Thank you.
Mr. Forster, I have some questions about CSEC. I would love to have put them to the minister, but since you're here, thank you for being here.
The essence of what I've been hearing about the CSEC and metadata conversation has been that the minister trusts the commissioner, so the committee and the public should trust the minister, and that there's no concern.
Regarding the two key issues of metadata and the law, we're told that the metadata is no problem because the communications aren't opened and the law is being respected. However, the privacy commissioners are telling us the opposite. Ann Cavoukian from Ontario, for example, is saying that metadata is far more dangerous in disclosing the private lives of individuals than opening an email is. Metadata is a dangerous thing in terms of personal privacy.
The national Privacy Commissioner, Chantal Bernier, is telling us that the act is out of date, that the National Defence Act does not reflect changes that have happened in the capabilities of the national security agencies to invade the privacy of individuals, and that the law should be strengthened with a greater accountability regime to reflect the current scale of national security operations. This is the exact opposite of all of the reassuring words we were being given.
Could you tell me briefly, because I have another line of questioning, what concrete steps, if any, are being taken to amend the National Defence Act so that it actually addresses the dangers that metadata can pose to individual privacy and reflects that today's modern capabilities are different from when the Defence Act was last amended?