Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The relationship between the department and the RCMP is governed not by written protocol, but more or less by convention which would obtain not only here but in every province of Canada and probably Australia and England and all the commonwealth countries. The way it works is that it is quite legitimate for us to suggest to the RCMP that we feel it is important that they, for example, dedicate more effort, more of their resources to something like aboriginal policing, restorative justice or that we feel that it is important to increase the size of the economic crime unit because of a rash of frauds or something like that.
We do not ever become involved in active investigations or cases. We would never make any suggestion to the RCMP whatsoever as to how they should conduct an investigation. They do, as a courtesy, inform me often that certain investigations are going on. The reason for that is that the senior legal officer in the land, the Attorney General for the Northwest Territories, has an interest in knowing about some investigations that are going on. The one involving this government really did not come to light until the fact of that investigation was made public, I think by CBC or the newspapers. I hope that answers the Member's question. Thank you.