Thank you for the question.
I'll start by saying that each organization takes its responsibilities extremely seriously in regard to security clearance, which in effect allows individuals access to Canada's most sensitive systems and classified information. That system, under the revised security screening directive, works quite well. I believe that each of our departments would say that in our cases, we perform those functions with extreme rigour and due diligence.
The distinction that my colleague from the Treasury Board made about the differences in the parts of the process relating to the full information considered by a decision-maker—a deputy head who is hiring an individual—also means that some of the information goes to different parts of the system.
I will emphasize that what CSIS is looking at, for example, is whether the information provided about the applicant by a requesting department has links to any concerns we have in our holdings related to national security investigations and national security threats. What we do not look at is all of the bulk of the information collected in the suitability portion of a department's responsibility or all of the information amassed in the reliability status.
We are not entitled to ask for that information or to share that information back.