Minister, thanks again for being here. It's always great to have a minister at the committee.
I want to talk about the new powers that were granted under Bill C-51 to CSIS. Basically, it gave them new powers to disrupt potential threats. There are different things, telephone calls, travel plans, etc. Before the changes in Bill C-51, CSIS could only inform police agencies of potential threats and could not act on them alone. Throughout the last election campaign, Mr. Minister, your party basically said they were going to make major changes to it.
Now, the director of CSIS appeared before a Senate committee in March. He indicated that the agency had used their new powers close to two dozen times since Bill C-51 came into force and six more months have passed since then. He also indicated that it is likely that they'd use these powers again in the future. During an interview following being at the Senate committee, the director of CSIS stated that, following the national security review that the government is currently engaged in, a decision would likely be made that could affect the power and others.
Mr. Minister, seeing that if the powers that be would have had the proper things at the time, Corporal Cirillo probably would still be alive.... We were all here two years ago when that happened, and I'm sure you were as well. Also, the would-be terrorist, I believe, in Strathroy a few months ago probably wouldn't have been caught without these new changes.
My question is, do you intend to change them, and if so, how do you see these powers changing? Clearly, they've been effective in disrupting potential threats thus far.