We did not meet on a regularly scheduled basis. If there were issues the commissioner wanted to bring to my attention, or issues I wanted to deal with on a face-to-face basis with him, those meetings would be arranged. My staff and the department met with the commissioner on a regular basis, and often I was informed about issues--for example, budgetary issues. When I became minister in December 2003, it was a brand new Department of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness, and while the RCMP was an institution of long standing, it was part and parcel of a new department, and we spent a fair bit of time with all the agencies working through what the new department was about and the increased pressures on the force.
When the commissioner and I met, we often talked about the increased policing pressures on the force, because of events around the border, because of the new approach to policing—integrated policing—of which you are well aware, working with either provincial police like the OPP, city police, or agencies like the CBSA.
So I think it is fair to say that some of our discussions, at least, were in the context of a new department and how we would all, as agencies in a portfolio department, work together on a common mandate and on the budgetary needs and pressures on the force. We also had to deal with the pressures from the provincial policing side in provinces where the force policed provincially, in terms of ongoing demands for more officers. Therefore, we had the issues of RCMP Depot and its need for more budgetary resources, which I was glad to see Mr. Flaherty reannounced in his first budget. We had indicated we would increase the number of trainees going through Depot.
Those were the kinds of issues we dealt with. But if you're asking me if I met with the commissioner every week, no, I did not.