Information & Ethics committee  Well, I like very much, as I mentioned, the necessity to exercise control, accountability and transparency as much as possible. They are a cornerstone of our democracy. At the same time, we have a responsibility to work against and protect Canadians against some very serious thre

Information & Ethics committee  To my knowledge, when a warrant was necessitated, yes, we used the warrant and the judiciary process was followed. Very often the politicians or elected officials, as I like to say, were not necessarily the initial target, but they actually came to our attention when we were watc

Information & Ethics committee  No, I cannot give a definite number considering the fact that in the concept of national security—

Information & Ethics committee  Again, it's difficult for me to mention the numbers because we work on a need-to-know basis. For example, if I have colleagues working on the Russia desk, they will not know if I'm working on the China desk and some of the targets I have. What we know for sure is that we have va

Information & Ethics committee  Well, the agencies are the agencies are the national security agencies. It's an investigative tool. They need to have it to be capable of pursuing some targets, some very dangerous and serious people. That is one of the tools that is accessible to them.

Information & Ethics committee  I do not have all the details of what kind of software it is or the name of the software at this point. I wouldn't be able to mention it.

Information & Ethics committee  I don't have the details about which one the RCMP is using, so I'm not able to compare.

Information & Ethics committee  To my knowledge, it's strictly on Canadians. Again, this has to be verified, as I'm not aware of all the operational uses.

Information & Ethics committee  In my opinion, it's with a warrant.

Information & Ethics committee  Again, I have not audited all of the agencies, so I'm not able to verify and certify that everything was done with a warrant. If I take an organization like CSIS, no investigation is done without due process of verification. Depending on what level of investigation is done, it mi

Information & Ethics committee  I've seen several judges in my experience. It's not always the same judge, but certain judges have been selected due to the national security and secrecy level.

Information & Ethics committee  Indeed, it has been necessary to surveil parliamentarians, because today, we have officials at every level, whether municipal, provincial or federal, who are in the pockets of foreign governments and are not necessarily working for Canada. Those known as agents of influence are

Information & Ethics committee  It happened before and it's happening now. It's not something new. Foreign agencies have always tried to recruit elected officials. It's not that hard because politicians don't always listen to what the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, or CSIS, tells them or they simply di

Information & Ethics committee  I thank you very, very much. I want to bring to your attention the fact that, unfortunately, our society, particularly our democracy, is under siege. We're facing an enormous threat. Probably since the 1600s and 1700s, when the initial concept of democracy started to appear, we'

Information & Ethics committee  You would have to be a little bit more specific, but some of the technology of course—