Public Safety committee  I think that's a separate issue. I think the sharing of information has never been better. I can speak with CSIS. The relationship is excellent. I think of the integrated units we have, which we call INSETs, Integrated National Security Enforcement Teams, with which Inspector Irwin is an operations officer, where we have integrated police forces of various jurisdictions and CBSA.

Public Safety committee  You're right in saying that there's a duality there, where provisions can be utilized. Inspector Irwin touched on it before, in a case where youth might be involved. Maybe the recognizance would be useful in helping the youth obtain proper counselling. But then that same recognizance could be very useful for someone who's about to conduct a terrorist attack.

Public Safety committee  —the penalty would be seven years for an attempt to participate, as compared to the new legislation being proposed, which would be 14 years.

Public Safety committee  That's a great question, because certainly it's always in the forefront of our investigations with respect to our community outreach work and our policing. Simply said, we take an approach based on threat right now. As we look at the threat environment, the threat is al-Qaeda; A-Q affiliated, that's what we focus on.

Public Safety committee  Sir, I really can't speak to the timeline for this. This will be a decision, of course, for the committee and for Parliament, but maybe I can speak a bit about the threat environment and what we're seeing out there. As I mentioned earlier, the threat environment is evolving, based on international events, incidents, technology, and the ability for people to exchange or receive information and learn from each other through the Internet.

Public Safety committee  No, I was referring to internal RCMP policy. There was, I believe, one area where we did not have in our internal policy...specifically with respect to some of the requirements of one of the provisions. So, of course, should these provisions be approved, we would need to update them accordingly.

Public Safety committee  Certainly any offence that would be brought forward under these provisions would need to meet the test of section 83, so the actual definition of what a terrorism offence is.

Public Safety committee  If I may, sir, are you referring specifically to the offences or the recognizance and the investigative provisions?

Public Safety committee  I guess what I could say to that is that each case is very specific, and to use one case to determine whether the preventative application of it would be wide enough for the majority of cases has yet to be determined. The second piece to that.... If you're looking at the actual imprisonment period, someone who's liable to imprisonment, I believe under the attempt it would be 50% of the actual sentence.

Public Safety committee  Yes, I would agree with that, sir.

Public Safety committee  Sir, the cases I'm aware of are individuals who actually departed Canada, trained, and then at that moment we gathered sufficient information—specific to this example, of course—to charge them after the fact.

Public Safety committee  After going through training, yes.

Public Safety committee  Yes, that there's adequate—

Public Safety committee  In regard to the number of safeguards that are in place, if we start at the most basic level, of course, we would require Attorney General consent before proceeding. There would be a judicial authorization required. Internally, within the RCMP, we did have a policy—which we would need to bring up to date—that required the investigator to receive internal approvals and support before going to the Attorney General.

Public Safety committee  Well, sir, there's no doubt that international events do influence the number and types of investigations you're referring to. We are seeing a consistent volume of individuals being radicalized who are looking to travel abroad to either participate in, train for, or conduct terrorist acts.