CPC Chair responds to the RCMP Commissioner's letter with respect to the release of recent CPC public interest reports

December 16, 2009

Commissioner William J.S. Elliott
Royal Canadian Mounted Police
1200 Vanier Parkway
Ottawa Ontario K1A 0R2

Dear Commissioner:

This is further to our telephone conversation of December 9, 2009 and your letter to me of the same date delivered in the context of two Chair-initiated complaints and public interest investigations—the first being into the death of Robert Dziekanski and the second into the use of a Taser on a 15-year-old female inmate at the Arctic Tern facility in Inuvik, N.W.T.

Public Complaint Process

While I note that you are "troubled" by the Commission's apparent "deviation from established practice," the RCMP Act does not prescribe that the public release of a report following a public interest investigation carried out by the Commission must await the RCMP's response. It is inconceivable that Parliament intended the process to be held in abeyance during the RCMP's preparation of a response, as the inadvertent result could be the lengthy delay of the release of the Commission's findings and recommendations. Clearly, this would not be consistent with effective review.

Ample time was provided to the RCMP to provide thorough responses to these reports. The Commission's report into the Arctic Tern matter was delivered to your offices on September 23, 2009 and that into the Dziekanski death on October 16, 2009. During subsequent meetings and telephone conversations, I was clear that both of these reports dealt with issues of such importance to Canadians that extra efforts ought to be made to ensure their public release without delay.

CPC Service Standards

While I appreciate the recognition of the Commission's recent work at resolving its backlog, it is important to be aware that this was not "largely the result of significant increases in the financial and human resources" but rather the result of a concerted effort by all Commission employees and the self-imposition of performance-based service standards. No additional funds or resources were assigned for the purposes of preparing review decisions.

We imposed these service standards upon ourselves with the intent of achieving the notional timeline that a complaint should take no longer than one year to be fully resolved, in order to settle a chronic problem with a lengthy backlog. The Commission has repeatedly asked for the RCMP's cooperation, as a partner in the public complaint process, in doing the same.

As noted in the Commission's 2007-2008 Annual Report, unreasonable delays not only undermine the right of RCMP members and complainants to a timely response, but also undermine the credibility of the RCMP's commitment to the public complaint process. At that time, the Commission urged you to allocate the necessary human and financial resources to eliminate the RCMP backlog of Commissioner's Notices within the RCMP's current fiscal year.

In that same Annual Report, the Commission also reiterated its recommendation as set out in an earlier report dated December 31, 2007, that the RCMP implement public complaint service standards of six months to investigate and deliver a report to the complainant, thirty days to forward relevant material to the CPC for review cases, and thirty days to provide the Commissioner's Notice in response to interim reports issued by the CPC. Such service standards would enable non-contentious cases to be resolved within about six months and provide RCMP members and complainants with final decisions in review cases within a year of the date of the complaint. In April 2008 the CPC received correspondence from the RCMP indicating its intention to address the backlog and service standards issue.

While the RCMP did successfully clear up its large backlog last year, we note that it appears that the RCMP has not taken sufficient steps to prevent the recurrence of this problem. As of the date of this letter, the number of outstanding Commissioner's Notices has grown once again resulting in four reports being outstanding for longer than six months.

Commission Funding

It is clear that a review body must have the human and financial resources to effectively fulfill its mandate.  In 1988, the Commission had a budget of $3.1 million, whereas the RCMP had a budget of $1.3 billion. Today the Commission's permanent budget is $5.2 million with 40 full-time employees, whereas the RCMP had grown to $4.27 billion and 27,669 full-time employees as of fiscal year 2007-2008. 

Both the Auditor General and Justice O'Connor recognized that legislative powers must be accompanied by the financial means to exercise them. To that end, the previous Minister of Public Safety helped secure additional temporary funding in the amount of $3.7 million for the Commission in respect of the fiscal year ending March 31, 2009 and the current Minister approved $3.1 million of temporary funding in respect of the current fiscal year.

Those funds have allowed the Commission to perform a comprehensive review of Taser use by the RCMP, to launch a thorough review of the impartiality of RCMP investigations of members alleged to have committed criminal offences, to investigate the 10 instances of death in Canada proximal in time to RCMP use of the Taser, and to conduct a systemic review of all complaints disposed of by the RCMP in the calendar year 2007, to name but a few examples. Additionally, the Commission added resources to deal with increased complaint intake and to reach out to a number of Canada's marginalized communities.

Moving Forward

Throughout my career and in particular during my tenure as Chair of the Commission for Public Complaints Against the RCMP, I have had the privilege of meeting and working with a number of members of the RCMP. They, like the Commission, remain committed to maintaining and enhancing the public's confidence in the RCMP and their dedication to serving Canadians day in and day out in all corners of the country is commendable.

It is my hope that as we enter a new decade the constructive dialogue between the Commission and the RCMP continues as both organizations strive toward our common goal of effective, accountable policing in Canada.

Yours truly,

Paul E. Kennedy

To view Commissioner Elliott's letter to the CPC dated December 9, 2009, please visit:

Commissioner's Letter to the Chair of the Commission for Public Complaints Against the RCMP on the release of its recent reports