And that will not be given way to unless there is a statutory requirement for them to do so.
So what you have to do is provide a statutory vehicle that says you have to provide that, and then conversely, you have to put safeguards in place that say our access does not mean public access.
And by the way, as for the powers I'm asking for, you'll find exactly that same language in the CSIS Act for national security materials—access to everything except cabinet confidences. I think even the Auditor General can access cabinet confidences.
For a positive obligation on an officer to account for his duties or actions, currently under part VII, public complaints, the officer has no obligation to speak to us. He has no obligation to speak to the RCMP officer investigating the complaint. And the practice varies. I've seen officers—We have this complaint and we sit them down and say, just as you would do almost, unfortunately, with a criminal, “By the way, you have the right to remain silent. You don't have to provide any answers”, which I find remarkable in this day and age.
So I'm saying you have to create a positive obligation—you have unusual powers—to answer the questions that are put to you, otherwise we never know how the police are discharging their functions. That's why it should be there. So if you are doing any investigation to any program, it doesn't matter what it is, tell me, what did you do?
And I said you have to enlarge the scope of the review for retired officers or non-officers, because right now if someone retires before a complaint is filed, they're not subject to a part IV complaint. They're not even subject to a disciplinary complaint under part IV or part VII—none.
The nature of policing has changed as well. There are a good 5,000 or 6,000 civilians in the RCMP now—not civilian members, public servants. If you are doing a proceeds of crime case, you might need an accountant. So to get the true picture you have to find out from other people what they are doing, not to punish them but so that you can have a proper factual basis.
I said a new audit power. Ours is complaint-driven, so a specific complaint then constitutes the trigger to go and do an inquiry. If you really want to find out if the program is healthy, what you have to do is a periodic review. What are the national standards? How are they being trained? How are they used? Is it being properly applied or not? That does not exist currently. If I launched a complaint of that nature, because I can launch some complaints, the first thing I'd run into is, “We can't give it to you because it would disclose the identity of all these 700 other people who are part of the program.” So you'd be stopped in the water before you even started.
There are things beyond the work we normally do as a commission, which is complaint-driven, and what we think is appropriate to look at. There may be issues that come up with the minister. It may be helpful for the minister to say, “Well, I want to turn to that vehicle over there. It's a statutory vehicle. I want the commission to go and look at that and bring me back a special report.” And the minister then could table that with a committee of Parliament, because there is information you cannot get because it will be classified. Someone has to look at it. If no one is looking at it, nothing happens.
And then I pointed out that there have to be maybe two reports—classified and non-classified.