Be happy about that.
Evidence of meeting #59 for Public Accounts in the 39th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was dna.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Evidence of meeting #59 for Public Accounts in the 39th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was dna.
A recording is available from Parliament.
3:45 p.m.
Liberal
Judy Sgro Liberal York West, ON
--we should be very happy about that, according to Mr. Williams.
We're again dealing with some challenging issues. The whole issue of the forensic labs and the work you're doing is extremely important to Canadians.
That issue of the definition of backlogs or whatever seems to be quite different between what the RCMP's definition of a backlog is versus the Auditor General's. That seemed to be a key part of the differences in how you were looking at things.
3:45 p.m.
Commr Beverley A. Busson
That had been a contention in the past, but in reviewing the recommendations of the Auditor General, we fully agree that her definition of backlog is a viable and workable definition. Under the frame of reference she was dealing with, we accept that definition and agree there is a backlog.
3:45 p.m.
Liberal
Judy Sgro Liberal York West, ON
So if you're going to function with the definition by Ms. Fraser, how is that going to change anything within the department?
3:45 p.m.
Commr Beverley A. Busson
We have redesigned how we will deal with those kinds of cases and have put together a new matrix of what we consider A, B, and C cases. The first set of cases will be addressed, the most serious cases, in a response time of between 45 and 60 days. The cases that fall outside that would be addressed within 90 days, and then the routine cases will be beyond the 90 days. And that does not exclude the opportunity to deal with extremely urgent cases in situations where there may be an offender yet at large in a serious or life-threatening situation. To have yet better turnaround times, these would be queued to the front of the queue on a case-by-case basis.
3:45 p.m.
Liberal
Judy Sgro Liberal York West, ON
On your resources versus services, do you have the resources required? There have been some increases in the delays, even in the biology areas as well. Do you have the money you need to run your operation efficiently, especially when it comes to something as important as the forensics area?
3:45 p.m.
Commr Beverley A. Busson
I'll let Deputy Martin, if he will, address that issue.
3:45 p.m.
Deputy Commissioner Peter Martin Deputy Commissioner, National Police Services, Royal Canadian Mounted Police
Thank you, Commissioner.
We do have the financial resources. We have just reprofiled $5 million into the FLS budget, and those funds are going to be used to bring the Edmonton facility up to a standard where it can take on DNA analysis and hire the additional 70 people.
Regarding the turnaround time and the backlog, I think what the Auditor General is telling us is that we're too slow; we need to be quicker. It's more about getting the cases delivered to the police officers in the field when and as they're required. While the commissioner mentioned the 45- and the 60- and the 90-day scenarios, that's the model we have put together, which has yet to be validated.
As she said in her opening statements, we have met with the heads of prosecutions from across the country. We are now dealing with the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police, and we will be meeting with a committee of that association at their annual convention in August. We are going to welcome any input they have, and they may want us to adjust those dates. So while they're presented here today, they're not yet cast in stone and won't be until they are endorsed by the client community.
3:45 p.m.
Liberal
Judy Sgro Liberal York West, ON
Regarding the 45-day turnaround time, is there any other alternative for various police forces, from a forensic perspective? Do they have to go to the RCMP, or do they have alternatives to go to private labs?
3:45 p.m.
D/Commr Peter Martin
The other point regarding the timing is that we are still maintaining the 15-day urgent-case grouping, so we will have that. We also accept urgent, unusual requests. So if an agency has something that they would like us to process faster, we will do that. However, when you're talking about the DNA science—and I've got to be careful here—it does take time to run that. I'm sure Mr. Buckle or Mr. Bowen could present an explanation on that. We do not do every type of forensic that's possible in the world today. We do contract some work out when necessary, and we will find the appropriate place for any law enforcement agency if they request that assistance. We also have to recognize that there are provincial forensic operations in Ontario and in Quebec, and both of those facilities, while they are provincial, do serve the police communities in those provinces.
3:50 p.m.
Liberal
3:50 p.m.
D/Commr Peter Martin
The Centre of Forensic Sciences in Ontario is set up to look after the Ontario police forces, and there is a similar set-up in Quebec. I'm not aware of their accepting case work from outside.
Joe, do you have anything?
3:50 p.m.
Assistant Commissioner Joe Buckle Director General, Forensic Science and Identification Services, Royal Canadian Mounted Police
The only time they would accept case work from outside is if in partnership we asked them to give us assistance, and we do that collaboratively as a need arises. But generally speaking, the centre in Toronto and the laboratoire in Montreal do case work for their provincial police agencies.
