Procedure and House Affairs committee  Generally speaking, I agree with the findings, yes.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  I don't agree with every specific finding, but generally speaking, yes.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  It was primarily coming from Russia. In parallel, we were very concerned about a number of things to do with China. I mentioned economic security. You have to remember that, at that time, Xi Jinping was leading a major anti-corruption campaign. Some people were arguing that some of his targets were more like political rivals.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  First of all, on the issue of other state actors, at my April appearance, I mentioned that, indeed, there are other countries, particularly when it comes to surveillance and the intimidation of the diaspora. On your second question, absolutely. I think it's time we focus on the diagnostic of the problem.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Well, I would have seen some draft, right? It's always the way it works. You see some earlier draft. You make corrections. It returns. I cannot say whether or not I saw the draft of Global, because I've had no access to it. Too, I don't see all the earlier drafts, so....

Procedure and House Affairs committee  I have no recollection of a request being made to me for a memo by the chief of staff. That doesn't mean it was not the case. It could have happened in the context.... They have a regular briefing with the intelligence assessment secretariat. Maybe they had asked for that. That's possible.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Me? No. But as I said, that doesn't mean the initial request may not have come to the intelligence assessment secretariat, who do regular briefings to the chief of staff and, at the time, the principal secretary.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  As I said, I can talk generally about the memo. There were a number of reasons we wanted to do that memo. We were more and more concerned about some of the activities by China. As I said before, at my last appearance, we particularly very concerned at that time about economic security and China trying to acquire sensitive technologies.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  First of all, I have not seen the draft memo that Global is assumed to have seen. In fact, Mr. Johnston seems to have seen a different draft than the one Mr. Cooper reported on. Second, the note I sent warned about all kinds of foreign interference activities by China, so there were certainly no objections to sensitizing the government.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Yes.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Madam Chair, thank you for your invitation. Thanks as well to the members of the committee. I have decided not to give an opening statement because, when I appeared before you in mid-April, I made some preliminary remarks and subsequent comments that gave you a clear idea of my views on the foreign interference file.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  First of all, let's maybe try to clarify what has been reported in the media versus the memo that I sent. I think the rapporteur also did that in his report. The reports by Global News, according to what the special rapporteur said, referred to a draft of that memo, an earlier draft version, that would have been leaked.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  We definitely need to work on some of the major digital access tools and providing better tools that, at the same time, stay true to our values and our regard for privacy. I would encourage government agencies, civil liberties groups and privacy groups to work together on that.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  You've given me an opportunity to say more about this. What I usually tell people is that the crown jewels now are intellectual property on the economic security side. The crown jewels are data, which has become a real asset. Data sovereignty is a key issue in many countries. We've not started to focus as much as we should on that in Canada.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Absolutely. If you take, for example, the cyber strategy and the measures that were brought, we worked very closely with the Governor of the Bank of Canada and the major banks in Canada, because it was so critical to protect our financial sectors. Right now, you see that a lot of the cyber-attacks are coming through the supply chain, such as the one that happened to BRP in Quebec this summer.