As you know, I'd concluded that the investigation was not independent, and the Auditor General had found that it didn't have the appearance of independence. I went further. I found that it was not independent, but it didn't answer the question as to whether the investigation was flawed.
There's no question that the proper process of an investigation is to have as much independence as you can get. I understand there's a bit of a spectrum wherein you can have full independence and not enough expertise to do the job. If you have the necessary expertise, you might have a lack of independence along the way, and you have to find a balance somewhere. I don't know whether the balance was found.
I also don't know whether the result of the investigation was in any way tainted by that. When you think of it, part of the reason all of this came to light was that members of the RCMP who were part of the investigative team and were therefore not independent were the ones who brought it forward.
We had some very diligent work done by people within the RCMP. The whole issue on the insurance payments came up during the course of the investigation. It was uncovered by the RCMP people and ultimately by the RCMP internal audit.
I had indications on both sides. I had the crown attorneys saying not enough evidence came out of the investigation to lay criminal charges. I didn't know whether it was because the investigation wasn't good enough or whether the evidence wasn't there.
It seemed to me that the best way to do this was to get people who really knew what they were doing on investigations to audit what the OPS had done, look at the files, and see whether or not they believed the investigation was tainted. I understand such an audit is under way.