Public Safety committee  It helps directly, in the sense that CSIS would be able to share information, obviously, with political parties across the board sooner, and also work in partnership, for example, with Elections Canada. Obviously, Elections Canada does not regulate most of the details of nomination procedures, but it certainly does in the area of, for example, the financing of nominations.

Public Safety committee  A quick addition would be about the constant emphasis of the term “clandestine” in the legislation, so that it's not the issue of influence at all. A Canadian citizen is democratically permitted to overtly promote the interests of another state. It's the clandestine piece and the disclosure of any interest.

Public Safety committee  Annual reporting on the part of the registrar's office, which would be picked up on media and whatnot, would be very helpful.

Public Safety committee  CSIS, currently and with this legislation, would have the transparency to report on, essentially, successes in addressing disinformation campaigns. The only thing I would say is that, obviously, they wouldn't release details that would let other entities know what they're capable of or how they succeeded, because then those entities would simply change their tactics and so forth.

Public Safety committee  Again, I don't think that can be specified in legislation. I simply think it's for the development of protocols through basically getting started and keeping track of best practices that we can formalize in the working manuals of those organizations over time.

Public Safety committee  Of course, the main concern there is that some way or another those powers could be used to somehow police or lay charges for legitimate domestic protests. It's disruptive to essential infrastructure, basically. I would think that the provision that the protest must be significantly driven or influenced by or caused by foreign interference is the safety valve mechanism there.

Public Safety committee  That is one term where I think there's a need for work. It's very broad, and most of the civil liberties critiques have focused in on that precise terminology.

Public Safety committee  It basically changes its role from being an entity that serves the government to an intelligence agency that circulates essential information to all manner of partners. It's a fundamentally different role. There's a capacity issue for sure, but also the purpose would require a shift in the culture of the organization.

Public Safety committee  Certainly. In a sense, this bill supports where CSIS is currently heading and has publicly stated it needs to head—

Public Safety committee  Am I finished? I'm sorry.

Public Safety committee  No, I'll wait for another question to elaborate on the point.

Public Safety committee  I would just add that I think the main value of a registrar's office that provides, basically, a map of the agencies or networks involved in legitimate influence is that it provides CSIS, police and other investigative bodies with a starting point for some of the darker networks that might be beneath that map.

Public Safety committee  No, not for their clandestine purposes, but what I'm saying is that perhaps some other body, such as a university office or other that had been in any way related to the exchange of laboratory information between Canada and China, would have been an agency that CSIS, or a police organization, could have asked questions of to get started on an investigation earlier.

Public Safety committee  Sure. I think what I was getting at is that, given that we have a five-year requirement to review this legislation, it enables us to come back to some of the lessons that we will pick up over how well the institutions on the ground, some of which are significantly evolving their mandates, are able to enact or carry out what you have here.

Public Safety committee  On that one, it would be the standard conventional practice to rely on the Attorney General, but I understand the reservations there. I would say that as long as there was some measure of transparency or accountability, such that if an egregious decision were taken there could be some form of remedial action, then that would probably be preferable to allocating it to a professional public servant, for example.