What this amendment seems to do is codify the existing procedural fairness obligation of the council to provide the complainant with notice of the decision, and the reasons for the decision. That's already a right complainants have.
The thinking behind proposed section 87 under clause 12, which requires the CJC to set up a policy on how to notify complainants about the outcomes of decisions, is this: The CJC would establish the policy, then the policy would come under review by the federal courts whenever a complainant applies for judicial review of the council. If the policy is found deficient in some way, it could simply be amended and corrected. You would therefore have an evergreen document that could evolve with the law on the duty of procedural fairness, as owed to complainants. That was the thinking.
The federal courts have already been clear that complainants have this right, so the CJC's policy will have to reflect this right. Whether or not to codify it in the statute is, of course, entirely up to this committee. There's no harm in it.
One thing the committee might consider turning its attention to is the possibility that.... As it is, it might be useful to add a caveat that the reasons should not include any personal or confidential information, or information that might not be in the public interest to disclose. The only reason it might be useful to add a caveat like that is because.... You see that caveat de facto added in other parts of the bill. If the report of a hearing panel is required to be made public, there's always the possibility of redacting it, in accordance with the public interest reasons for issuing a publication ban or holding a hearing in camera. That's to ensure confidentiality, or the public interest reasons for holding hearings in camera or issuing publication bans, can be respected, in terms of what's issued publicly. It might be useful to add a caveat here that personal or confidential information should not be released.
It might also be useful to note that the same alleged misconduct—I mentioned this the last time I was here—can provoke a complaint from a wide variety of complainants. The victim of the misconduct can complain, people who have direct knowledge of events can complain, and members of the general public who hear about it in the news can complain. Arguably, not all complainants are necessarily entitled to the same level of reasons. It depends on the context, so adding a caveat that personal or confidential information should not be disclosed might be helpful, in terms of allowing the CJC to tailor the reasons accordingly.