Public Safety Committee on April 19th, 2007

[C/Supt Derek R. Ogden]

We haven't conducted a formal review, but we do participate with a number of other countries that have witness protection acts. There have been a number of discussions internally as to other ways we may be able to improve the process.

[Joe Comartin, NDP, Windsor—Tecumseh, ON]

Do you have any report on that, or recommendations?

[C/Supt Derek R. Ogden]

We presented a proposal that was really just a draft proposal, but the general theme behind the draft proposal was that there is only one witness protection program under the witness protection act, and that's the one administered through the commissioner and the assistant commissioner. But there are other provinces that have their own witness protection program, such as Quebec and Ontario. The City of Montreal has its own. Vancouver has a partial program, where they're integrated with the British Columbia office that we have, and Manitoba has a program.

One thing you have to recognize with many of these different programs operating is that the standards aren't consistent across the board, so the training for the person who does the--

[Joe Comartin, NDP, Windsor—Tecumseh, ON]

I need to break in because I'm on limited time here. My question was, is there a report on any changes that should be made in the law, or any recommendations as to whether this law, the federal law, should be changed?

[The Chair, Conservative, Garry Breitkreuz]

That will be your last question. I'm sorry.

[C/Supt Derek R. Ogden]

The report dealt more with how an integrated national witness protection program could be structured.

[The Chair, Conservative, Garry Breitkreuz]

Thank you.

Now, moving over to the government side, Mr. Norlock.

[Rick Norlock, Conservative, Northumberland—Quinte West, ON]

To follow up on Mr. Comartin's question, where did the report go? To whom did it go, and what would be the fallout from it? What decision-making processes—?

[A/Commr Raf Souccar]

This report was completed with options as to how to improve the program, and it was distributed among provincial representatives, because what Derek was saying is that there is really one legislated program in the country, and that's the witness protection act. The other programs that he referred to, which are in various provinces, are not legislated.

The differences in the programs sometimes cause some difficulties, so it was a suggestion about creating a national program, if you will, so that everybody would be able to work in partnership. All the different provinces, non-RCMP partners, would be able to work in partnership under one program.

[Rick Norlock, Conservative, Northumberland—Quinte West, ON]

Would that program be overseen by the RCMP, or would it be a collective oversight process?

[A/Commr Raf Souccar]

There would be integrated units, if we were across the country, that would incorporate members of the different agencies taking part in it, including in Ottawa, the headquarters, where the requests for admissions and terminations would come. It would also be an integrated unit, but ultimately it would be overseen by the RCMP in terms of admissions and terminations. All the advice going up would be formulated by integrated units.

[Rick Norlock, Conservative, Northumberland—Quinte West, ON]

Thank you.

I'd like to do some sort of bean counting, if you don't mind my using that terminology. I have been in a similar organization to yours, and bean counting was often referred to as the costs, and that is going toward some of Ms. Barnes' questioning.

One of the requirements of persons in our job, and I would suggest in your job, is to ensure that we get the best value for our dollar. Of course safety comes first. We never want to jeopardize the safety of the program or the individuals, but we need to know how much they cost to be able to make determinations of that, once again, value for dollars.

I see that in the 2005-06 program in the annual report there was a decrease to $1.9 million from $2.5 million, but I think it was Mr. Ogden who said that not included in those were the actual costs of the officers' time. Sometimes it is very difficult to put a dollar value, but having knowledge of some of the systems, being able to track those dollars, to be able to look at those costs to see if we are indeed getting value for money would be of great help not only to parliamentarians but to Canadians in general.

Perhaps I missed it, but is there a time when we could expect that to occur?

[A/Commr Raf Souccar]

I don't think it would be a very difficult thing to do, to tie all costs, including salary dollars, to the extent that we have individuals who are specifically tasked with witness protection duties. That's all they do. If we were to take their yearly salary dollars, we may not be able to tie that to specific cases, but we would certainly be able to tell you, with the number of witness protection coordinators we have across Canada and the number of coordinators in Ottawa, what are the total salary dollars as well as award payments, or relocation payments, subsistence payments, training payments, and so on.

