Justice committee  Sorry, I cannot answer that question.

Justice committee  I'm going to try to start. I can't speak to the science behind the conversion, but I think there is a broader point of the ongoing interest of certain terrorist groups in weapons of mass destruction. Previously al Qaeda has clearly indicated an interest in obtaining anthrax and

Justice committee  Thank you. My name is John Davies. I'm the director general, national security policy, at Public Safety Canada. I'm joined today by my colleague Emmanuelle Deault-Bonin, who is the senior analyst and manager in my group, and an expert in counter-proliferation policy. I am plea

Public Safety committee  I was just going to say that I imagine there are two layers to the answer. One is that there are very likely internal reviews that CSIS has done with regard to the experience in Afghanistan, given the complex environment there. I would need to check on how the Security Intelligen

Public Safety committee  Okay. As you know, Public Safety is a portfolio, so the Canada Border Services Agency, the RCMP, and CSIS are all essential core parts of the security intelligence community. Outside of the portfolio, certainly the Privy Council Office has a strong coordinating role, but it also

Public Safety committee  Do you want me to list off the ones—

Public Safety committee  Risk to the person being mistreated, for example. So it's proportional to that. The higher the risk, the higher the sign-offs and scrutiny that goes behind that decision. Ministerial direction in this area and all areas is also overseen by the Security Intelligence Review Commit

Public Safety committee  First of all, the ministerial direction around information-sharing is quite clear that information-sharing has to be lawful, domestically and internationally. That's the basis. Any decisions in terms of sharing information are also proportional to risk, in terms of the sign-offs

Public Safety committee  The Minister of Public Safety and, I believe, the Minister of Justice both convene a group of their counterparts at the provincial level. That's supported by a group at the deputy minister level. In both those forums we've had a chance to brief them on the counter-terrorism strat

Public Safety committee  Sure. My reference to envy was certainly about Kanishka, the $10 million for research on countering violent extremism and counter-terrorism in general. A number of countries commented to us that we are extremely lucky to have this resource. As Mr. MacDonald was saying, there's no

Public Safety committee  Australia, the United Kingdom, and the U.S. have strategies. I think ours is probably more like Australia's and the United Kingdom's than the U.S.'s. The U.S.'s is similar but a little bit different. I believe the Netherlands has a similar kind of strategy. Beyond that, I'm not s

Public Safety committee  I believe that's under Bill S-7, which is updating the Anti-terrorism Act. There's a provision for travelling for the purpose of terrorism, which is clarifying the legal—

Public Safety committee  I believe Bill S-7.... Again, Justice leads on this file, but the idea around Bill S-7 is to make it illegal to knowingly participate in activities of a terrorist group for the purpose of enhancing the ability of a terrorist group to carry out an act of terrorism. So the idea of

Public Safety committee  I think there's quite a continuum with that word and what it means. I think in some cases, such as with the U.S., it could be much more about working together on joint threat assessments, for example, and harmonizing around admissibility issues, and so on. In the Global Counter-

Public Safety committee  Yes.