Procedure and House Affairs committee  First of all, during my term as NSIA, the staff of the Prime Minister's Office, including senior staff, regularly attended weekly sessions with the head of the intelligence assessment secretariat. When they saw things that could be of interest, they certainly expressed an interest in having more information.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  No, that's not what I said. As I said, through the daily intelligence brief, through the regular general intelligence briefing that they would attend, sometimes they would say, “That is very interesting, would it be possible...?”

Procedure and House Affairs committee  You need awareness. You need some of the tools that I described before but on awareness. I give a lot of conferences to universities and conferences on national security, and I always say that the crown jewels used to be in government, so our security agencies were all trying to protect them.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  I think Canadians need to be reassured. Was there really a sound basis for the allegations of foreign interference and should they have had to rise to the established threshold? A lot of people have told us that this was not the case. You are undoubtedly wondering whether the threshold is too high.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Personally, I would establish a strategy that would consist only of administrative measures, such as briefing the political parties and raising awareness about interference among the communities. No legislative process is necessary when measures like that are taken. Let's start with them.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  As I said earlier, I prefer not to get involved in that debate.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  I read the letter that this gentleman wrote to the Globe and Mail. In fact, when you read his letter, you see that he says he is disappointed at what is happening, because it is not what he wanted. I can't support doing this kind of thing. When there are internal discussions about intelligence, even if you are in a senior position, you accept that you will face opposition.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  The countries that CSIS has identified publicly are these two countries. As much as they do recognize there are others, I'm going to stick to what they've said publicly. I think it's very important that, when members of the diaspora.... As you can see, it seems that it's happening in other countries as well, if you've read what happened in New York this week.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  In theory right now they can do this, and some of them do. I know I've had conversations with some of the diaspora groups saying that they do. Some of them feel that it's not always taken as seriously as it should be. The challenge is always, as I've said before, that you may have information, but is that going to be solid enough, sufficient enough, that it can support an action?

Procedure and House Affairs committee  The WADA example was a good example because of the medical exemption registry of WADA. Athletes who have a medical exemption to take a certain medication.... Let's take an example, because it's public. Simone Biles, the gymnast who's won so many gold medals, was diagnosed with attention deficit disorder when she was a child, and she takes medication for that.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  I am thinking of intimidation of the diaspora, for example. People are trying to contact individuals about politics or other things. They are...

Procedure and House Affairs committee  It may also be connected with financing issues, yes. I have read various people's testimony. If I recall correctly, Mr. Perrault, the Chief Electoral Officer, and Ms. Simard, from the Office of the Commissioner of Canada Elections, talked about the fact that the mechanisms are limited to elections at present.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Under our governance model, the Privy Council Office is the advisor to the Prime Minister. In that role, I used the information I received to give advice in that field. I also played a coordinating role with those agencies.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Exactly.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  I don't think I can comment on that subject.