3:50 p.m.
Liberal
Judy Sgro Liberal York West, ON
I would think that there would be a fairly extensive amount of demand on your time, as life gets more and more complicated, for more thorough analyses. You've increased the complement of individuals who will be working in the unit by 70?
3:50 p.m.
D/Commr Peter Martin
We are in the process of doing so. We have not hired them yet. We are in a recruiting phase. They'll be made up of some support staff, but mainly biologists. While we can go to a university and hire some very bright minds in the scientific field, the educational facilities do not teach DNA forensic science. We have to teach that ourselves. If it were available, we would definitely not be doing that kind of activity. But that's one of the reasons it takes time for us to ramp up.
3:50 p.m.
Liberal
Judy Sgro Liberal York West, ON
The audit also noted that the backlog in biology service requests increased from 663 to almost 200 more than that. The expenditures increased by 30%, and the service requests increased by only 5%. Why did the backlog in biology increase after the injection of the additional resources?
3:50 p.m.
D/Commr Peter Martin
I'll let Mr. Buckle take that question.
3:50 p.m.
A/Commr Joe Buckle
Thank you for that question.
That's obviously information I've been asked to respond to several times in the last few months, and the response is that we injected about $2 million into all of the forensic laboratory services around the 2003-2004 fiscal year. Some of that money went to firearms, some went to toxicology, and some went to our DNA area. We have seen some improvements in our toxicology and firearm turnaround times, but in the DNA area we didn't, and that has certainly been a challenge for us.
Intuitively, when we work inside the system, we look at it and say, all right, we've seen an increase in demand for DNA cases and we've actually put out more DNA cases in 2003, 2004, 2005, and 2006—so we were focused on getting cases out the door, but our turnaround times didn't improve.
During that period of time, as well, we changed our technology and methodology, investing quite heavily in new technology or instrumentation. And we were also charged with a couple of very large investigations, the Project Evenhanded investigation in British Columbia being one of them. Although that investigation was funded by the provincial government, the resources from British Columbia were used for overtime and the equipment and supplies we used to run our tests. It was only in the last year that we actually used some of the resources to hire temporary civilian employees. So there was a drag on our system.
I think the more fundamental issue here is our inability to provide the audit team with data that could demonstrate our ability to respond. As I mentioned, intuitively, we understood that we were seeing improvements and that we were facing some challenges, but we didn't have the ability to provide that data to the audit team.
3:55 p.m.
Conservative
May 28th, 2007 / 3:55 p.m.
Bloc
Jean-Yves Laforest Bloc Saint-Maurice—Champlain, QC
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Welcome to all of you.
According to your statement, Mrs. Fraser, the Forensic Laboratory Services told you before the audit that the diary dates for each request are negotiated with the police investigators. A bit further down in the same paragraph, you state that some clients told you that there was no negotiation. There is a contradiction there.
Does that ring a bell for you? It seems to me that this is not the only area where there are contradictions relating to the RCMP. Even though this may not be major, it is still important. It seems to be part of their culture.
3:55 p.m.
Auditor General of Canada, Office of the Auditor General of Canada
In fact, the audit was carried out in a response to a request from the Justice Committee which had received contradictory testimony from managers and previous employees of the Forensic Laboratory Services. This is what I was referring to. Why were those statements made? This is partly due to the confusion that exists with the definition of certain words. Of course, I cannot explain why some statements were made.
What is important to us is that the RCMP has accepted our recommendations and put in place a plan of action to correct any failings or concerns that appeared during our audit. Now, as we do for all our updates, we will wait to see the results and may carry out another audit to see if the plan of action has being effective.
3:55 p.m.
Bloc
Jean-Yves Laforest Bloc Saint-Maurice—Champlain, QC
Still, there have been many audits of those services in the past years. There was one in 1990, one in 2000...
3:55 p.m.
Auditor General of Canada, Office of the Auditor General of Canada
Audits were carried out in 2000 and 2006.
3:55 p.m.
Bloc
Jean-Yves Laforest Bloc Saint-Maurice—Champlain, QC
And, in 2006, there was the testimony before the other committee.
The issues raised in the past have not necessarily been corrected yet. During your audits, you frequently find problems in some departments and none in others. Do you believe that the backlog is a source of concern? Is it an administrative issue or a technical issue? Is it because the objectives are too high?
