Information & Ethics committee  It's hard to say. My perception is that it would raise the bar. It would be a more difficult bar to meet for sharing, but it would depend on how it was formulated. It depends on what the committee and the government would like to achieve.

Information & Ethics committee  Within our system, within my organization, we have a release and disclosure coordination office, whose business it is to determine what should be done with various information, whether it's being dealt with through a judicial process or being released through an access to informa

Information & Ethics committee  We haven't received anything yet, but if it were to be reviewed, we would ask our chief of review services internally to undertake that.

Information & Ethics committee  I can't say if the number of institutions is appropriate. The institutions listed in the schedule of the SCISA are there either to provide information to others or to educate government agencies that have a national security mandate, as Mr. Rochon said. This is important for us.

Information & Ethics committee  We don't have a formal agreement with the various departments. We have more traditional ties with the CSE, for instance. The SCISA is the framework for this.

Information & Ethics committee  The SCISA provides this framework. Otherwise there isn't one.

Information & Ethics committee  As I've mentioned a few times, it isn't that we couldn't share information before. This simply helps to better manage information sharing.

Information & Ethics committee  What do you mean?

Information & Ethics committee  Normally, the intelligence sector doesn't decide whether to disclose something. Political or departmental officials decide, for the public good, whether something should be disclosed or whether the information and process should be kept secure.

Information & Ethics committee  We're subject to the oversight of the Commissioner himself, the Office of the Information Commissioner and the Auditor General. We also have an ombudsman in the Department of National Defence. In terms of counter-intelligence, we have a judge advocate general committee consisting

Information & Ethics committee  That it has compounded a crisis...?

Information & Ethics committee  I can't really express an opinion on that. I would hesitate to characterize the current concern with surveillance in Canada as a crisis. I think some people are concerned about some things. I would say, just to pick up on Monsieur Rochon's last point, that one of the nice thing

Information & Ethics committee  I think SCISA is too new and too untested at the moment to determine whether or not it strikes the right balance. We may find as time goes by, if we keep the current formulation of the act, which is a decision for government and for Parliament, that there are tweaks that need to

Information & Ethics committee  As some of my colleagues have said, we have powers to share already. What SCISA does is clarify the rules and provide a framework in which you can do the sharing and track it, which was not the case previously.

Information & Ethics committee  SCISA provides a useful framework for determining whether or not information should be shared in the protection of our national security. It potentially could make decision-making on sharing or not sharing faster.