Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to hear my hon. colleague's remarks because I am particularly qualified to answer at least some of them.
I am the author of a book called Best Kept Secret that deals with the early history of the CSE and brings it up to the present. It was published last November. The member is welcome to get it. I regret however it was published only in English, but I would greatly appreciate it if the member could find me a French publisher, a Quebec publisher, so it would be available to him in the language of his choice.
The history of the CSE goes back to the second world war. I will help the hon. member by giving him some background. It was part of the allied effort in code and cipher breaking during the second world war. It began with the examination unit that was in the house next door to the Prime Minister's residence during the second world war.
It was engaged in breaking codes and ciphers primarily Japanese and Vichy French. The breaking of codes and ciphers was a shared arrangement, both diplomatic, economic and military during the second world war. The Americans specialized in Japanese ciphers in particular and the British specialized in German and Italian. The Canadians were left with some Japanese and Vichy French.
The reason Canadians got involved-and this is important so the member will understand the perspective right now-was that Canada was the best country in the world for picking up radio signals. It was because of the radio skip phenomenon where the radio waves bounce in the atmosphere and come down in various parts of the world at focal points. Canada was excellently situated to pick up all kinds of messages. That is how we got involved.
Naturally during the second world war this was a highly secret endeavour. It went into the post war period. Canada continued to be involved first as the communications branch under the National Research Council and subsequently it became the Communications Security Establishment.
There is no secret about what the Communications Security Establishment does. If the member would look at my book, I cite in it a particular presentation before a committee, the name of which is in my book, by the deputy clerk for security intelligence, Ward Alcock, a couple of years ago. He explained that the mandate of the Communications Security Establishment was to listen in on telecommunications worldwide, just as do the Americans, the Australians and the British. The idea was to try to pick up intelligence that may have a bearing on Canada's political and economic security.
There might be a case where Canada has entered into international agreements and one party or another is not obeying those agreements. Am I going on too long, Mr. Speaker?