Public Safety committee  That's a pretty big question. I think, generally speaking, you're giving them the tools. It's like a lot of other areas: until they're actually out there in the field trying them out, it's hard to say. I haven't counted, but the number of times that the words “protection of priv

Public Safety committee  It's hard to answer that question. Ultimately, only experience will show whether that's the case. On the whole, I would say no. I agree we should slightly raise the basic level required to enable the agency to act, but I think it gives us enough room to manoeuvre.

Public Safety committee  That's hard to say. In espionage and foreign interference—this won't surprise you—I would say it's China and Russia. Those two countries are not really comfortable in the current international equilibrium, which they want to change. They also employ tools that we would never cons

Public Safety committee  For example, they use their cyber capabilities without any control, as we discussed with your colleague. We assume that China has more than 200,000 persons operating in cyberspace in one way or another. Some are in government or in the armed forces, while others are in the privat

Public Safety committee  I think that's rather more difficult. I was about to say that they could use existing powers, which enable them to try to protect federal institutions. The big difficulty in dealing with cyber, of course, is identifying where the problem is coming from. It may seem simple, but it

Public Safety committee  Broadly speaking, I would, although we have to acknowledge that it's often done under the cover of religion. A lot of people use the tenets of Islam to justify what they want to do. I fundamentally believe that a large chunk of the Muslim world believes that they're under attack

Public Safety committee  Thank you, Mr. Chair. As I said in my preliminary remarks, I would change the powers granted to the commissioner. I think those powers are more than what is necessary and are too similar to the powers or basic responsibility of a minister. Let me be very clear: Mr. Goodale is no

Public Safety committee  Yes. Thank you, Chairman. I generally agree that the authorities that are being proposed for CSEC are a good thing. I would put it somewhat differently. Monsieur Boisvert said that a good defence involves an offence. I would say that in the area of cyber, it's actually difficult

Public Safety committee  I don't agree with that. I think that under international law, states are restricted in what they can do to other states, but there's a big exemption to that. One of those exemptions is self-defence, which is defined very broadly. I think most of what would be envisaged under the

Public Safety committee  I'm going to take less than 10 minutes. If I could, I'd just like to make five points. First, if I were a member of the House—and I'm well aware that I'm not—I would have quite happily voted yea at second reading. I think this bill goes a long way toward simultaneously dealing w

Public Safety committee  I start from the premise that whatever you do, please don't add another definition of “terrorism”. From an operational perspective, that would be terrible. I don't remember the details, but I do remember that when Bill C-51 was being worked on, the definition in the CSIS act was

Public Safety committee  Absolutely. There is always a risk of a foreign power trying to, in one way or another, set up Canadians, be they public servants, parliamentarians or politicians.

Public Safety committee  Yes, absolutely. The approach would be slightly different. If there is one thing I can say with certainty, it is that countries that try to obtain information or influence people use those people's specific situation to get information from them. I don't know what else could be

Public Safety committee  I'm not here as a lawyer, and it is a bit difficult to contradict a former judge. All I can say is that, in Canadian legislation, there are a number of cases where the protection of professional secrecy is nearly absolute, but there also others where it is less absolute. In my

Public Safety committee  No, I think it's pretty good, but I would also say that while most of the hearings of the committee should be in secret, I could conceive of circumstances where they might want to have some open hearings. I would hope, as well, that circumstances would allow the chair of the comm