Thank you very much.
And thank you all, gentlemen, for being here.
Let me first say, and I believe I'm speaking on behalf of all of my colleagues, that we absolutely appreciate the great work you do not only in the protection of parliamentarians, but for all Canadians. I direct my comments here to Commissioner Paulson. And certainly, Chief Bordeleau, we appreciate every effort that the municipal police forces make to protect our citizens.
In support of full disclosure I have to say that I have a very long history with the RCMP and am an unabashed supporter of the RCMP. Not only have many current and former friends of mine served the force, but it's very personal with me. My mother's first husband was an RCMP officer who was killed on duty at depot while doing guard duty. I know the challenges you face on a daily basis, and I absolutely appreciate all that you do to protect the safety and security of every Canadian.
Having said that, let me note that we're here to deal with an issue that has been in front of this committee before, and that is to try to ensure balancing the safety and security aspect of your operational duties with the privileges of parliamentarians. This is not to say that we are a privileged lot, but as my colleague, the member from Acadie—Bathurst, said when he first raised the question of privilege, in effect, because that day happened to be a time when votes were occurring in Parliament, if any member were impeded from attending votes, he in fact would be disenfranchising anywhere from 80,000 to 120,000 people. That's something that we take very seriously; I know all of my colleagues do.
You mentioned in your report that it would be unreasonable to think that there will not from time to time be incidents that cause delays, but you also mentioned at the end of your report, Commissioner Paulson, that you're working now to try to mitigate some of these issues and even improve the protocol you have now in place.
Could you give us a sense of some of the issues you're examining right now that could give us some comfort that the situation we've seen now twice in three years will perhaps not happen again?