First of all, Mr. Chair, in respect of the cost sharing and the fact that the province is the one that asks for the police officers, during the time that I was minister of justice, and my colleagues were ministers of justice in a government there, what we used to do was put as much money as we could into the RCMP budget, but we knew that money could not be spent because the RCMP could not supply us with enough officers consistently every single year. We knew that.
In fact, that government over there shut down Depot, the only training centre for RCMP officers in Canada. That government shut it down. That created a huge problem in terms of replacing individuals. Seven years ago we were told that within seven years over 50% of all RCMP officers would be eligible for retirement. We were told, “Increase recruitment. Increase classes”. What did the government do? It shut it down.
So yes, we can go to the province of Manitoba today and it has a budget for RCMP officers, but it cannot get the officers because this government will not deliver on those officers.