Thank you.
I have relatively uninformed comments because I haven't had the benefit of hearing the other witnesses before this committee.
Taking the second question first, my understanding and my experience in the ministry is that ministers have always welcomed review committees. These agencies were welcomed not only by the minister and the department, the secretariat or the department of the solicitor general, but also by an important school of thought within the RCMP.
The same is true I believe of CSIS historically, although there was a very rough patch at the beginning of CSIS because initially they thought they were an oversight committee and they found out they were only a review committee, for after the fact reviews, which itself is important. I think they're complementary.
Going back to the first question, my understanding of the history in Canada of the relationship between the minister and the RCMP is there is the notion that the RCMP is accountable to the minister and that the minister provides policy direction, except for quasi-judicial activities of deciding to investigate individual acts, arrests, etc. That has always been the core notion in the relationship between the RCMP and successive solicitors general.