Public Safety committee  The funding that's been attributed to this particular bill is actually not just for the PCRC. There is also funding that is going to CBSA, as well as to NSIRA. What I will tell you is that the total amount of funding that is being given for this bill is less than what we submitted at the lower end when we put forth our proposal for financing.

Public Safety committee  What I would share with you is that right now, about 90% of public complaints are made to the commission. There was a point in time when it was about 60%, and 40% were going to the detachments. Now the majority of public complaints are made to the commission. When a complaint comes in, we have a look at that complaint.

Public Safety committee  With additional funding, I would like to be able to take on more investigations myself, absolutely.

Public Safety committee  The commission in the past did a specified activity review on harassment in the RCMP, so we have done that—

Public Safety committee  Thank you, Mr. Chair. Good morning, and thank you for this opportunity to speak to you today. Bill C‑20 will expand the mandate of the Civilian Review and Complaints Commission—or the CRCC—to include not just the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, or RCMP, but also the Canada Border Services Agency, or CBSA.

Public Safety committee  We don't have a category for racially based complaints, but we do routinely make findings and recommendations in our reports that speak to the importance of cultural sensitivity within indigenous populations.

Public Safety committee  No it is not, but it doesn't mean that we wouldn't address the issue.

Public Safety committee  Yes, you're correct. The Privacy Act is the main reason why we do not do that, but if you go to our website, you will notice that we have begun to publish summaries of the complaints that we have received. We are going to continue doing that, going forward, to increase the transparency.

Public Safety committee  Yes, as you point out, we have done translation into many different languages. The best way that we can make the system more accessible is through increased public education and outreach. You are correct that when you look at that flow chart on our website, it can be highly confusing, but we've simplified the complaint form a great deal over the course of the past few years.

Public Safety committee  I think your idea is definitely worthy of consideration. There's no doubt that we need to do greater consultation. The other thing I need to highlight as well is that our process is a remedial process. Really, the focus is on identifying issues with policies, procedures and training.

Public Safety committee  The commission does have agreements in place with the translation bureau, where if an individual wishes to make a complaint and we do not have access to the individual's mother tongue, we do three-way calls with the translation bureau, between our intake officer and the individual who is making the complaint.

Public Safety committee  No, I'm not at all making that conclusion. As I indicated in my remarks, one thing the commission has noted is that indigenous people do not make use of the public complaints system. That is an issue for us that we need to work on. The best way to work on it is through better public education and better outreach, and the only way we get to that place is through increased resources and a statutory requirement to perform those activities.

Public Safety committee  I'll be able to provide you with those statistics afterwards. I don't have them at my fingertips right now. I can tell you that the commission is very diverse. In terms of gender balance, we're approximately 55% women, as a matter of fact, here at the commission, and we have a very diverse population.

Public Safety committee  On the commission right now in terms of policing, we do have some staff members who are former police officers. I must point out our role, though. We are civilian oversight. We take that very seriously. The most important thing from a staff perspective is that the staff of the commission need to have a diverse and broad range of experiences coming from very different areas.

Public Safety committee  The number of complaints that we receive on a yearly basis is between 3,000 and 3,500. The categories of allegations we have do not include discrimination or racism, but I can tell you that over the course of the last five years we've received 76 complaints that deal with racism, bias or discrimination.