Welcome, and thank you to our slate of witnesses.
I noticed a common thread in the testimony of both Professor Davies and Mr. Mansur with regard to stating that terrorism is real and that there are some who do not see the same danger as maybe some other people do, and I think it was you, Mr. Mansur, who said it was actually unhelpful.
Last week I did a couple of call-ins to radio stations. I find it extremely unfortunate that there's been such misinformation put out about this bill, specifically with regard to the information sharing act. This is new. It's stand-alone. It does not connect to the other parts of this particular bill. There are five parts. There are some claims that this is somehow an attack on personal freedoms and information sharing, that it's going to infringe on the rights of Canadians. If you actually read the bill, that is simply not the case.
We heard earlier from the B.C. civil liberties group. They are actually a group that had problems going back 30 years, I believe, to the original CSIS bill. Some of the same claims that we're hearing today are some of the same claims we heard with the original 2001 Anti-terrorism Act, and quite frankly it is unhelpful, because what we're dealing with right now is the national security of this country and the protection of Canadian citizens.
I just want to let you know that you made a comment that some of us don't get it. I get it, and that's one of the reasons that this is the number one priority of our Conservative government, to get legislation passed that is going to improve the safety of Canadians.
I just wanted to talk about the information sharing act. It's clearly defined in the act. There's another section in there, which is proposed section 5, and it talks about disclosure of information, and that it can only be shared if it is relevant to the national security jurisdictional responsibilities of the recipients. There are multiple parts in this bill that protect the civil liberties of Canadians. It's also interesting that I've yet to hear someone actually pinpoint what clause of this bill would actually impact a law-abiding Canadian. We hear that there's this case and this case, and that someone was wrongly convicted, but that's why we have the court system. People can take action and get retribution. That's what happens in a democratic and free society.
I'm just wondering if you could comment on the unhelpful information that's out there and the fact that it has taken away from what is actually important, which is the national security of Canada.
We'll start with Professor Davies.