Public Safety committee  Good morning, Committee Chair and honourable members of Parliament. My name is Patrick Mehain. I'm a director of the British Columbia Mounted Police Professional Association. I've been involved in the association movement my entire 18-year career. I was president of the B.C. MP

Public Safety committee  Exactly, yes.

Public Safety committee  That's correct, absolutely. We should all have to account for it. We've said that all my notebooks aren't mine; my notebooks belong to the RCMP, and they're kept for 100 years.

Public Safety committee  I guess time will tell. As you said, the commissioner already has the ability to review and agree or disagree with the external review committee. Honestly, I don't know. I'm hopeful. We would like the bill in place to modernize the RCMP Act, but we have concerns with certain as

Public Safety committee  The investigations are still ongoing. Every time something has come forward, a sexual harassment complaint or a harassment complaint, it is taken fairly seriously. That is my perception of the situation. You know, investigations need to be investigated. One of the problems has b

Public Safety committee  It is. It is on a regular basis. Regardless of what that says, it's used on a regular basis against the member, no matter what the legislation says. Regularly, we're investigated.

Public Safety committee  No, and that's something that needs to be addressed. There has to be something that will hold the RCMP accountable, to say this isn't going to happen any more.

Public Safety committee  We've always had to provide an account of our actions. What this is saying is that you must provide a statement now. It says you will sit down with me, I'm going to interview you, and you're going to provide that statement. An account of my action is, “ I got on duty; I went to

Public Safety committee  That's correct, yes.

Public Safety committee  If you ask me to come in for a statement, we'll sit down, and you will say, “Okay, tell me what happened”, and I'll give you my account of the story. Then you will start interviewing me on what you may consider are inconsistencies or ask other questions you want me to further exp

Public Safety committee  We haven't seen any change since Commissioner Paulson came in and said he was going to get rid of the dark-hearted people. It continues today. The commissioner sent an email to Staff Sergeant Chad out in British Columbia because he responded to a video message the commissioner

Public Safety committee  It may, but part of the problem is that it's management, whether that's a non-commissioned officer, a corporal of my rank, or all the way up to the commissioner. We're generally the ones who are conducting the harassment, because you're the supervisors. There is a big fear amon

Public Safety committee  I agree.

Public Safety committee  The commissioner already has the power to fire people, so this is expanding his power by removing a few policies that are in place that make him go through certain steps to ensure due process.

Public Safety committee  Yes, if you don't provide a statement the commissioner can still find against you.