Public Safety committee  Within Bill C-59 or within the threat reduction measurements, we already cannot detain. It's already clearly laid out. Therefore, this is just clarifying. It won't have a negative impact.

Public Safety committee  CSIS sources are an extremely important tool. We are a humint agency, a human intelligence agency. What this amendment would do is take away the ability to protect our sources in a way similar to the way the RCMP can protect their assets. If we couldn't ensure and build trust with our human sources that we would be able to protect their identity, it would put us in an extremely difficult situation for recruiting sources.

Public Safety committee  Yes. It reduces the threshold. If you were trying to know exactly what was in before you did your query, you would never be able to do a query.

Public Safety committee  It is. It's adding the term “artistic expression” and also “by an individual or a group whose intent is to threaten the security”. The definition of threats to the security of Canada has withstood a long history with the service. It has been in our act since its inception, and it has been well recognized and it's well understood.

Public Safety committee  CSIS would be.

Public Safety committee  I'll just clarify, for the service—and it's written in the Bill C-59—the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms is the supreme law of Canada, and everything that we take or any measures shall comply with the charter. If we do want to limit, then we are required to go and get judicial authorization in order to be able to do that, so everything is bound by the judge.

Finance committee  Thank you for the question. Yes, FINTRAC is very important for us, but we only look at terrorist financing. We're not engaged in money laundering and it's one lead. When we're out, there are numerous tools that we would use in our tool box to try to gather information when we're looking at a terrorism case.

Finance committee  Sorry, for operational reasons I don't want to get into that, but I will tell you that FINTRAC is very important to us.

Finance committee  When we go to FINTRAC, it's more to make them aware of the things that we're actually looking for so that they can push more information to us. On a regular basis, as we come across information we feel would be of benefit to our partners, we write short reports and send them out to pass on that information.

Finance committee  I find that our relationship with FINTRAC is very good. Because of all the information they receive from the various government departments that share with them, they're very responsive to any requests we have.

Finance committee  We of course don't look at money laundering per se. We focus on terrorist financing, and we're using FINTRAC to look for leads to determine who might be getting the funds and where they might be disbursing them. At this point, no, everything that FINTRAC gives us supports our investigations.

Finance committee  Do you mean the unknown? No, from what I see right now, FINTRAC does supply everything we need to push our investigations forward. We can go to them on a case-by-case basis. If we have a question to ask, we can go back to them and ask for that information. From my experience, they've always been able to come forward with it.

Finance committee  We also have a very good partnership with FINTRAC. We do work with them very closely so that they understand the type of information we need and they can provide what will help us further our investigations. It's a very positive relationship.

Finance committee  Well, we would certainly pass on any lead information we have to the RCMP, to help them facilitate their investigations.

Finance committee  Good afternoon. First, I'd like to thank the committee for inviting me to appear before you today. It is an honour to be here representing the 3,000 women and men of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, who work diligently every day to keep Canada safe. I want to take this opportunity to thank the committee for taking an interest in what we do.