I agree with that comment from the perspective that I've worked in British Columbia as counsel representing municipal police officers, and they have the same issues that the RCMP has. I wouldn't have such a bright line to say that they respond to their internal cases much differently than the RCMP does, based on my experience in that context, which is a little dated. It's seven to eight years ago now, but I have functioned in that environment that we're talking about.
I think a fair argument can be made that having the commissioner or the CEO of a public agency in the context of policing, which is different from a pure public service model, does require a delicate balance, and you're going to have different viewpoints on where that should end. I have looked at police governance and accountability for a number of years. A theme you sometimes hear—and this is not to disparage the civilian review process—is that sometimes the civilians take a different perspective, and it's less strident than it would be from the police agency itself. Now, that's anecdotal, from talking with police agencies around North America when I was looking into that issue.
But we do have instances where, for example, the ERC, the external review committee, has made a recommendation to the commissioner on a conduct case and he has said, “No, I'm not going to accept your approach to it for this reason...”. An example I would give, just to try to help the committee a little, is a case we have in which a member discharged his weapon accidentally in the course of a pursuit outside of his vehicle; he got out and was in the middle of a storm. There was an agreed statement of facts. The board found in the early resolution process that it didn't meet the threshold for misconduct. It went to the ERC on appeal and the ERC supported that view.
The issue was about the reporting of a discharge of the weapon and whether it happened immediately or appropriately. The ERC was of the view that nobody really got hurt and there weren't any serious consequences, that there was some delay in reporting and that it was okay. The commissioner took the view that this is an operational environment and when you discharge your weapon, that needs to be reported immediately. The commissioner's view was that crime scenes need to be protected and there was no excuse in this context.
That is an example of where there can be disagreement, but ultimately, the commissioner is responsible for delivery of policing, as to whether force and other things are used. He is responsible to the minister and responsible through to Parliament. I think that in this context policing presents a slightly different problem in terms of who ultimately should be responsible for it. If you're going to ask the commissioner and you're going to ask your line officers to be accountable for the conduct they mete out, I think they should be accountable for it at the end of the day.