Thank you very much, Chair McKinnon and members, for inviting me.

I would just begin by saying that, overall, the very large bill, which touches on the constellation of laws that govern Canadian national security, is very complex and welcome. The amendments, I understand, are quite urgent. There is a desire, perhaps, to have certain measures in place in time for any election that may come in 2025. Some of the easier reforms certainly could possibly be achieved in that time frame. I'll flag some that are perhaps a little bit more complicated, that raise more concerns and that may render it more difficult to implement some recommendations in time for that potential election.

Reform to the CSIS Act, amendments to other areas of national security legislation, and the creation of a foreign influence transparency registry are obviously the three main dimensions of reform. Most of what I have to say relates to the CSIS Act itself, seeing as that's one of my major areas of expertise, as opposed to the others, although I will raise a couple of issues with regard to the other two categories.

With respect to CSIS Act reform, I would regard it as very appropriate that CSIS now be able to pursue foreign intelligence virtually stored beyond Canada's borders. Having wider ability to secure information from third parties, notably telecommunications companies, through streamlined procedures is very welcome. All of this coming through streamlined applications procedures for less invasive warrants is very welcome. As I read it in the bill, it's probably a good balance for ensuring civil liberties on those sliding scales of pursuing warrants in an expedited fashion.

The key new ability for CSIS to share threat intelligence with other levels of government beyond Ottawa—including indigenous governance bodies, private sector institutions and the university community—is, indeed, extremely urgent. Fortunately, it's very easy to legislate, which means that it could possibly be done in time for CSIS to be able to advise other bodies around any election in 2025. However, it's more difficult to implement in practice once on the ground.

I'd merely flag for you that CSIS and its new partners will have to figure out how best to share this new intelligence and what the thresholds for the sharing of intelligence with a wider variety of partners ought to look like, not only because of CSIS's long-standing culture of being reticent with the sharing of information, but also because of many partners simply not yet being skilled in weighing the value of and so putting into action different types of intelligence.

Perhaps these types of issues could be addressed through regulations developed through Public Safety or Foreign Affairs and with CSIS's oversight body to guide CSIS in the development of those protocols. It's very encouraging, in particular, given that this bill is understandably.... Although large, it does not address some of the broader thematic issues around CSIS's mandate and CSIS's relationship with other agencies, such as the RCMP, whose role in national security is itself evolving and certain to be significantly reformed over the course of the next five years or so.

The automatic requirement for review of the CSIS Act every five years is extremely important and welcome. It leads me to read this bill in terms of whether we are putting in place anything that could frustrate some of the broader reforms that may be coming down the pipe in five years' time. Fortunately, there are not many areas that appear to lay barriers to bigger questions that may come up, but there are a couple of areas where we may not want to tie our hands, which I'll briefly touch on before I close my five minutes.

I would encourage you to read your reforms to the CSIS Act as part of a triptych of legislation—as it was in the 1980s when the CSIS Act, the Emergencies Act, and the RCMP Act were all drafted with reference to one another—such that in this piece of legislation, we have not revisited the question of the mandate of CSIS overall or the connection of the CSIS Act's famous section 2 standards for whether or not CSIS gets involved in anything to the standards for invoking the Emergencies Act itself.

It is probably wise to leave the section 2 standards as they are in this legislation, for the reason that the second set of issues will be certain to come up as we have decisions from the Federal Court of Appeal on what exactly the section 2 standards for the Emergencies Act entail. There will be future lessons that will come from the Hogue commission's review, added to the Rouleau commission's insights into the Emergencies Act, as well as the ongoing work of NSICOP and NSIRA into the future of the RCMP and so forth. Therefore, leaving that open is very wise at this time.

However—