Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you for coming this afternoon.
I'd like to bring the tone down a bit. I would like to apologize on behalf of my colleagues who have been trying, through the front door, through the back door, through any window they can possibly enter, to cast aspersions on you, Ms. McLellan. I think that's unfortunate.
I do, however, want to come to the comments made by Mr. Brown in his report, comments that I raised this morning with other witnesses. They have to do with what I think is the penultimate serious question, the elephant in the room in this report, which is whether or not there is going to be or whether there is an ongoing OPP investigation.
Mr. Brown seems to suggest that there is no room or no need for an independent commission of inquiry, a public inquiry. That's the government's official position, but he leaves the reader of this report, A Matter of Trust, with all kinds of outstanding questions. Some of those questions will be worked out internally. Some of them will be worked out, I assume, through his task force. But for me and my constituents, I think the most important question is what happened with the Ottawa Police Service investigation. How is it possible that the Ottawa Police Service investigation was staffed almost entirely by members of the RCMP? How is it possible that the RCMP then provided the office space to the Ottawa Police Service to conduct the investigation? If I took that and put it to any one of my four children, they would probably say there's something inherently wrong with this, or at least the appearance of something wrong with it.
I have to take at face value the conclusion of Mr. Brown, who is after all a QC, who did a reasonable job in two months. I can't say I'm going to take this report as gospel. I just won't. I think there are many outstanding questions. But he does conclude that the OPP ought to review the Ottawa Police Service file.
I need your help to understand. Why would Mr. Brown arrive at a conclusion that the OPP ought to be called in to review the evidence after a crown attorney had decided there was not sufficient evidence to warrant criminal prosecution? Can you help me understand why he would make such a recommendation?