Procedure and House Affairs committee  Thank you for the question. I don't think any of us imagine that any particular institutional change to the machinery of government is going to necessarily solve the larger issue around trust in and understanding of national security threats and responses. I think the benefit

Procedure and House Affairs committee  I agree with my colleague, Professor Juneau, that over-classification is a problem. It's not unique to Canada, but we certainly suffer from it. One of the ideas contained in the agenda of the public hearings that Mr. Johnston has proposed, as you know, is to tackle that declassif

Procedure and House Affairs committee  I agree completely with my colleague, Thomas Juneau, that there are systematic, persistent problems with over-classification. I don't think those are going to be solved solely through a focus on foreign interference issues. An important question is this: What is the level of sen

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Two to three years is probably an average. I've never tried to count it. The McDonald commission, which established CSIS, took five years to come up with its recommendations.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  I would indeed. I'll keep my response brief. If urgency is the issue, which I think it is, in terms of coming up with some measures to strengthen the government's response and improve Canadians' understanding, you will not get that through a judicial inquiry. Urgency and transp

Procedure and House Affairs committee  That's correct.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Mr. Turnbull, that strikes me as a leading question, slightly, and I'll dodge it, if you don't mind. We all agree there are high passions raised by this issue, and partisan positions have been taken. That is perhaps inevitable in a democracy. There have been many calls for a re

Procedure and House Affairs committee  I do.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  As you know, Mr. Johnston's mandate—and it was Mr. Johnston who came up with the idea of public hearings and took many of us by surprise with that idea—ends in October. He has a limited amount of time to come up with recommendations. He's clearly, from his first report, going to

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Madam Chair, I would simply say that my understanding is that the committee is going to hear from the minister in question, Bill Blair, tomorrow. Obviously, the question should be addressed to him. I would only note that Minister Blair publicly said that the Globe and Mail repor

Procedure and House Affairs committee  I would indeed. There are very significant secrecy protection issues involved in a judicial inquiry that might look specifically at intelligence operations, and ongoing intelligence operations, which would be at the heart of any judicial inquiry specifically focused on Chinese fo

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Thank you for the question, Madam Chair. I would say it's an excellent one. I think we need to pay more attention to that, particularly on the side of trying to provide opportunities for MPs, especially newly elected MPs coming into the strange world, perhaps, of the House of Co

Procedure and House Affairs committee  I'm delighted with the question. First of all, to understand the problem of intelligence culture, I think we can put this plainly and simply: A country only has an intelligence culture when its government, those who serve it and the public at large understand that good intellige

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Madam Chair, again, it's a very interesting question. I would just reflect on my own experiences in the crafting of the national security strategy in 2004, providing advice as that strategy was being finalized, and also serving for two terms on what was then created as the Prime

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Thank you, Mr. Fergus. The one thing that I think is important above all, and a reason why I advocate for public hearings as opposed to a judicial inquiry, is that we face in Canada—and this echoes some of what my colleague and friend Thomas Juneau had to say—a significant issue