Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I have to say that the circumstances keep mounting up, and I have no problems or qualms with the answers you've given, but I get a sense there's a whole other side to this thing. We start adding up things like the lack of the appearance of independence--notwithstanding what you said, Chief. I accept that at face value, but nonetheless you did acknowledge that it doesn't look very good. That was the first step.
The timing of cancelling the criminal investigation and moving to an internal investigation.... While I take the word of those who have given submissions to this point that that was done for good reasons, I can't escape the fact that at the end of the day it would have been very helpful if.... The real question we're asking here is whether there has been a cover-up. Nobody has called it that, but that's really what's in front of us. Was there a cover-up?
The actions themselves, as is true in most cases like this, can be dealt with one way. Once we start getting into issues of covering up, we're into a whole other thing. So the real issue in front of us here is, was there any attempt anywhere within the senior ranks of the RCMP, with or without the inclusion of the Ottawa Police Service, to cover this up in any way?
I look at that, and I look at the fact that the statute of limitations.... There's a part of me that says the Commissioner of the RCMP wouldn't make a decision like that without a legal person right beside him asking him what the unintended consequences would be here, what he needed to know. As one piece, it's not the whole thing, but it's yet another piece.
The initial whistle-blower has been reassigned, and my understanding is that was not something they wanted. They feel they've been treated very badly here.
As for the work of no value, we all know what happened the last time we started down that road. That's very troublesome, and again I'm having some difficulty. It's a legal matter between administrative and criminal, but boy, once you start hiring relatives and friends, and once you start arranging for work that doesn't need to be done, you've got to be getting awfully close to criminal intent. I'm just a layperson with a very poor formal education, but it seems to me that if you're not across that line, you've got to be snuggling up pretty close to it by then.
Then there is this whole business of Mr. Frizzell's being physically removed. Again, that's another piece. Then how many resignations, reassignments, health issues...? I headed into this open-minded, and again, if I had problems with your answers you'd know about it by now, but I still have this sense that there's more to this story.
If it was not the RCMP in particular--and part of this may be just my own background as Solicitor General responsible for police, and proud of it, and proud of the women and men I was responsible for--then it seems to me that you'd have to be held to the highest account that Mr. Williams was referring to, the squeaky clean, because it's the police.
I say openly that if it were another matter and this were circumstantial, I might still be persuaded that we could end it here and write a report, especially since the Auditor General feels that they have responded, at least from that point of view. However, given that it's the RCMP, and that it is absolutely critical that people have faith in the RCMP, and that the RCMP live up to their reputation, and that we not damage that, I'm going to be very open to a motion, at the appropriate time, to take a second round and bring in some people to see what the other side is. Then we'll match up the two and see where we are.
I don't have any further questions. I'll afford you a chance to comment on my remarks, but at this point, Chair, it's my intent that if Mr. Wrzesnewskyj presents a motion that has us take a second round, I'm supportive.
Thanks.