Ms. Damoff, thank you for the question.
I'm happy to see you as well at this committee again. You did important work here, in your role as a parliamentary secretary, on many of these issues.
Our government has sought to increase resources, for example, to CSIS. One of the most significant investments in both technology and capacity at CSIS happened in budget 2024 a few months ago. I think all of us should be very proud as parliamentarians and of our colleagues in the other place as well for adopting Bill C-70, which gave, for the first time in decades, new authorities to CSIS in a digital age.
To the comments about the existence of videos on the dark web, I think it's important, Ms. Damoff, for people to understand that I hear this from the security agencies. I have never, myself, been on the dark web, looking for these kinds of videos. It's called the dark web precisely because these kinds of videos don't normally come with credits and contact information at the end of them, so the idea that there's some simple way that security agencies and partners around the world are able to have access to the sickeningly thousands and millions of images of this kind of thing is why partnerships are so important. That's why working with the 150 other countries that Vanessa described is the best way for CSIS and for its partners in the RCMP and CBSA to do this work.
They need access to the technology. They need legislative authorities, which this Parliament gave them a few months ago, which is terrific, and they need their government to support them with the funds necessary to modernize. I believe that work is being done.
I'm lucky enough, with this super interesting job I have, to see that work up close every week and every month. As I said in my opening comments, Ms. Damoff, I was briefed by CSIS on July 24. When Deputy Commissioner Larkin and his colleagues, Mark Flynn and Commissioner Duheme, updated me on July 28 that these people were in custody and that a successful arrest had been made, it reminded me of the remarkable work done by these women and men in the agencies represented here, of the danger of their work and of the value of working constructively with partners around the world.
If we're not constructive and if we're reckless in releasing information, discussing origins of information and commenting on media reports of certain images and on the existence of evidence that may end up forming part of a criminal prosecution, we'll increasingly be unable to get that information, and we won't look like the reliable partner that we are with those agencies.
I heard from the director of MI6 himself, the chief, in London, about how much he values the work that CSIS does and the information that CSIS gives MI6. I thought it was reassuring for Canadians to know that somebody as interesting in the world as the chief, who would be C in the films we've all seen.... When Sir Richard Moore told me that MI6 is absolutely dependent on CSIS and other partners, it told me the system is working quite well.
