Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
I need to clarify a couple of things for the record.
Many of the recommendations in Mr. O'Connor's report are in Bill C-42, and I'm reading from the bill:
45.39 (1) Subject to sections 45.4 and 45.42, the Commission is entitled to have access to any information under the control, or in the possession, of the Force that the Commission considers is relevant to the exercise of its powers, or the performance of its duties and functions, under Parts VI and VII.
We move along to where it says:
45.4 (1) In this section and sections 45.41 to 45.48, “privileged information” means information that is subject to....
It lists client-lawyer privilege, the witness protection program, the security of Canadians, and then medical information. Even if that is deemed to be privileged, that decision would then go to:
...a former judge of a superior court of a province or the Federal Court or an individual who is a member of a prescribed category of individuals to review the information and make observations to the Commission and the Commissioner.
I do understand, Mr. Kennedy, that you think the commission should have complete unfettered access at all times to all the information. There is some protection for all Canadians, that they are innocent until proven guilty. There is some protection for Canadians regarding privileged information.
With regard to when investigations that the commission would be looking at when they cross over to criminal investigations, it would appear that you would agree they should be suspended. You're just saying that you believe the commission should have the ability to say that, and the commissioner should have no ability to say that. I guess, under this bill, it would also give the commissioner of the RCMP the ability to say, “This is a criminal investigation. We're going to move it now to...”. If it's a serious incident, there are several processes to set up, whereby there will be investigations.
I think that we are in agreement that with the spirit and intent of this new bill—and Mr. Plecas, I'll come to you as well—we are moving forward with some much-needed changes to the RCMP. We're giving the commission many more powers, tremendous powers that they've not had before, as well as the commissioner, the ability to do his or her job.
Mr. Plecas, you said things like, the desire to be remedial is so strong, that there's a high level of tolerance for misbehaviour. When you look at modernizing the disciplinary processes whereby the RCMP right now are able to discipline complaints of lesser seriousness, do you think that with the ability to deal with things at a less serious level, it will send the message? It's like the broken window analogy, where you deal with things immediately and you deal with things, sometimes with education, sometimes with mediation, sometimes with discipline. Will it send a signal. Do you think your research shows that there would be an effect? Would members see that accountability is now required under this new act?