Public Safety committee  My concern, sir, is not about the public outreach, but with whom the public outreach is done—the RCMP or other police agencies, security agencies, working with organizations about which we have great concerns. The thing I was referring to at that hearing was the RCMP working to

Public Safety committee  No, but that was the concern—

Public Safety committee  Mr. Easter, from my perspective, I don't see the government as those on the treasury bench only and on the other side. I see the whole thing as a government. Where I'm coming from as a common citizen we expect our government to do what is necessary as you recognize the threat. Fr

Public Safety committee  Yes, you have that right. Thank you, sir.

Public Safety committee  Well, sir, as I understand it, CSIS is a security agency and by definition therefore, as a security intelligence operation it has to be able to monitor and engage in surveillance of those who are, as I define them, sleeper cells or fifth columns in our society, in our community.

Public Safety committee  As I read it, yes, absolutely. This is a problem that we are facing. This is a problem that has grown immensely since 9/11, but this problem was around before 9/11 and now we are living in a post-9/11 world with this. We have to deal with it and we have to find that our agencies

Public Safety committee  I do, more or less, yes.

Public Safety committee  Mr. Chairman, I want to begin by thanking you and the members of the committee for this invitation to provide you as an independent expert my views on Bill C-51. I will express these from the perspectives of political philosophy and history, and from that of a lifelong devotion a

Foreign Affairs committee  We all feel threatened. Yes, of course.

Foreign Affairs committee  You're right, and that's the dilemma we are facing. No political philosopher, or no political philosopher of any substance, would say that a constitution is also a document by which a people will commit suicide in the sense of allowing our liberal value of tolerance to go to the

Foreign Affairs committee  Well, the Supreme Court will have to decide whether those who are pushing for sharia enforcement and sharia compliance and acceptance of sharia law in Canada are going against the very values of the charter, and whether we accept this. That's for the Supreme Court to decide. For

Foreign Affairs committee  Yes, I have the faith in the Supreme Court that they will make their decision, and hopefully the right decision. We came very close to seeing sharia law being pushed in Ontario. I have faith in the liberal democratic culture, that we turned it around, we pushed it back. But we ca

Foreign Affairs committee  Oh, what I meant are the institutions of government—

Foreign Affairs committee  Absolutely, but—

Foreign Affairs committee  There is no democracy within the Arab-Muslim world. The instances of democracy—