Public Safety committee  Okay, well, that's good.

Public Safety committee  Excuse me, but balanced against all those other factors--

Public Safety committee  I think I was the person who said that I saw her at the swearing-in ceremony. I think the deputy said, and explained already, what “known to us” was, the institutional knowledge. At the time that I saw her at the swearing-in ceremony, I had none of that knowledge and didn't make that connection.

Public Safety committee  Can I take my heroin example back?

Public Safety committee  I was using it to illustrate how the connection would be made in our indices, but it shouldn't be construed as the threshold that one should shoot for to come to our notice. I should probably apologize to my wife as well.

Public Safety committee  There are any number of things that could attract attention. Based on our experience and, as the deputy explained, based on our assessment of the information that comes to our attention, we would, in the course of our reviews and background checks, be alive to the kind of situation that you described in respect to the terrorism concern.

Public Safety committee  Can I interrupt you there for a second? I just take exception, perhaps, to the term “automatic update”. From our perspective it may appear automatic, but we respond to the request. It's a PCO process, so if it's automatic for the PCO, it shows up on our request list.

Public Safety committee  Can I add something? It may be helpful, and I think it goes to the spirit of your question. In instances where, when Individual X is checked, a nexus--a criminal nexus or some sort of clear criminal association with someone else--comes up in the course of checking him or her, if that person happens to be a spouse or happens to be a brother-in-law or happens to be a lover or happens to be who knows what, then that is reflected in that person's background check.

Public Safety committee  Let's say I'm out in the park here and I'm injecting heroin; my wife is with me, and she's injecting heroin; and we get arrested by the police for injecting heroin in the park. That clear association would be reflected in that joint criminality, if I can use that example--a very poor one, perhaps.

Public Safety committee  Can I address that, sir, to talk...not about this case, but perhaps there is a need to understand the principle of not talking about investigations, the lack of an investigation, the existence of an investigation, or the intention to have an investigation. There's a pretty good principle at play there in terms of why that would be so, and again, I'm not talking about this case.

Public Safety committee  --but for the persons we investigate, and for the results that we seek in these investigations.

Public Safety committee  I didn't catch that, sir.

Public Safety committee  I'll just say something on the Security of Information Act, section 4, which you spoke of, which was struck down in the constitutional challenge on the Juliet O'Neil case. Again, as the deputy said...and we're not going to speak to the specific case, but it seems to me and it seems to my program that the Security of Information Act remains a valid and appropriate instrument with which to assess criminal intentional misconduct around the handling and distribution of secret material.

Public Safety committee  Well, I can say that I saw Madame Couillard accompany the minister to Rideau Hall for his swearing-in ceremony when he was appointed the Minister of Foreign Affairs.

Public Safety committee  No. I personally did not know her, although I think, as the deputy has indicated, the RCMP knows Madame Couillard.