House debate  Madam Chair, I will not comment on what the newspapers reported this afternoon or this evening. Since I have no way of confirming the veracity of those statements, I will not comment on them.

House debate  Madam Chair, I am proud of the RCMP, an institution that is able to conduct investigations and that has a long history in Canada. I am also proud of the Public Prosecution Service, a new institution created by the former Conservative government that is working very well. Lastly, I am proud of my department because we fulfilled our obligations.

House debate  Madam Chair, the RCMP is independent from the Prime Minister's Office, independent from the government and independent from my department. The Prime Minister has repeatedly said that he was aware of that independence. We are proud of the RCMP and the Public Prosecution Service of Canada.

House debate  Madam Chair, I answered that question earlier this evening. As I said, I was not at the meeting. Different people do things differently at these meetings.

House debate  Madam Chair, to my knowledge, the rules do not apply in this case.

House debate  Look at me smiling.

House debate  Madam Chair, the Department of Justice set up a process for us to meet our obligations to the court with respect to third party records applications. That is what we did. Many potentially relevant documents were identified, more than 144,000, in fact. We boiled that number down to 8,000, and the final decision was up to the judge.

House debate  Madam Chair, as I have already said this evening, as far as I am concerned, the answer is no. I can only speak for myself and my experience. That said, the RCMP is independent. As I have said many times this evening, it is capable of conducting its own investigations, and it is independent from the government.

House debate  Madam Chair, as I have said repeatedly, the RCMP made the decision to investigate. The RCMP worked with the Public Prosecution Service of Canada to determine whether to begin the process and when to end it.

House debate  Madam Chair, as one of the first jurisdictions to legalize cannabis, we began the process first of all by consulting. The Minister of Border Security, as he then was, consulted across Canada. We are currently testing two devices under my jurisdiction in order to get us past the finish line with ever better methods of testing.

House debate  Madam Chair, I reject the premise of the question. As I have said a number of times this evening, the director of the Public Prosecution Service of Canada said, twice, that there was no political interference. The prosecutor in the Vice-Admiral Norman case said the same thing. I trust what they say.

House debate  Madam Chair, as I have said this evening, I was neither attorney general nor minister of justice at the time, so I do not know the details. However, I do know that the RCMP is independent and operates at arm's length from the government.

House debate  Madam Chair, in a parliamentary system based on the Westminster tradition, we obviously all have obligations and duties.

House debate  Madam Chair, as I have stated several times this evening, I was not the minister at that time. The RCMP conducts its own investigations. It is a very independent institution that we are proud of. It conducts its investigations at arm's length from the government.

House debate  Madam Chair, mandatory alcohol screening will support the police in deterring and detecting impaired driving. The evidence clearly demonstrates that mandatory alcohol screening will deter impaired driving and save lives. The law does not give police any more powers than they already have under common law and provincial law to stop drivers at random to determine their sobriety, but when investigating impaired driving away from the roadside, police, as always, must form a reasonable suspicion to believe that a driver has committed the impaired driving offence before they can demand a breath sample.