Public Safety committee  I'll go to the nub of your question. I won't get into the weeds about the oversight and all that kind of stuff. The simple challenge—and I'll put it in context for you. I have 35 years in the business and 20 at a very high level in national security matters. One of the differences would be that in that particular instance, where information was shared with the American authorities to the point of a database being shared with the authorities, there were policies in place, there were caveats that were supposed to be in place, that would have prevented the activities that led to the disclosure of information and the kind of terminology that was used.

Public Safety committee  That's correct.

Public Safety committee  I appeared before O'Connor. In each of my annual reports I request enhanced legislation, and I put up on my website, which I shared with the minister as well, a draft model of legislation that shows what it would look like. In terms of money, Minister Day, when he was minister, helped us secure $3.7 million, which is good for two more weeks.

Public Safety committee  I am doing a joint investigation. We don't do it with each other, but it's one of the things that I think we had to do. I have a pilot project in British Columbia, where we're doing a review of police and activities by the Victoria police force as well as the RCMP in relation to the Canada Day celebration.

Public Safety committee  Justice O'Connor specifically addressed that issue. He indicated there has to be an ability for oversight agencies to work with each other, and that's one of the references I made. You have integrated policing, you have integrated intelligence. The integration doesn't just happen at the federal level; it happens at the federal, provincial, and municipal levels.

Public Safety committee  Clearly, that has to be part of it, that you have to have a subpoena power. You'll never be able to address the conundrum O'Connor found himself in vis-à-vis representatives of foreign governments, because they're immune to your process. But everyone in Canada should be subject to subpoena power and be required to attend and to produce documents so you can answer the question.

Public Safety committee  What we're looking at is any incident where an RCMP member, in my particular case, was involved in an incident that resulted in serious injury or death—or it could be sexual assault allegations, or things of that nature—where the police conducted an investigation. Some of those may or may not have resulted in criminal charges being laid.

Public Safety committee  The initiative I'm looking at now—and we're going to come out with a report on this—is an historic look back at over 300 files, which we have distilled down to about 30 in depth. I'm doing this because the issue is out there: is there a problem? We're doing a historic review of those cases to tell you if there was a problem or not.

Public Safety committee  Yes, one of the things we have to bear in mind—you're quite right—is that CSIS was created in 1984 when the intelligence activities were removed from the RCMP, the old security service. What was not removed from them, and never was removed, was their responsibility to do the criminal investigations of crimes arising from threats to the security of Canada.

Public Safety committee  An obvious limitation is the fact that there is no obligation for an RCMP officer to answer any questions unless I call a public interest inquiry. The last public interest inquiries that were held were probably up in the range of $20 million to hold. My budget, as I said, is $5 million a year.

Public Safety committee  Yes, very much so. I have to indicate as well that we've had, and certainly I've had in the last couple of years, excellent cooperation from the RCMP to actually try to make the legislation work, to optimize it. I'll give you a simple example. We have an independent observer program and it isn't found in legislation.

Public Safety committee  Thank you. I normally defer to the ladies, but the lady in this case has deferred to me. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, and I would certainly like to thank the committee for inviting me to appear today. I believe, looking at the heading of your committee, that the primary purpose of my attendance today is to respond to your concerns as to whether the RCMP has implemented the recommendations made by Justice O'Connor on certain national security-related investigations carried out by the RCMP in the period following the events of 9/11.

Public Safety committee  In terms of the RCMP, I've already advanced the legislative model that I think is appropriate. I think the real distinction between the model vis-à-vis the RCMP and what we see provincially is the special investigative unit, SIU, which investigates serious injury, death, and shootings, such as in that case.

Public Safety committee  I likewise haven't called for a moratorium on it. I think it fits with appropriate training and use. We have to bear in mind, and it may flow from the poor training, poor use, and some of the bad examples we have seen, that there is an impact on the public's acceptance. Somehow it does provoke a response from the public that is different from a baton and a gun, believe it or not.

Public Safety committee  Yes, and as a matter of fact, I've currently launched my own chair-initiated complaint dealing with a situation where officers were arresting a gentleman under the Mental Health Act. He was suffering from schizophrenia. It unfortunately resulted in his death, which is very unfortunate.