Procedure and House Affairs committee  Mr. Chair, to be more specific, we used section 12.1 of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service Act, which is about reducing threats. That is the process, which is based on the CSIS Act, that enabled me to have the initial discussion with Mr. Chong.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Yes, Mr. Chair, it is correct, 70 parliamentarians, and I think that, for Canadians, we're talking about more than 1,000 people we engaged with.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Mr. Chair, I will have to go back to review that information specifically to confirm.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Mr. Chair, I will undertake to confirm whether the MPs were met. However, I think it's very clear as well, in my testimony and from what was presented to this committee, that there was, as I said, the expectation when we were sharing the information that the specific information would be shared by the House of Commons.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Mr. Chair, in my remarks and my previous comments, I think I've been clear that the outcome that we have seen here is not the one that members of Parliament or senators in the IPAC would have wanted. It's definitely not the outcome we would have wanted, because our work on national security is to make sure that we are enabling people to defend themselves and to do our work.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Mr. Chair, very quickly, I would not comment specifically on the interactions of CSIS with partners, but I can reassure the member that there have been indeed a number of partners in government who have engaged specifically on these issues with partners in Taiwan.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Mr. Chair, by and large, that's exactly what I wanted to say. Allow me to reiterate that my current position involves a duty of confidentiality. Nonetheless, when partisan interests are taken into consideration, which is normal in a democracy—and we're lucky enough to live in a democracy—the fundamental questions can be somewhat blurred.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Mr. Chair, I don't think anyone will be surprised to hear that I won't be commenting on what the member said. On the other hand, I can say that the discussion being held right now and the work being done by this committee are essential if Canadians are to be better protected against foreign interference and numerous other threats.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Mr. Chair, I'm going to exercise my duty of confidentiality with respect to these comments, but I appreciate the member's question.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  That's a very good question, Mr. Chair, but it's one to which there is unfortunately not a very good answer, insofar as there is no policy on declassification. Let's take the Canadian Security Intelligence Service as an example. Information from the Canadian Security Intelligence Service is subject not only to the Canadian Security Intelligence Service Act and the Security of Information Act, but also to our practices and commitments.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Generally speaking, in my experience, the disclosure of information is done in collaboration with the agencies. I'll give you a very concrete example. The first time we named some of the countries involved in this incident, it was classified information. We did the work required to allow us to say that now, based on publicly available information and its impact on our operations, we can begin to say more about it.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Mr. Chair, that is my understanding. I have a lot of respect for Mr. Chong and his remarks. I would welcome a discussion with him to maybe have a chance to better understand his point of view.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Mr. Chair, while pondering the member's question, I've thought of a few different models. One example comes from our partners in Australia who, at regular intervals of just a few years, has a non-governmental third party review of all agreements and statutes governing national security.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Mr. Chair, I would take the words of the MP, but for a period of time for sure.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Mr. Chair, that's a very interesting question. We've been reflecting on this issue. In my view, I think we, CSIS and partners, are putting more resources and emphasis on this, because we have seen the threat increasing in the last number of years. We have seen a number of actors coming at it much more aggressively and doing things we had not seen before.