Evidence of meeting #72 for Public Safety and National Security in the 41st Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was report.
A video is available from Parliament.
Conservative
LaVar Payne Conservative Medicine Hat, AB
Was it rolled out top-down? Is that how the process was implemented? That's sort of the way we did ours, to make sure that in fact the management was well aware of what the process was, what the rules were, and that they certainly had to buy into that process.
Interim Chair, Chair's Office, Royal Canadian Mounted Police Public Complaints Commission
Yes, that would be comparable.
Interim Chair, Chair's Office, Royal Canadian Mounted Police Public Complaints Commission
I suspect that...but I won't speculate.
Conservative
LaVar Payne Conservative Medicine Hat, AB
Just in terms of the investigations—and I've done some of those as a human resources manager—who maintains these files? Whether it's sexual harassment or just normal harassment, they are highly sensitive files. Obviously that can create some difficulties if....
Interim Chair, Chair's Office, Royal Canadian Mounted Police Public Complaints Commission
You're quite correct, they are sensitive files, and that is very good reason for maintaining them in a centralized fashion.
Conservative
Interim Chair, Chair's Office, Royal Canadian Mounted Police Public Complaints Commission
No, Ottawa.
Conservative
LaVar Payne Conservative Medicine Hat, AB
In Ottawa. Okay.
Let me just ask this question. In Alberta, for example, because that's where I'm from, is there somebody on the human resources side of issues who would be looking into these harassment cases? Is it by province or is it by...? I'm just not sure how that might work.
Interim Chair, Chair's Office, Royal Canadian Mounted Police Public Complaints Commission
It would be by division, but again the investigations of these should be outside of the normal divisional chain of command in order to avoid the type of conflict that is possible, with people investigating themselves for instance.
Conservative
LaVar Payne Conservative Medicine Hat, AB
—your recommendation number 6, what kind of specialized training are these investigators getting? Can you describe that briefly?
Interim Chair, Chair's Office, Royal Canadian Mounted Police Public Complaints Commission
There has been some. Specialized training, according to Treasury Board policies, has been implemented for some investigators, but we believe insufficiently.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Kevin Sorenson
All right. Thank you very much, Mr. McPhail.
We'll move to Mr. Rafferty, please.
Mr. Rafferty, I think you will have the final word here today. It's only going to be for about three and a half minutes.
John Rafferty NDP Thunder Bay—Rainy River, ON
All right, thank you very much, Mr. Chair. I'll try to ask very pointed questions.
Thank you all for being here.
I'd like to continue with Mr. Payne's questioning. Have you had any indications from Minister Toews, or Minister Clement, more specifically at Treasury Board, that harassment funding will be there as needed in the future?
Interim Chair, Chair's Office, Royal Canadian Mounted Police Public Complaints Commission
We haven't discussed that issue, but as I indicated earlier, it's our belief that the cost of the recommendations that we have made, if implemented—
NDP
John Rafferty NDP Thunder Bay—Rainy River, ON
Well, there will be some front-end costs, though. You won't recoup all those costs immediately.
Interim Chair, Chair's Office, Royal Canadian Mounted Police Public Complaints Commission
That's right.
NDP
John Rafferty NDP Thunder Bay—Rainy River, ON
Let me ask you about recommendation number 10, where it says “the online training module, which should address workplace conflict, including harassment, be delivered on a regular basis”. Am I to take it that you believe that online training is better than in-person training?
Interim Chair, Chair's Office, Royal Canadian Mounted Police Public Complaints Commission
No, that's not the case. In-person training is better than online training. Online training is better than no training.
NDP
John Rafferty NDP Thunder Bay—Rainy River, ON
Okay, I've got it.
Now if I am to assume correctly that you're feeling now that your job is finished, that's it's sort of open and shut, if I could ask you, how will—
Interim Chair, Chair's Office, Royal Canadian Mounted Police Public Complaints Commission
Can I step in here?
NDP
John Rafferty NDP Thunder Bay—Rainy River, ON
You might want to step in with the rest of my question, because I'm going to ask you, how would you proceed with further study if you had the opportunity? Some time down the road would the commission also like to be part of taking another look at this to see how well things are going?
Interim Chair, Chair's Office, Royal Canadian Mounted Police Public Complaints Commission
The answer to the second part of your question is yes. The answer to the first part is no. Let me expand on that.
No, we see this as part of an ongoing process. One report is not going to solve the problem. But as I indicated earlier, this was the first time that anybody has reviewed all of the harassment files the RCMP has, so you have a starting point. I was—