I know the committee understands well the difference between content and metadata, with metadata being about access to when and where a call took place, who was on it and so on. In the past and, I guess, currently, the retention period for metadata has varied dramatically, so I think it's interesting and important that we put our hands around a time frame—the bill calls for up to one year now—because we had a very uneven playing field. The police told me in these consultations how difficult that was to navigate with different police forces.
I think Canadians need to understand that this has been done in Australia, where it's up to two years; in the United Kingdom, where it's up to one year; in France, where it's up to one year; in Belgium, where it's up to one year; and in Sweden, where it's up to 10 months. There's no specifically correct number, but I think the complex investigations contemplated by modern policing are going to require that the data be held for a reasonable amount of time. I don't know if it's one year or 10 months, but it is a certain length of time.