Public Safety Committee on Oct. 22nd, 2012

[Alain Jolicoeur, Chair, Audit Committee, Royal Canadian Mounted Police]

I would like to thank you for the opportunity to answer your questions. I do not have an opening statement.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

All right, that's fair.

[C/Supt Craig MacMillan, Director General, Adjudicative Services, Royal Canadian Mounted Police]

There is no opening statement for me, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

We'll move right into our first round of questioning.

Mr. MacMillan has appeared at a different time.

We'll go to Ms. Bergen, please.

[Candice Bergen, Conservative, Portage—Lisgar, MB]

I'll split my time with Mr. Norlock.

Mr. MacMillan, can you please tell us what it is you do and what services you provide to the RCMP and its members? What exactly is your role?

[C/Supt Craig MacMillan]

I'm the director general of the adjudicative services branch, which is comprised of four directorates. The first is the discipline adjudicators directorate where we have four full-time adjudicators who deal with discipline cases and they have a support staff in the form of a registrar and some clerical assistance and editing.

The other directorate is the appropriate officers representative directorate. Essentially it is the equivalent of what we would call prosecutors, I guess. They handle the presentation of formal discipline cases on behalf of the appropriate officer who is typically the commanding officer of a division. There is also the member representative directorate, which is essentially comprised of defence counsel who are acting on behalf of members who have been alleged to have engaged in misconduct that has led to formal proceedings being instituted against them. Then, as an aside, there is the grievance adjudications directorate, which has the grievance adjudicators assigned to it who deal with level one and some level two grievance adjudications.

My role as director—and this flows partly out of reports that have come in to the Pay Council, also known as the Lordon report. There was a desire to start to decentralize some aspects of the adjudicative services process, or the discipline process, and at the same time leave other components at the front end. This is attempting to build a framework. Obviously, conflicting interests are involved with defence, the crown, and the adjudicators or decision-makers. My role essentially is to coordinate those activities, bearing in mind the conflicts of interest that arise among these different groups and deal with budget matters and other general issues dealing with delivery of the services in that context.

We're national. We have offices in different areas of the country, in all the directorates.

[Candice Bergen, Conservative, Portage—Lisgar, MB]

Thank you very much.

Mr. Jolicoeur, could you tell us as well what you do and what your role is, please?

[Alain Jolicoeur]

Yes, I chair the external independent audit committee of the RCMP. Three people are on the audit committee. We were appointed by Treasury Board ministers. We oversee the work of the internal audit of the RCMP in the different operational areas. We publish audit reports. We report on an annual basis on how the RCMP meets its commitment vis-à-vis values and ethics, control framework, and risk. We also report to Parliament. We make an annual report to the comptroller general and the commissioner and publish our findings every year.

[Candice Bergen, Conservative, Portage—Lisgar, MB]

Thank you very much.

Mr. MacMillan, before I turn the rest of my time over to Mr. Norlock, could you comment on a couple of things? I'm not sure if you were here for Mr. Kennedy's testimony with regard to the new civilian review and complaints commission. Could you comment on some of his opinions, and if you agree or disagree?

Perhaps you could also tell us from where you are and what you have seen in terms of dealing with RCMP discipline, with member discipline, and the adjudication services, if Bill C-42 will help and will have a positive effect on the RCMP as well as Canadians' trust in them.

[C/Supt Craig MacMillan]

I will start with the first part of your question, which is on the CRCC.

It may be a point of clarification, but the authority or the ability of the commissioner to request that public complaint review investigations be suspended where it would compromise a criminal investigation is clearly to understand it's not a request that terminates the public complaint process. It merely suspends it at that point.

I did see that point was made by Mr. Kennedy that it terminated the process. I'm not sure if that's exactly what he meant, but I wanted to clarify that component of it.

In terms of privileged information, as I understand the construct, I didn't prepare as much for the CRCC component as I did for the discipline conduct component. In essence there is a recognition that two types of privileged information would not be accessible by the commission. The first component is privileged communications between the member and his or her counsel. That's where the member is in some kind of difficulty. The member has retained a lawyer through the legal systems process, or has a lawyer and they're having communications about advice on how to respond to the situation. That would not be accessible by the CRCC. The second component is strictly in relation to the advice the RCMP is receiving from legal counsel, likely the Department of Justice, on how it responds or is dealing with a complaint involving the CRCC.

I can't state categorically, but I would not see that necessarily extending to communications with crown counsel, as was proposed. I might stand to be corrected on that, but there is going to be a separate issue about that, because crown counsel is providing the advice, so a provincial agency is providing advice to the RCMP in that operational context.

