Public Safety committee  I know that there's a debate around the nomenclature and the choice of words to describe these. I really would like to ask my colleague Mr. Jorgensen to jump in here for a second. I know he is tracking that for the committee.

Public Safety committee  Sure. I was saying to Mr. Kurek that there is an important debate, I understand, around the nomenclature and the language that is appropriate. I think Mr. Jorgensen would be best placed to give us an idea of where that now lies and whether it is something that has reached the committee for deliberation.

Public Safety committee  I'll do my best. Paragraph 45 onwards, for members and for Canadians, describes this question of espionage in the science and technology field. We talk about the thousand talents program. We talk about the threats from Russia and China. We talk about new technologies being increasingly the focus targeted by foreign states, and we talk about the risk to critical infrastructure—our electricity grid and beyond.

Public Safety committee  It may very well, but I can't comment with credibility. I don't have the information that backstops whatever investigation is taking place with respect to that particular....

Public Safety committee  It may very well—

Public Safety committee  I would think it would be a security threat. Our security intelligence folks would be paying very close attention to it, yes.

Public Safety committee  It may very well be something the committee considers. One of the opportunities coming from Parliament soon enough is the five-year review of the statute that creates the committee. That may very well be something the House may want to debate or consider in the statutory authority.

Public Safety committee  That's a really important question, Mr. Kurek. The committee, obviously, looked at this very closely, but it did not review the issue of repatriating foreign fighters or the broader issue of extremist travellers as a part of this annual report. We do of course speak, from paragraphs 24 forward—I think that's what you're alluding to—about the international terrorism environment.

Public Safety committee  That's an excellent question, Mr. Harris, but it's not one that the committee turned its collective mind to. The timelines for this report, I don't think included—and perhaps Mr. Jorgensen could confirm—that particular event.

Public Safety committee  There's work to do. As of 2015, at least 100 white supremacist and neo-Nazi groups existed in Canada. The vast majority of these are ideologically motivated violent extremism groups. However, in our research—and this was also new to us—more recent estimates suggest that there are closer to 300 such groups across Canada.

Public Safety committee  Thank you, Mr. Harris, for the question. I think committee members would consider that the National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians is a proxy group for the whole of Parliament, both the House of Commons and the Senate. They have been cleared to a sufficiently high level to be able to hear the classified information, for the first time in Canadian history, and to work on behalf of all parliamentarians to hear the information, deliberate in a completely non-partisan setting and then deliver up a report, which is classified, to the Prime Minister.

Public Safety committee  Yes, you're right. NSICOP addresses the major issues that it chooses. We have a very rigorous approach to selecting topics for review. We conduct the reviews, and the reports are then sent to the Prime Minister. The reports may be released to the public in the House of Commons and the Senate.

Public Safety committee  In the security and intelligence community, Ms. Michaud, risks are divided into five categories, as we outlined in the report. These include terrorism and cyber threats. I don't know whether we can say that we're seeing terrorism shift online right now, if that's what you're asking.

Public Safety committee  We clearly stated in the report what we heard from the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, or RCMP, and other agencies. We heard that the very sophisticated terrorist threats seem to have slowed down and that the risks are more associated with what we call soft targets, meaning public locations, places where people gather.

Public Safety committee  For each of the five topics that we covered in the report, we tried to provide, at the end of a chapter, an analysis of what has happened since the COVID-19 pandemic and the impact on the five areas. In that analysis, we know there has been a decrease in mass gatherings. We know there has been a closure of public spaces and limits on travel.