Thank you, Chair.
I thank our Auditor General and his staff for being here again.
The thing that jarred me the most going through these reports, and it's just personal experience, was your overall message on the RCMP where you state on page 2, “Overall, we found that not all RCMP officers had access to the equipment they needed to respond to an active shooter situation.”
It struck me for three different reasons. One is just as a citizen. Particularly when we link this to Mr. Arya's point, normally the issue in these cases is that the money and the equipment are not there, and that's the source of the problem. In this case, we were well past that. The funding had been issued, the equipment had been purchased, and it was now just a matter of distribution and making sure it was available to the right people at the right time. That is solely management. As a citizen, it just jars me that a world-class national police service like the RCMP, given the funds and the equipment they need from Parliament, failed to manage them in a way that kept our officers and public as safe as they could be.
Then it hit me because of my own experience as a former solicitor general in Ontario responsible for some of these things and having a little better understanding of how policing works than the average person. It jarred me.
Last, as with other colleagues, some of whom were here, I've been in an active shooter situation where I was one of the targets right here in Centre Block. For those three life experience reasons, when I read that, it really jarred me.
I know we're going to call them in, and I know we're going to hold them to account on this one, and they're pretty good at keeping an eye on these things. I suspect, and I would hope, that they're going to have ironclad answers and procedures, more than what we find in here. You can tell that they spent time wording some of this stuff. I've been there; I get it, but we need to hear satisfactory answers that commit to safety.
The last thing I want to say on this is that it's important that the Canada Labour Code is referenced here, because part of it references the right for RCMP officers to have as safe a workplace as they can, notwithstanding that they're in one of the most dangerous workplaces you can be in.
It was under the Occupational Health and Safety Act in Ontario and the fact that the responsibility for police officers under that act was not being met, that I, as the solicitor general, authorized police in Ontario, OPP and municipal, to move from a revolver to a semi-automatic. It was all based on the health and safety of the officers.
I've got to tell you, this one really jumped out at me. I don't really have a question per se, but I'll give you the opportunity, Auditor General, to either agree with my remarks or, if you think I've been over the top, I'm willing to hear that. I'd like your thoughts on both your findings and my comments about your findings.