Public Safety committee  Mr. Chair, there is a decrease of $342,000. This is the end of what was always designed to be temporary short-term funding for the external review committee. The cut is parallel with some shrinkage in the size of that organization given that with the coming into effect of Bill C-

Public Safety committee  Mr. Chair, the main estimates are indeed reflecting a reduction in the funding for emergency management. Part of this, $2 million, is actually a technical adjustment; the money is being transferred to Public Works and Government Services, but it is still with respect to emergency

Public Safety committee  Briefly, Mr. Chair, I think it's important to note that when we're talking about the budget that's allocated for the disaster financial assistance arrangements, it's essentially a notional amount. It's established at roughly $100 million every year. It is demand driven. If we rec

Procedure and House Affairs committee  No. Mr. Chair, once again, if we had reason to believe, based on our analysis, that there was an identifiable amount, we would certainly have included that, first of all, in the discussions and the funding request, but it would also be captured in the material that we provided.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Mr. Chair, Bill C-5, which deals with the international transfer of offenders, essentially changes the criteria under which the minister can consider a request to transfer an offender. As we've indicated in the material that has been provided to the committee, we do not see at th

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Mr. Chair, we see there are potential implications for Correctional Service Canada, the Parole Board, and the Department of Foreign Affairs. At this point in time, our professional judgment is that the implications are so remote and so ill-defined and would be of a magnitude th

Public Accounts committee  I would have the exact same response, Mr. Chair.

Public Accounts committee  Certainly. The vast majority of the recommendations that came out of this committee—I did allude to that committee's report when I commenced my opening remarks today—relate to the internal functioning of the RCMP. The commissioner is in the best position.... You asked earlier f

Public Accounts committee  Really, in terms of when the committee would be aware, I can't speculate, Mr. Chair. I can tell you that once we receive the material from the commissioner--and this would not be a memorandum, this would be a significant body of work I expect--

Public Accounts committee  --we will need to take the time to go through that. There will probably be some questioning back to the RCMP to get better information so that we have as full a package...in my experience, that type of exercise would probably take more than a couple of months.

Public Accounts committee  Mr. Chair, I respect the RCMP commissioner. In my opinion, it is essential to have his point of view before beginning my own work. This is out of absolute respect for the RCMP. This is a governance arrangement that will affect that institution. I must hear from them first, as sh

Public Accounts committee  No. This idea of a board, as we acknowledged, has been around for a few years. Late last year, when the commissioner indicated publicly his support for it, we had some discussions and concluded that, well, before we could take that idea any further, we would need to do a comprehe

Public Accounts committee  You know, we shouldn't assume that nothing has happened in the last three years. We had a Reform Implementation Council that worked for three years. Its mandate only ended in December. We received its final report, which was made public in January. That was critical input and an

Public Accounts committee  Mr. Chair, I have to register that I take the deliberations of the public accounts committee now--and I always have in my career--extraordinarily seriously. This is important input by parliamentarians. To attribute the fact that we need time as somehow a condemnation of the work

Public Accounts committee  Mr. Chair, as the commissioner--