Thank you.
I mentioned that the commissioners should not have these renewable terms. I think that's important.
The commission's budget, including compensation, should be tied to the judiciary. I mentioned that. That should be independent. I'm not saying that they should be the same as the judiciary or anything, but they should have the same independent process whereby they determine the budgets for commissioners and salaries and whatnot
I think the five-year parliamentary review should be independent of the commission's work. The commission should have a separate employer status. One of the problems with the status quo is the role of the civil service in advising the Minister of Justice. We advised against “interests of justice”. I don't think that should be a requirement, because as a judge I can tell you that “interests of justice” can mean many things or it can mean nothing. It's a term that I don't think assists us.
We recommend a proactive commission that could engage with systemic and disciplinary matters, as James Lockyer pointed out. We agree with that.
On Bill C-40, we recommend that, as in England, the commission should be able to have access to documents—and this is very important—even if the police, prosecutors and others claim privilege. We've been advised and our experience was that the police, etc. would claim privilege as often as they can. We say that the commission should be able to be the guardian of that privilege, and they should be the determining factor of what they get and what they don't get.
There are some features in the bill that we do like, as we said. We agree with that.
However, the most obvious is the status of the commissioners themselves and of the chief commissioner particularly. He's going to be a civil servant, first and foremost, and the independence of the commission is in doubt, I think, with that alone.
Those are my submissions.