Thank you for the question.
I do agree with you on the first point that the constantly evolving threat requires new tools. Legislation is one of them, but also there are skills development among investigators, research with academia, and better relationships with our communities and our public safety partners, which we have. Those are three major areas in which the tools can be better built to make us more successful.
As I think Professor Neumann well pointed out, the evolving threat changes. In the four years in which I've been in this position, I have seen the threat of terrorism come from the plot-driven nature, where the police or a security service, foreign or national, would advise us that there was a plot occurring and that individuals were plotting to conduct a terrorist attack. Professor Neumann put it very well that it's now an individual member. There is no communication with other people perhaps, but there's the sympathizer and supporter that may be behind the individual. That lone wolf, as much as I wish there were a different term for it, that individual actor that's going to commit terrorism is the threat we face today. That may change for tomorrow, but it's the threat we're facing right now, along with all the other past terrorist techniques or terrorist events that we have seen: the plot offences and the various extremist groups that are out there, both left and right. The most recent one we're looking at, the lone wolf, certainly is the one which is occupying many of our resources and much of our time, and is the one that requires the greatest amount of effort from law enforcement.
I do think Bill C-51 plays a part in that. As I stated, it provides the threshold that we see now. The old threshold that we had to be definitive and that an attack would occur, now is “likely may occur”. I think that deals with that lone individual. There's less chance to determine communication and less chance to determine action that's occurring that may drive an act.