RCMP and Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) agents are in Paris working with French security agencies, Public Safety Minister Steven Blaney told CTV's Question Period.
Blaney met with RCMP and CSIS officials Saturday morning in Paris, days after the terrorist attacks on the city left 20 people, including three gunmen, dead.
"I just met with CSIS here in Paris and the RCMP, and I can tell you we are sharing information and we are also sharing technical expertise so that we can fight this fight together," said Blaney in an interview from Paris.
Blaney did not provide any more details about the meeting or the work that the Canadian officials are doing. Blaney’s press secretary Jason Tamming said the RCMP and CSIS liaisons were already in Paris before last week's attacks.
Speaking from Paris, steps away from where the attack on the satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo took place Wednesday, Blaney called last week's events "an attack on freedom of expression." He said he was in France to express the solidarity of Canadians with the French.
"It's really moving to be here at this point in time,” he said.
The minister’s comments come less than two days after Canadian authorities arrested two Ottawa men – twin 24-year-old brothers Ashton Carleton Larmond and Carlos Honor Larmond. While he said that the Conservative government is still working to table new anti-terror legislation that would give police more power to track terrorists, Blaney did not indicate when exactly that would happen.
Blaney represented Canada at a unity rally Sunday, where word leaders, including British Prime Minister David Cameron, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, linked arms and marched alongside French President Francois Hollande.
Blaney also attended an international terrorism meeting on Sunday, where U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder announced that the White House would host a high-level meeting on the issue Feb. 18.
On Saturday, Blaney laid a wreath at the headquarters of the satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo, where a dozen people were killed in one of last week's terror attacks.
As of Sunday morning, police continued to search for Hayat Boumeddiene, a woman described as an accomplice in one of last week’s attacks. But French police may be too late in their search for Boumeddiene. Turkish authorities told The Associated Press that she may be in Syria after passing vanishing near the Turkish-Syrian border last week.
With files from the Associated Press
