Mr. Speaker, the bill is not in response to current activities, to what happened in the last three weeks within Canada. It is a bill that has been in process for some time, and to a certain extent, as I understand it, responding to Justices Blanchard and Mosley.
Justice Blanchard concluded in a Federal Court decision made public in 2008 that section 12 did not possess an extraterritorial aspect. He also concluded that the Federal Court had no authority to issue a warrant authorizing surveillance on Canadians located overseas. The bill is in part a response to that.
The other aspect that comes, not so much from a court case but CSIS itself, is the need to protect informants abroad. As I raised with the minister, while we agree with the principle that those informants have to be protected, there has to be justice under the law as well so that somebody is not falsely accused. We want to see from the Conservatives the details on how they intend to do that, protecting informants who are assisting Canada but may reside in foreign countries.