I would like to call the meeting to order at this time.
I want to welcome everyone here. Colleagues, members, witnesses, pursuant to Standing Order 108, this is a meeting on chapter 9 of the November 2006 Report of the Auditor General of Canada, on the Royal Canadian Mounted Police pension and insurance administration.
Before we start with the witnesses, there are a couple of items I want to address. There's some confusion as to the role that this committee plays in our parliamentary system, and the role that other investigative bodies play, including the courts. I'm going to read a prepared statement on the whole issue of parliamentary privilege, just to get this on the record, because it is very important:
There is considerable Parliamentary, public, and media attention in the current proceedings of the Public Accounts Committee. There may also be a lack of sufficiently precise information as to the exact nature and manner of these proceedings. Therefore, at the outset of today's sitting of the Committee, I would like to sketch out some of the ground rules under which I consider our work to be conducted.
The Public Accounts Committee is a creature of the House of Commons; it is not a court of law. Therefore, the nature of the Committee and of its proceedings is parliamentary, not judicial. The rules of procedure of House of Commons Committees such as this one, the rights and powers of its members, and in particular the rights and obligations of witnesses before the Committee are guided by the branch of constitutional law known as the law of parliamentary privilege.
Pursuant to parliamentary privilege, witnesses who are asked to appear are obliged to do so, as if they had been subpoenaed before a court. Pursuant to parliamentary privilege, while witnesses are, in usual circumstances, not required to be sworn in, they do have the obligation to be truthful in response to the questions addressed to them and to give complete answers, as if they had been sworn in. There should be full and frank disclosure.
And I should point out today that the committee has adopted a policy that in this particular hearing everyone is going to be sworn in.
Witnesses whose testimony before the Committee is believed not to be truthful may become the subject of proceedings in contempt of Parliament or in perjury, at the behest of the Committee itself.
It is very important to note that testimony given by witnesses to the Committee speaks for itself. It is one of the fundamental principles of parliamentary privilege that testimony given before a committee can neither be used in any other forum, such as a court of law, nor can its truthfulness be questioned in another forum, such as a judicial inquiry or a court of law. This principle is a factor of the independence of Parliament and the courts and of their separation from each other. The counterpart of this principle is that lack of truthfulness or lack of complete answers in committee proceedings will not absolve witnesses from their responsibilities to the Committee.
The Committee will instruct the Law Clerk and Parliamentary Counsel of the House of Commons to advise the Committee whenever there is doubt as to the truthfulness or completeness of testimony and second to ensure, through whatever steps may be necessary, that testimony given before this Committee is not used in judicial or other such proceedings.
In other words, the committee will, as it has in the past, protect its parliamentary privileges.
That's just a brief thumbnail sketch of the nature of these proceedings. Again, as I indicated in my opening statement, the committee has made a policy decision to swear everyone in, so I'm going to ask the clerk to swear the witnesses in at this point in time. We are then going to go right to the opening statements.
Mr. Williams.