Canadian agencies will co-ordinate better to prevent terrorism under a new strategy, Public Safety Minister Vic Toews said Thursday.

Toews outlined a strategy to prevent, detect, deny and respond to domestic and international security threats.

"The reality is that no government can guarantee it will be able to prevent all terrorist attacks all the time," he said.

"Nevertheless.… Canada is committed to taking all reasonable measures to address terrorism in its many forms."

Toews has spent the past two days defending against news he issued a directive saying Canada will use information derived from torture under exceptional circumstances.

He said if it comes down to using specific information about a threat, protecting Canadians is too important to ignore any intelligence.

Asked whether Canadians are naive about terrorism threats, Toews said no.

"I think the strategy we're developing is not only important for co-ordinating our security agencies, but also for informing and educating our population," he said.

"I think that, like everyone, we need to be educated about how the nature of terrorism is evolving and how persistent it is."