Public Accounts Committee on May 28th, 2007

[Larry Bagnell, Liberal, Yukon, YT]

When Ms. Sgro and Mr. Williams were asking about resources, I think, Mr. Martin, you said you have the resources necessary. And Ms. Busson said that it's not a function of lack of budget resources.

I'm just wondering, Commissioner, what exactly the line in the sixth paragraph of your speech means, where you say that the RCMP “acknowledges a capacity gap between our resources and demands for service”.

[Commr Beverley A. Busson]

What I was referring to when I said there are no resource issues at this moment is that we are in the process of bringing on the other 70 people who we believe will fill those gaps and will move those things forward.

The business plan was brought to us this spring. And the decision was made very recently to invest in the other 70 resources and to go to, perhaps, if we have to, a shifted program, a scheduling that will bring that together.

I don't want to lead this committee to think that we always have enough money to do everything we want to do, but certainly at this period of time I also don't want to mislead the committee into thinking that with more money we can fix this problem tomorrow. It is definitely a process issue as much as a capacity issue.

[D/Commr Peter Martin]

We have to be careful here. The Auditor General also pointed out that you can't solve all of this with money. There is a process issue involved here, and whether or not we have an efficient work flow. We're not just throwing money at a problem. We are going to be hiring people; we have a capacity gap. But on the recommendation of the Auditor General we are bringing in a process engineering firm to look at our operation and provide us with any design changes we may need. So we are looking at these two activities together to make us successful, not one.

[Larry Bagnell, Liberal, Yukon, YT]

Thank you.

I'd like to turn to item 10 of the Auditor General's statement. It says that the RCMP is not currently keeping its commitment to report to Parliament on performance, nor is it reporting to clients on the FLS performance.

Commissioner, I wonder if you could comment on that--and then Ms. Fraser.

[Commr Beverley A. Busson]

That is a correct statement. It was from looking at our commitments from 2001 on. We have since resolved to commit to report to Parliament at least annually and on a six-month basis on recommendations through to the Auditor General, and as required.

[Larry Bagnell, Liberal, Yukon, YT]

And to clients...?

[Commr Beverley A. Busson]

We are working with clients now to build a robust system that will work for them and us, through the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police and with the prosecutors who ultimately take these cases to court, so we will have what we feel is a full feedback loop around our ability to meet their needs on a timely basis.

[Larry Bagnell, Liberal, Yukon, YT]

When these tests are finished after an average of 114 days--as I think Mr. Wrzesnewskij said--in some cases do they result in criminals being taken off the streets?

[Commr Beverley A. Busson]

I stand to be defined as not having all of the information around this, but when a case becomes routine—it may shock people to hear that a murder case can become routine—we will have preliminary results, someone in custody, and a court date perhaps 200 days down the road, much like the Pickton case. Once you have someone in custody there is a lot of analysis of a very serious case, and it that might take a year. People might be shocked to hear that this is a very important case and it could take a year.

We re-prioritize these cases so we can keep the ones up front that need immediate assistance because there are people still on the streets. It's a very complicated priority system. Some of the cases that may not seem as urgent become urgent because, despite their categorization by crime, the real differentiation may be whether the person is at large or not. That is a huge part of our prioritization process.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Brian Fitzpatrick]

Mr. Sweet.

[David Sweet, Conservative, Ancaster—Dundas—Flamborough—Westdale, ON]

What is the difference between the expected diary dates and the target dates?

[A/Commr Joe Buckle]

There are two diary dates that get quoted. One is the corporate target of 30 days for completion of a routine case. Aside from the 15-day urgent cases, it is 30 days for routine cases. That came about from two sources. Chief Justice Archie Campbell stated that in an ideal world DNA cases should be returned in 30 days. We went to our police clients as a result of our reorganization in 2000-01. They told us they would like to see results returned in 30 days as well, so we accepted that as a target.

[David Sweet, Conservative, Ancaster—Dundas—Flamborough—Westdale, ON]

Is the EDD simply a target date--that is a linguistic form at the RCMP?

[A/Commr Joe Buckle]

We realized very soon that we couldn't meet the 30 days. It was an unrealistic expectation. So we decided we would give the investigator somewhat of a realistic expectation on when they could get results back. That was generally based upon how fast the system could respond.

[David Sweet, Conservative, Ancaster—Dundas—Flamborough—Westdale, ON]

Okay, but are you using two terms or just one? Are you using expected diary date and turnaround time, or is your linguistic phrase solely EDD?

[A/Commr Joe Buckle]

I'm sorry I didn't quite understand your question the first time.

The expected diary date is the diary date in which the system can normally respond to a case. The turnaround time is in fact when we do respond.

[David Sweet, Conservative, Ancaster—Dundas—Flamborough—Westdale, ON]

So the expected diary date is the acceptance of the inbound request, and the turnaround time is the actual completion of the examination.

[A/Commr Joe Buckle]

That's correct.

[David Sweet, Conservative, Ancaster—Dundas—Flamborough—Westdale, ON]

Do you have a peer-review process with other labs where annually or once every two years they can take a target of your samples and cross-reference with their intelligence, and of course vice versa? Do you have that kind of collaboration going on?

[A/Commr Joe Buckle]

With casework samples, do you mean?

[David Sweet, Conservative, Ancaster—Dundas—Flamborough—Westdale, ON]

Yes.

[A/Commr Joe Buckle]

No. We work closely with scientific working groups in all of our scientific areas, and in fact I meet with the directors of the Montreal and Toronto labs on a very regular basis to talk about methodology and what we're doing. But to share case work back and forth is really out of our scope.

[David Sweet, Conservative, Ancaster—Dundas—Flamborough—Westdale, ON]

It's not really sharing. I'm talking about a peer-review process that happens in many other professions, where you have professionals who are very good at their trade and excellent, world-renowned people who can come in. That's great quality assurance, to know that other people get the same findings that you do.

[A/Commr Joe Buckle]

Yes. We in fact do a peer review on every single case internally, and we participate with other labs on some external testing just to validate results, particularly in our DNA area.

John, please respond.

[Dr. John Bowen]

The other aspect, of course, is the accreditation process that we undergo. Since we're accredited to ISO 17025, we have to be audited on an almost annual basis with respect to the service that we provide. So the technology, the qualifications of the individuals involved in delivering the technology, as well as some of the files, are reviewed by technical experts who are part of the auditing team.