Public Accounts committee  I just wanted to add—

Public Accounts committee  You made a fairly serious allegation that there was a cover-up. As far as that is concerned, legal services had nothing to do with what has been called stalling tactics. Legal Services were in no way involved—directly or indirectly—in stalling tactics or in a cover-up. I don't kn

Public Accounts committee  I just wanted to clarify the matter, since the RCMP Legal Services have been implicated. You quoted from a document. Consequently, I at least want to—

Public Accounts committee  Yes. I don't agree with your premise, which is that in asking for a second opinion, there would be another five-month delay. When a second opinion was requested, I believe that it was clear to the client that efforts were being made to get the information out. I had to put a lot

Public Accounts committee  Yes.

Public Accounts committee  I think that you are trying to find out what the nature of my relationship with my client was, especially as far as this case is concerned. I know that you find it a little strange that I am not disclosing our conversations, our discussions, but I can tell you, generally speaking

Public Accounts committee  Your interpretation is incorrect. I said that cases are processed on two levels within legal services. You have to distinguish between the process and what I would call the substance. The processing of a file, its content and the legal opinions I give are protected by solicitor-c

Public Accounts committee  Normally, the issues involved in a legal opinion are also protected. I wanted to draw the attention of the committee to the fact that I have no control over the annotations made by a client on the activity report. That's not part of my work. The client can make any type of annota

Public Accounts committee  I would like to come back to the issue of the delays. First, I think it is rather unfair to ask me questions about the delays, since I have to respect the client-solicitor rule. Some of the information on the discussions I had with my client is protected by solicitor-client privi

Public Accounts committee  The client is the institution in this case.

Public Accounts committee  It's the RCMP. The client would have been the person who had been delegated authority by the minister—the minister being the Minister of Public Safety, who delegated authority to the commissioner, who in turn sub-delegated it. Therefore, in this case, Mr. Pierre Lavoie had the p

Public Accounts committee  No. Mr. Lavoie—

Public Accounts committee  In this case, the person I was dealing with was Mr. Lavoie.

Public Accounts committee  The deadline you are referring to is the one which applies to the Access to Information Office under the act. If the file had been processed the way it should have been by the Access to Information Office, we would have been told that a notice of prorogation had been sent to the

Public Accounts committee  The consultations lasted just under five months, which would come down to a bit less than 20 weeks in terms of business days. But I was not only working on this file. I should also point out that the file was processed with due regard to the Department of Justice's processes and