Status of Women committee  As I've gone across the country and I've met with supervisors, I have noticed that they're stepping up a little bit. Some of them have some reservations and are looking forward to some of the changes that will come forward with Bill C-42, but I have noticed a renewed attentiveness to supervisory and managerial duties.

Public Safety committee  I can say that in these main estimates there is a net increase for the appropriations to the RCMP, attributable to the new contract policing model. We have about an 8% increase going into this year.

Public Safety committee  It's a pretty big, broad brush on our operations. Whatever we've done in the last year or two to make our operations more efficient has been behind operations. The idea is that we're not impacting operations.

Public Safety committee  I can't say specifically 50%, but I know that some of the smaller communities that we service are struggling with the costs of policing.

Public Safety committee  Of course, we police at the three levels, and we do this. For example, at the national level there is the deficit reduction action plan. We've done that; we have initiatives and we're re-calibrating. We do it provincially: each of my COs is doing it on a provincial basis. And municipally, with our partners in those municipalities we're doing the same thing.

Public Safety committee  Thank you for your question. However, it is not up to me to make decisions about the external commission. I think we want to have an arm's-length committee, so funding decisions about either the External Review Committee or the Commission for Public Complaints Against the RCMP aren't within my control.

Public Safety committee  That's my understanding: that there is funding for the new complaints commission. I think it will be helpful.

Public Safety committee  What I would say is that I'm aware of Montreal in particular and my good colleague Marc Parent and his work against the street gangs. It is a real challenge in some of our bigger communities. I think it falls to every police leader in major cities or, in my case, in some major cities but on a provincial basis, to have their strategies going forward to fight organized crime.

Public Safety committee  I'd be happy to answer it. I understood the question to be are there increases—

Public Safety committee  No. We're not spending money to help the Americans with their initiatives. We're spending money to help Canadians work with the Americans on similar initiatives, in terms of technology and patrols and integrated efforts in patrolling and inland investigations. So, we are.