Public Safety committee  There are provisions for review bodies that don't exist in any other legislation. Why the government spent all the money it did on the Air India inquiry, the Brown task force, and the O'Connor inquiry, to then ignore their recommendations is beyond me. It's a step backward. The o

Public Safety committee  Yes. First of all, it's a contradiction in the section to have a provision that gives the chairman the ability to consider this fact situation and decide that the appropriate course of action is to suspend the hearing or process. Presumably, if the commissioner doesn't like the

Public Safety committee  That's right. It's that sufferance. There's a minor category of information that says it is strictly privileged and you won't get access to it anyway. There's a solicitor-client piece, and there is a piece dealing with medical records. There are some things dealing with minutes f

Public Safety committee  That's two of us. I didn't see that in there. I know there was going to be reference to provincial bodies with respect to criminal investigations, but it sounds redundant to have provincial bodies do complaint reviews in the areas that you just described. I don't think that is th

Public Safety committee  It's not just independence of the commission, although that's important. In the last number of years we've seen some very, I think, contentious issues for which the RCMP has been brought before parliamentary committees. There was the pension income issue, and so on. As a lawyer

Public Safety committee  In terms of the information, Justice O'Connor had a two-phase inquiry. One was to look at the treatment of Mr. Arar, and the second was to make policy recommendations vis-à-vis new legislation for oversight of the RCMP, in his case with national security. He made very specific re

Public Safety committee  The other thing is with reference to the privilege. Justice Major, whom I talked to, was scathing in terms of his comments that the RCMP over-claimed privilege, concealed information from him, and in some case a witness who wanted to testify, they claimed they needed the informat

Public Safety committee  I certainly want to thank you for offering me the opportunity to comment on Bill C-42. I will be making comments with respect to parts VI and VII, which deal with the civilian review and complaints, as found at approximately page 35 of the bill. To be effective and credible, a

Finance committee  Of course, I have four-plus years on the.... As chairman of the commission, one has to refresh one's knowledge of criminal law.

Finance committee  Twice.

Finance committee  Some, but usually I could convict you.

Finance committee  This is equivalent to the French “un”, as in “one”.

Finance committee  Yes.

Finance committee  I was a lawyer with the Department of Justice for 25 years. I started off as a criminal prosecutor in Toronto for about eight years. I picked it up again as the senior general counsel for the Federal Prosecution Service. I was responsible for the criminal prosecutions in Canada i

Finance committee  I think that is part of the problem. I'm sure they're all very competent people. I say that vis-à-vis my successor, who just didn't happen to have any background in criminal law but had a background in estate planning. Don't come to me for estate planning, but come to me for crim