I find an interesting correlation. The RCMP seems to garner among the highest number of complaints, while at the same time, when it comes to these recommendations, they seem to be the most resistant and, on some of them, almost intransigent in agreeing that some of these changes are necessary.
They tried to assuage the committee, I guess. They used the term--and it's in quotation marks, in fact--that it uses a “principled approach” when it comes to some of the concerns of sharing of information, especially with other governments and other law enforcement agencies around the world. It makes me somewhat curious that the very agency that seems to garner the largest amount of complaints doesn't seem to want to see these sorts of changes to protect a citizen's privacy, a quasi-constitutional right.
Let's take a look at the sharing of information with foreign governments. They said that, per year, the RCMP shares information on 4,000 requests with Interpol, and then 3,000 with other governments around the world. This creates a total of approximately 7,000.
On the 3,000 requests from around the world, do we have any idea, if we break them down, of which countries we're sharing information with? I would assume that most of the requests would come from the United States. Would countries that are not democratic and don't have the same sorts of human rights protections that we have--or even privacy protections--be among the list of the 3,000 requests per year?