Public Accounts committee  RCMP.

Public Accounts committee  I think the opportunity to explain that fully, Mr. Christopherson, is necessary. I don't find it particularly unusual. I look to the Toronto example. I can tell you that for administrative purposes it was necessary to have a senior liaison person within the RCMP to provide the resources, get the space, the cars, the computers, all of the things that make the investigation run.

Public Accounts committee  Mr. Chair, I can speak to that, if I may. Certainly the threshold for criminal responsibility and accountability is different from that for unethical behaviour, mismanagement, those kinds of very serious conduct. But we relied on the forensic accounting report and the opinion of the crown attorney who looked at all of the evidence, who met regularly with the team, who went to the investigator's offices and spoke with them and came to the conclusion that there was no reasonable prospect of conviction for criminal offences in all of the things you've described.

Public Accounts committee  Yes, and I can give you other examples. Probably the highest-profile one was the one in which there was an RCMP lead on an internal investigation into Toronto a few years ago, regarding the drug section.

Public Accounts committee  It's written into the statute in the province of Ontario.

Public Accounts committee  To separate the operational issues? Yes.

Public Accounts committee  For administrative purposes.

Public Accounts committee  Mr. Chair, they were not on operational matters. They were on administrative matters. I will admit that the wording of the MOU leaves a lot to be desired, and I appreciate the fact that the Office of the Auditor General has drawn that to our attention. I can tell you that it was an unusual situation.

Public Accounts committee  No, sir, I do not agree. I can tell you the investigation was housed in the RCMP facility because they had the space. I didn't have the space to house 20 investigators. I had conversations with Deputy Commissioner Loeppky about where it would be housed. We looked at putting it off-site, but they had space to accommodate it.

Public Accounts committee  It was the Ottawa police. If an administrative gag order was in place, it may have been for RCMP administrative purposes, about information that was being released out of the investigation, which was one of the concerns I shared. That's why we were so concerned about having adequate security measures in place around the investigation itself and the files.

Public Accounts committee  Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Members of the Standing Committee on Public Accounts, I am pleased to appear before you as a part of your consideration of the 2006 report by the Auditor General of Canada to the House of Commons. In 2002, internal complaints were voiced within the RCMP about the management of the force's pension fund.