Public Safety committee  Thank you. Mr. Chair, honourable members, thank you for inviting me here today to speak to you about Bill C-59, An Act respecting national security matters. As you said, Mr. McKay, I am accompanied by Ms. Joanne Gibb, Director of the Research, Policy and Strategic Investigations

Public Safety committee  First of all, let me make it clear to the committee that the number of complaints that have a potential for being related to a security matter is very small. When we review the complaints in the commission since 2015, we can identify a half a dozen that might have been related to

Public Safety committee  —in a number of very small cases.... And whether it warrants an amendment in and of itself, I will leave to the committee to decide, but the lack of that as a provision in the legislation might prove to be an issue at some later date.

Public Safety committee  No, certainly not with regard to the commission itself, because, in our case, we're having some work removed from us and, as I say, the amount of work is fairly small. I think where there's more of a resource implication for us is if we did one of these systemic reviews like th

Public Safety committee  I'll make a few comments, and then I'll ask Ms. Gibb to add her own thoughts to this. As you correctly point out, this was a significant investigation by the CRCC into harassment in the workplace at the RCMP. I'm not sure that it has a national security dimension to it. We certa

Public Safety committee  I'm not aware that we've actually dealt with it as a specific subject. In a world where Bill C-59 did not exist, it would be an issue that would be on our list of systemic review issues that we might want to consider looking at in the future. Therefore, in the new context where t

Public Safety committee  Thank you for your question. It is very interesting and it is something our agency is concerned about, whether in relation to national security or otherwise, and which has been brought to our attention through complaints from members of the public. As you said, it is not just the

Public Safety committee  I will ask Ms. Gibb to provide further information if necessary, but I can say that there are no problems with the sharing of information between the RCMP and the commission at this time, nor do we expect there to be any either when the changes in question come into effect. Under

Public Safety committee  No. Actually, we would not receive much information about the review of a complaint.

Public Safety committee  First of all, we want to meet the legal requirement, under the act, to refer cases involving national security to the new agency. However, in an investigation relating to a worrisome national security issue, if we find that an RCMP member did not fulfill their obligations, their

Public Safety committee  That is not our responsibility.

Public Safety committee  No. The commission does not deal with criminal matters at all. Its role is to determine whether an RCMP member's conduct is in violation of the policies, training, and legislation that dictate their conduct. If there are legal proceedings because of the conduct of an RCMP member,

Public Safety committee  I will heed Mr. McKay's warning and limit myself to a few brief remarks. First, we know full well that the government is considering the need for a body like ours to review complaints about actions by members of that organization. If such an agency is created, it would be in t

Public Safety committee  No, we do not have a particular definition.

Public Safety committee  One could spend a fair amount of time—