It's an excellent question, sir, and I think it would be difficult for perhaps either of us to give you a truly fine-grained, evidence-based answer to your question. I have views on this, and they're views of long standing that have evolved since 9/11.
I think the first thing that has to be said is that what I call Canadian literacy on national security issues is low. This is not the fault of Canadians themselves. I place the fault squarely at the feet of governments for failing to educate and inform Canadians adequately about national security threats and the kind of response capacity we have to them. I'm hoping that the new Liberal government will change that pattern of past behaviour, and perhaps the green paper is one sign that they truly intend to do so. But I think it has to be systematically done.
I've often responded to media questions whenever there's a terrorist incident or a prevented terrorist plot in Canada. The question is often about how Canadians have responded. My anecdotal feeling about that—and that's all it is—is that Canadian society has shown remarkable degrees of resilience. We haven't faced, fortunately, too many real or prevented terrorist plots since 9/11. But in the instances where we have faced such attacks, as in the Parliament Hill attack, or in Quebec, or things like the Aaron Driver affair, and other conspiracies that have been prevented by law enforcement and intelligence work, I don't see signs of Canadian overreaction or Canadian panic or Canadian misunderstanding of the circumstances. Nor do I see the opposite, which is what is often asked particularly by outside observers of Canada, which is whether Canada is too complacent a country about these kinds of issues.
I think we have, and are capable of having, a mature conversation on national security threats. The challenge for us in having that conversation is that while terrorist and other threats are real, we're not at the epicentre of these threats. We can be impacted by them any minute of the day, but we're not at the epicentre. We're not a European country directly facing the degree of threat that a country like France, for example, or Germany or Italy might. We're not the United States. But we are a country that can be affected by these threats. It's a bit more difficult to judge the reality.
Going forward—and I'll end on this point—I think it's vital that we begin to have a larger conversation about national security. We have been, for the past decade, focused on terrorism as a threat and, from time to time, that's a good focus, but I think it's insufficiently broad for the kind of conversation we have to have going forward. We face other kinds of very significant national security threats that we have to have a national conversation about, including cyber-threats, including the security implications of climate change now and in the future, which are going to impact us and global society. So, the sooner we start having a conversation that is about more than just terrorism, the better off we'll be. I'm sure that Canadian society is capable of having that conversation.