Sure. I made the point that I was not affiliated with any political party and that I was a public servant for 30 years and now teach at the Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy at the University of Toronto.
In 2017, I conducted a study for the Department of Public Safety on the lack of review capacity at the Canada Border Services Agency. I recommended closing this gap through the creation of a review panel on the agency, similar to what is proposed in Bill C‑20.
I would like to underscore for the committee a few guiding principles or objectives that members might like to keep in mind while assessing Bill C-20.
The first is to promote the safety and security of Canada and Canadians. The second is to protect and respect the rights of Canadians. The third is to build trust and confidence in the agencies in the portfolio. The fourth is to ensure adequate accountability of these agencies, both for their actions and their management of complaints. As an alternative to what you heard from Mr. Sauvé before, I'd like to see that the responsibility is on the agency and not transferred to the commission. The fifth is to maintain secrecy and privacy. The sixth is to protect the rights of officials who are appropriately exercising their statutory duties, as Mr. Weber pointed out, and the last is to avoid duplication and promote co-operation.
There are also some constraints that I would suggest you have to decide how to balance.
First, the Government of Canada does not have a mandate for all security and safety issues. There are local and provincial police as well. Not all safety and security activities, even at the federal level, fall under the mandate of the Minister of Public Safety.
Building confidence and trust is often in conflict with secrecy. We've seen that recently. Issues are not always agency-specific. You need to be able to follow the thread across agencies and commissions. You must respect the complexity and difficulty of using intelligence as evidence, and good law enforcement requires good service delivery.
Finally, sometimes it's about officer conduct in the exercise of authority and discretion, and sometimes—and here's the one area in which I think Bill C-20 could be improved and in which I support the previous three witnesses, Sauvé, Campbell and Weber—it's a problem of systemic review.
An office with too many complaints or a type of complaint going beyond a particular officer may require the commission to initiate a review. Mr. Chiang, in the last session, appropriately pointed out that clause 28 allows the commission to initiate reviews, but only on “policy, procedure or guideline[s]”. I think that could be elaborated.
I would encourage you to find the sweet spot between the objectives and constraints.
The sweet spot is often in the eye of the beholder, and I think this bill does a reasonable job of finding that balance.
I'll be happy to answer any questions you have.