We are still in clause 35. The bill does a peculiar thing as it's currently drafted. In the previous subsection, it says that the commissioner shall suspend an investigation if in his opinion he believes—and I've lost the actual section—that it would interfere with an ongoing criminal investigation.
The next section says the commissioner may request in writing...and that the chair of the review commission then must suspend any investigation.
Again, I guess we would stress on this side that we're appointing someone to be chair of a police complaints commission. It's a very high and responsible position, and certainly the commissioner can make the argument to that person, but if they are to be an oversight and review commission, they have to have the power to make the decision on the basis of whether it serves the broader interests of the public and the investigation to go ahead.
One of the examples of an investigation going on for a long time was obviously Air India, where criminal investigations were open for 25 years or more, and there may have been some specific aspect of investigations or procedures that went on that needed investigation by a complaints commission and could have been done without interfering with the overall criminal investigation. Again, we heard that, I believe twice, from witnesses before the committee.
That's our reason for the suggestion. If we remove the section that allows the commissioner to force the suspension of those investigations, once again, I think it undermines the public perception of the independence of the commission and creates a public perception that the RCMP is somehow able to protect itself against investigations when complaints have been filed. We think this helps increase public confidence, and that it actually does a service to the RCMP in that sense to remove this section.