I'm sorry. With that explanation, would we not be setting ourselves up for the potential of some frivolous and vexatious types of complaints, when all we'd have to do is clear up the language here and say, “with authorization, a third party may”?
I know it's your practice and that's what you expect, but if the act doesn't say it.... People are always going to go back. They'll appeal your decision if you decide not to take their complaint, because the act says they can. It doesn't say anywhere in the act that they have to have authorization.
If you require the aggrieved individual to authorize it, then it would make sense that we put something like that in the act. Otherwise, you're opening yourselves up to a world of hurt and tying up your processes with people who just want to tie up your processes without any skin in the game. They just want to tie up the process and cause aggravation.
I hope there is some understanding of that. We're trying to make it easy for the public who have a complaint to have it be dealt with, but we all know that in our society, there are those who are litigious, frivolous and vexatious in their complaints and have zero impact on the people who may be aggrieved.
I think it would behoove us to ensure that if we're going to change any language, we add language that clarifies that it's “with authorization from the aggrieved individual”, or whatever wording you want to put in there.
Otherwise, I think by expanding this to include the CBSA and RCMP.... I would defer to some of my former law enforcement colleagues to talk about that—even CBSA colleagues. Will leaving out that clarity cause the potential for workload...?
We're not actually improving what we intend to improve with this legislation, and that is to make sure that those who have been aggrieved are heard, that their investigation is dealt with appropriately and in a timely fashion, and that they get a response back from the investigating body—whether it's the RCMP, the CBSA and/or the commission—but with the understanding that, if I'm a third party and I want to make a complaint, I have the aggrieved individual's permission to do so.
I'd be more than happy to hear from officials about their take on that.