At one time I said facetiously, but maybe colourfully too, so you're allowed to smile if I say it, that this looks like the model of the horse that has decided what saddle it wants to wear. In this case, the RCMP is the horse. This is very user-friendly for the RCMP, but it is not credible vis-à-vis the public. If you want to have something that is modern and effective, you have to look at what has credibility with the public.
If you have an independent, credible body doing things in a responsible fashion, and you're concerned about whether you can trust it, then appoint someone competent to run it who knows the area. Then you'll get good product. They will get good service. You'll be able to achieve the goal they talked about in the task force, which is to maintain and restore the public's confidence in the RCMP. This undermines it.
One of your colleagues talked about the two provisions in the proposed section shown on page 40 and 44. One provision is an absolute privilege. It talks about lawyer privilege. The lawyer privilege is between the member and his lawyer. If you look at the privilege part, in proposed paragraph 45.4(1)(a), it says “exists between legal counsel and their client”.
The client could be the RCMP. That would mean when an officer sits down with a police officer to discuss laying charges and what he or she should do, conversations would take place. You can claim legal privilege on that. It's different from the privilege between a member being charged and his need for it.
I can tell you that we would not have been able to do the Kingsclear case, which was a series of rapes of young boys in an orphanage that went on for 20 years and the failure to follow up on it, without the ability to find the discussions that took place between the crown and the RCMP to point out what the failures were.
These provisions undermine entirely the ability of this body to do its work.