I know, certainly when I was there, that any department or agency had a liaison officer with CSIS, and if they had any concerns they were encouraged to raise them. I think some did. Sometimes it was a real concern; sometimes it was not. Part of the issue I found—and I'm just giving you a personal example—was that a lot of the departments and agencies didn't like to bother CSIS, because they didn't think it was important enough, even though sometimes it was, so it's this general issue of awareness.
I want to stress again that I'm not being partisan here. I'm not talking about Mr. Trudeau's government or Mr. Harper's government. I'm just talking about governments. Unless the Prime Minister and senior ministers signal clearly that country X or issue Y is a problem, which deputies can build on to send down into their departments, it's very hard to get medium-ranking and junior people to, all of a sudden, accept that they have an issue. I'm not saying this because I think people are stupid or ill-intentioned, but any very large organization takes a while to register these changes. As I was saying a moment ago in response to an earlier question, for a long time both Mr. Harper's government and Mr. Trudeau's government were trying to develop better relations with China, while at the same time CSIS was worried about what they were doing under the radar. I think both governments, Mr. Harper's and Mr. Trudeau's, have shifted their views over time, which I think is a very good thing and reflects polling in this country.
However, if we're going to get everybody in government, or at least those who are in national security or national security-related departments, to take this more seriously, it requires a whole-of-government effort, not just involving.... I used to joke that, “I come to talk to you, Deputy Minister X. I'm not a security nut. I'm telling you that there's a problem here, and I'll tell you X, Y, Z.” If it's only the “security nuts” who are saying there's a problem, it's an issue. You need deputies, ministers and others to agree. I don't believe that this has to be done in such a way, because I think there's a real risk.... We have nothing against Chinese civilization or against China or the Chinese people, so there's a balancing act there to be found. I don't think it's easy, but I think the cultural change that we talked about a moment ago still needs to be pursued.