The committee undertook around 11 weeks of study, including going out to Vancouver, in the wake of Robert Dziekanski's death, and obviously there was an enormous amount of public interest in this. The committee took it very seriously and it took its recommendations very seriously.
Commissioner, one of the things I'm concerned about is that since that report was tabled on June 8, we have been unable to get any sort of response to our recommendations from the minister. Today is the first time we are hearing from you in terms of the response to a variety of questions. A number of the answers you've given frankly concern me. I am going to start with the very specific recommendation that the committee made with respect to an independent peer-reviewed study of the impact of taser weapons.
You stated in your response that there are three studies, all of which are in the U.S., two of which are conducted by law enforcement agencies, which certainly don't meet the criterion of being independent. To the best of my knowledge, you haven't provided any evidence that any of them were peer reviewed, and none of them were conducted in Canada.
In fact, the only independent study that we have in Canada was done by a media organization. It was done by the CBC, which found that the X26 taser models expel more energy than the manufacturer had stated and therefore were more dangerous than thought.
Can you tell me why specifically that recommendation has been ignored? Why has there been a refusal to have an independent, third party, peer-reviewed test of tasers, particularly in light of not only this committee's deep interest in the issue but also the great deal of public interest in the wake of Mr. Dziekanski's death and also in the wake of other incidents?