On that point, last week before the public accounts committee, I raised the issue of the testimony of RCMP officers who worked in an ATIP section. One officer in particular raised the whole issue of how he prepared an ATIP request to be sent out, was called in by a deputy commissioner into the commissioner's boardroom, and was asked for a switcheroo to take place. The deputy commissioner had prepared a different package and wanted it to be switched with the package that the officer had presented.
We heard other disturbing testimony as well. In fact, a parliamentary committee made a request for documents from the ATIP section within the RCMP on a Wednesday evening. On the Friday, right at close, one of the deputy commissioner's key staffers arrived requesting those very same documents, documents that I would assume they would already have copies of within the deputy commissioner's office, so I'm not quite sure why they would have been requested.
You see, what I'm getting at is this. How can you have confidence that the system is working when there isn't an arm's-length relationship between the department and those access sections? As for most people who would be requesting, either they have an academic interest.... But the average citizen, journalist, or MP would be requesting because they have concerns. We're making those requests for people to be absolutely forthright and transparent with us. We're making requests to the very people who may in fact have made mistakes or, in the worst of all worlds, who may be engaged in a cover-up.