Senator Housakos: As I mentioned, Senator Gold, of course, the legislation is non-prescriptive. We don’t want to handcuff the government, but there are measures needed in terms of putting the framework together. I really want to ask, on behalf of this chamber, that a gentle and polite reminder be sent to the minister that there is a timeline; the time is ticking. The bill was unanimously supported in this chamber and in the House. We will follow this closely and make sure that they follow the guidelines of the bill.

Senator Housakos: Thank you, Senator Lankin, for both of those questions. They are very important. You’re absolutely right — when you’re dealing with questions of intelligence and national security, there are things that we’re not privy to as parliamentarians, nor should we be. That’s why this bill is not prescriptive in that regard. It was amended to make sure ministers have the flexibility to be able to work within the confines of the information that they have.

Of course, I can go on and we can have a whole debate about our intelligence and security structure. You know very well from the position you sit in how efficient, agile, open and transparent it is. These are not easy solutions to resolve in a debate on the floor, but I hope they will be resolved because I believe they are causing challenges. We have seen far too often members of Parliament who are part of the executive branch and seem to not obtain certain information in a timely fashion, as they should have. That’s another debate for another time.

I think the bill is non-prescriptive. It gives full flexibility to the minister to share whatever information they want to share when they appear before a parliamentary committee, and they won’t be bound by recommendations from parliamentarians. What I think they will have is another intelligence source, because parliamentarians, especially those interested in human rights, work with various NGOs. We work with parliament-to-parliament relationships with democracies around the world, and also with countries that fall on the list of less democratic or, in some cases, even rogue countries. Even those parliamentarians in this chamber and in the House will be able to provide, I hope, added value and intelligence to the executive branch of government.

As you know from our debates on Bill C-11 and Bill C-18, I am a hawk on freedom of speech and not censoring any opinions, but even I believe there comes a point in time when we have to draw a line in the sand. That includes when we’re dealing with countries that are not aligned with our values, or with blatantly undemocratic tyrants who are trampling all over rights, privileges and democracy in their own countries. I’ll name some of those countries: China, Iran — Russia, of course, is right up there. I could go on. There comes a point in time when we say that enough is enough. When we see that they engage in deliberate cyberattacks and infiltration to gain influence over our economies, intellectual properties and institutions, we have to make those collective decisions, even though they go against unfettered freedom of expression. Of course, we have to do it in a diligent fashion.

Even in these latest updated amendments made to the Broadcasting Act, we took deliberate steps to try to create a framework for what the CRTC will find acceptable or not acceptable for Canadians to post and read. I don’t want to relitigate that debate, but we did not address what I believe is a far more serious issue — giving the CRTC the tools to act diligently and with the speed required to combat the misinformation coming from these rogue nations.