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Public Safety committee No, no, I did not mean to say that. What I did mean to say is that the bill provides authority for a province or the new complaints and review body to appoint an independent observer to make observations about the impartiality of the investigation, should the RCMP or, frankly, any other police service other than a civilian investigative body investigate a serious incident.
October 3rd, 2012Committee meeting
Richard Wex
Public Safety committee Mr. Chair, I would simply say that it's a question better posed to the government.
October 3rd, 2012Committee meeting
Richard Wex
Public Safety committee What this bill does is strengthen the accountability structures with respect to the RCMP.
October 3rd, 2012Committee meeting
Richard Wex
Public Safety committee If the commissioner had his preference, I think as he indicated it would always be a civilian investigative body or another police service that would investigate the RCMP, not because there is actual bias, frankly, based on the reviews that have been conducted from the CPC, who have done a review of police investigating police, but more because, as you've pointed out, there's always this perception.
October 3rd, 2012Committee meeting
Richard Wex
Public Safety committee I was just trying to clarify.
October 3rd, 2012Committee meeting
Richard Wex
Public Safety committee One of the major drivers for enhancing the civilian review body was to strengthen its powers and broaden its mandate. There were three main areas, as I mentioned earlier, at a high level. The first is to have much greater access to information. One of the criticisms of the current review body has been that it simply doesn't have access to all of the records that it felt it needed to, to get to the bottom of the matter.
October 3rd, 2012Committee meeting
Richard Wex
Public Safety committee The last point is that, importantly, the new body will be able to expand its mandate to conduct policy reviews, not only deal with complaints, but undertake policy reviews. This was a major recommendation of a number of reports, similar to the member's question with respect to SIRC.
October 3rd, 2012Committee meeting
Richard Wex
Public Safety committee Maybe I can simply add I don't know the context within which that was said. It could very well have been said “in the absence of”, because there are cases where there are no civilian investigative bodies available to do the investigation. In those cases, the next best thing is a police service.
October 3rd, 2012Committee meeting
Richard Wex
Public Safety committee Oh, yes, that is true. The new civilian review body is only dealing with public complaints. It is not dealing with criminal investigations. It is the provinces, under the administration of justice, that are responsible for policing—
October 3rd, 2012Committee meeting
Richard Wex
Public Safety committee I will have to check the actual bill, but my recollection is that there is a chair, a vice-chair, and up to three other members. The chair is full time and the other members can be part time. Subject to confirming with the bill, which I will do when the next question likely goes to the commissioner, I will take a look and confirm that.
October 3rd, 2012Committee meeting
Richard Wex
Public Safety committee There's a Governor in Council appointee, so there's a process that's established. It's available on the Privy Council website, which says how it's run. Presumably it would be somebody with a background in criminology, law, or policing.
October 3rd, 2012Committee meeting
Richard Wex
Public Safety committee It could be a former police officer from another police service, yes.
October 3rd, 2012Committee meeting
Richard Wex
Public Safety committee I'm not surprised about the confusion. Life's a little complicated, and this is particularly complicated. If it's a public complaint, if it's a complaint from an individual who is not happy with how he's been treated by the RCMP, he would register his complaint at first instance, as is the case now, with the RCMP.
October 3rd, 2012Committee meeting
Richard Wex
Public Safety committee You could, in fact. Policing is becoming increasingly integrated. There's a lot of cooperation between the RCMP and other police services. In the event that there is a complaint dealing with one of these integrated operations, rather than having two complaint investigations going on by a provincial body and the new CRCC, this bill will for the first time allow for joint investigations.
October 3rd, 2012Committee meeting
Richard Wex
Public Safety committee Actually, it raises a very interesting question that causes a lot of confusion, and I've heard a little bit of it here this afternoon. There are three things going on. You have a complaint from the public as a result of alleged misconduct or what have you—an incident that went a little south.
October 3rd, 2012Committee meeting
Richard Wex