Public Safety committee  Yes.

Public Safety committee  First, the authorities that are proposed for the commissioner here are not authorities that aren't available to existing deputy ministers within the public service. It's not like I'm getting any sort of big, spectacular enhancement of powers. Now, that said, it's important to understand that appeals and grievances will still be available to employees, and that in cases where we are seeking dismissal of employees—not just in dismissals, but in other cases—they'll have the opportunity to seek the External Review Committee's review of the circumstances.

Public Safety committee  Let me give you a quick illustration. In the G-8/G-20, we had the CPC doing an investigation of our engagement there, and then we had the Ontario review/complaints body doing a similar investigation. Because we had an integrated plan to respond to the G-8/G-20, there was all sorts of crossover.

Public Safety committee  If I can express a little self-interest here, the RCMP needs to be recognized for having always been open to review. I don't know why we've worn the assumption that police have investigated themselves. That's not our preference. We want to have other people investigate us. The more the merrier.

Public Safety committee  Well, I don't know out of those options that I have an A or a B. I think the minister shares my concern with what's going on in the force, and he has been very supportive in terms of trying to bring processes to bear on what the problem is.

Public Safety committee  As the minister mentioned, there is a projected cost, which was in our reform agenda, and there had been money set aside that we hadn't accessed. I think we're looking at almost $10 million—nine point something—in terms of costs, and that's our projected cost. That's what I estimate it will take to deliver on this.

Public Safety committee  I think both. I think we have seen instances where we've had some spectacular stories of these few bad apples that have attracted, properly, the condemnation of Canadians, who are wondering what's going on in Canada's national police force. So that's true. I think it's also true to say that the cultural problems of the RCMP have been fairly well researched and understood.

Public Safety committee  I haven't spent a lot of time considering that, but I can tell you that just in the last several months we've noticed an increase in harassment complaints. Right now we're at about 125 current harassment complaints. The last time I was before...I'm not sure if it was this committee or the other committee, but we were in the high 80s.

Public Safety committee  He didn't have to. I think I was appointed when the walls were falling down, so....

Public Safety committee  Yes, that's essentially correct. But I don't want to leave you with the impression that we are not actively trying to deploy means of rectifying conflict in the workplace early. The problem is that this enormously burdensome code of conduct investigative stream interferes with that.

Public Safety committee  The gender audit, as the minister spoke of moments ago, is in its draft form. I've just received it. We are working through it. We're going to make some changes. I would expect that it would be a couple of weeks, perhaps a month, before we have a final copy, and I'm happy to share it with everyone.

Public Safety committee  Yes.

Public Safety committee  Currently, if someone were to make a complaint of harassment, the person would do so to either his or her supervisor or to the alleged harasser's supervisor. A couple of streams of activity would engage. If it's alleged harassment against a regular member or a police officer, there's a question as to whether that alleged conduct constitutes a violation of our code of conduct.

Public Safety committee  Not in terms of the numbers of sexual harassment complaints. My gut tells me it's on par with other organizations. I can say, though, that in comparison to public service employees overall, with respect to harassment complaints generally, without breaking them down into the specific nature of the harassment....

Public Safety committee  I think it's important that we not blend the response to harassment and the discipline. What this bill seeks to do in respect of conduct is to separate conduct that needs to be corrected and have it corrected by managers at the lowest possible level as soon as possible. Those behaviours that attract the requirement to have people removed from the force will have all of the checks and balances that I think we can reasonably expect to have in the administrative disciplinary system.