My colleague has also pointed out to me that it's legal opinions relating to the way in which the force should conduct itself with regard to the commission specifically, and the minutes of meetings held by the force relating to the way in which the force should conduct itself with regard to the commission. Those, I would suggest, are very limited circumstances in which there wouldn't be access.

Otherwise, there's generally a presumption of access to other information, including privileged information. The point I would make is that informer privilege is not necessarily residing in the RCMP or the Government of Canada to waive. Informer privilege exists with the informer. There has to be some context taken into account on how to resolve disagreements that may arise over disclosure of that information.

I take the point it shouldn't be protracted. In the regime that's been set up here, the RCMP is required to state the nature of the information which it's saying it's not disclosing as part of that third party review process. It's not just that they're saying they have information and they're not giving it. It's required to explain to the commission the nature of the information over which the claim is being made not to disclose.

It's part of creating a way to resolve that without having to go to the courts, as has happened in the past. It's proposed that a retired judge can be appointed to make observations about that. There is also a requirement that there be a memorandum of understanding in terms of how the RCMP and CRCC are going to reply to issues over access to information.

I think it's fairly strong in that regard.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

We have to leave it there.

We'll go to Madame Doré Lefebvre for seven minutes.

[Rosane Doré Lefebvre, NDP, Alfred-Pellan, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Jolicoeur and Mr. MacMillan, thank you for being here today.

Mr. Jolicoeur, can you provide us with more detail on what you do? I noted two or three things concerning values and ethics, but I would like you to be more explicit. Do you produce reports on an annual basis?

[Alain Jolicoeur]

Yes. The role of the external audit committee is to ensure that all of the studies and internal audit reports produced by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police comply with the applicable standards. We must also ensure that we have a risk-focused audit plan in place for the next few years. We use audit resources to examine areas where the likelihood of finding problems or aspects to be improved is the highest. We also ensure that the process is transparent and that the results are published.

We have, in addition, more general responsibilities, for instance concerning the annual report, in particular with regard to the Commissioner and the Comptroller General of Canada. We must prepare reports on an annual basis on the following topics: values and ethics, and how they are managed within the Royal Canadian Mounted Police; operational and internal risk management; the framework used for financial audits and the monitoring that is done; and finally, we audit reports submitted to Parliament in order to ensure the validity of information.

[Rosane Doré Lefebvre, NDP, Alfred-Pellan, QC]

And there are only three of you to do all of that work.

[Alain Jolicoeur]

There are three of us, but the analytical work that supports our reports is done by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police internal audit group.

[Rosane Doré Lefebvre, NDP, Alfred-Pellan, QC]

So your organization is not an independent group that monitors what goes on and prepares reports. You call on the services of RCMP analysts.

[Alain Jolicoeur]

In fact, we review the work done by those analysts and we ensure that their conclusions are correct.

[Rosane Doré Lefebvre, NDP, Alfred-Pellan, QC]

You review what they have done.

[Alain Jolicoeur]

Correct. We also have to review management action plans following problems that we note, or problems that are raised by the Auditor General. We discuss those action plans and review them, positively or negatively. We want to know if they duly take into account the problems that were raised and if they will help to resolve them.

[Rosane Doré Lefebvre, NDP, Alfred-Pellan, QC]

What were the most important problems underscored in your last report?

[Alain Jolicoeur]

There were several, in various programs. This is the same as in any other organization. With regard to the organization as a whole, we have found over the years that the management of human resources is one aspect that is a bit more awkward and where there is room for improvement.

[Rosane Doré Lefebvre, NDP, Alfred-Pellan, QC]

What type of improvement do you think should be made in that respect?

[Alain Jolicoeur]

In fact, I am here to answer questions concerning the bill. It constitutes a recipe for solving a good number of these problems. In the area of labour relations, one of the important risks is related to the perception of the RCMP by the general public. If negative perception is an issue, it becomes much harder for the organization to do its work.

It seemed to us that the current labour relations management regime and behaviour issues management plan was weak, which caused an additional risk for the organization. What is being proposed will reduce the risks considerably.

[Rosane Doré Lefebvre, NDP, Alfred-Pellan, QC]

You talked about the perception of the RCMP by the population, in connection with human resources. Bill C-42 would help to improve the perception...

[Alain Jolicoeur]

In my opinion, it will reassure Canadians, as they will know that there are mechanisms within the organization to deal with behaviour problems.