Minister knows something about the background—something that's not available on the website—of a foreign leader before he meets that foreign leader.
It was said by one of my questioners from this side of the room that this seems to be normal activity. It crosses a line when it is coercive, deceptive or threatening to an individual or an institution. That is the definition of foreign interference and that is what is unacceptable.