[Rick Norlock, Conservative, Northumberland—Quinte West, ON]

That's where I was going. I don't think it's fair to the individual case, but you know you have x number of cases a year, and this is what the program costs, so this is the average cost. We know in some cases it will be extremely difficult—or extremely expensive, in some people's cases—to do it.

I have a couple of other quick questions.

I know we cooperate—and you've indicated that—with other nations in witness protection. Would we indeed share responsibilities vis-à-vis the person who needs to get out of a country in order to get that change of identity? Do we participate in that in a cooperative way with other nations?

[A/Commr Raf Souccar]

Absolutely, we do—not very often, but we do. There are reciprocal agreements entered into, minister to minister, and it's on a complete cost recovery basis. If we are assisting another country, all our costs associated with looking after their witness relocations—any expenses incurred, our travel over to the foreign country to evaluate the witness as to whether or not he or she could live within the Witness Protection Program Act, the section 7 criteria—would be paid by the foreign country wishing to relocate a witness to Canada.

[Rick Norlock, Conservative, Northumberland—Quinte West, ON]

Thank you.

Do I have any more time?

[The Chair, Conservative, Garry Breitkreuz]

You have about a minute and a half.

[Rick Norlock, Conservative, Northumberland—Quinte West, ON]

Okay, then I have just a couple of quick questions.

Suppose someone is involved in an investigation. The investigating officer realizes this person is a relatively important part of the case. Is it normal procedure for us to offer the person this protection, or does the person request it? Do we often turn people down because we don't think it's appropriate? What are the mechanics here?

[A/Commr Raf Souccar]

That's when it's important to understand the difference between informant and agent, which I referred to during my opening comment. An informant is a human source who supplies information to the police. The person simply provides information. We accept that information—thank you very much—and we act on it.

As soon as we begin to direct a human source to do certain things on our behalf, such as to go and buy drugs from a target—to go and do any number of activities that we may direct a human source to do—that human source becomes an agent, because now he or she is acting under our direction.

Agents—we end up owning them, to the extent that they have to testify in court. They become compellable, and as soon as that happens, before we move from that informant to that agent status, we have to do a proper assessment to determine whether we can afford to own that person. When I say “owning that person”, I am referring to what I said when Mr. Ménard asked me what it costs. I told him the costs vary quite a bit, based on the assets that the person may have, the number of people in the person's family, what it would cost to relocate that individual, and how much that individual owes in debts, because those debts have to be paid off before the individual is admitted into the program—things of this nature. We have to do a complete evaluation as to whether we can end up owning up that person to the extent of admitting her or him into the program and looking after her or his expenses. The assessment by the witness protection coordinators determines whether we can do so.

There's a sliding scale, of course, and the sliding scale is the importance of the criminal organization we're going after, so we may be able to extend ourselves a little more. Based on that assessment, a decision is made that we can admit that person. The witness is met. The witness protection program is very clearly explained to the person. We look at the individual to determine whether or not that individual can live within this very tightly framed witness protection program. It requires, first of all, a certain amount of discipline, because witnesses have to sever ties. They have to sever ties with where they came from.

We look at all these factors, all the section 7 factors. We determine the harm to the community. There are about seven or eight factors, including risk and security of the witness, danger to the community, nature of the inquiry, nature of the investigation, value of the information or evidence, likelihood of the witness being able to adjust to the program, costs of maintaining the witness in the program, alternate methods—meaning whether there's a way to deal with that person without having to put her or him into the witness protection program—and any other factors that become relevant.

Once that is done, a determination is made. It is explained to the witness, who signs a protective agreement that sets out very clearly that the witness is not going to be living in any bubble. He or she will be subject to all the laws of the country. Then a relocation is made.

[The Chair, Conservative, Garry Breitkreuz]

Thank you. Your time is up.

That completes the first round. Before we go to Ms. Barnes, I would like to ask you, for the purposes of research and for the information of this committee in case we write a report, whether you could provide us with copies of court decisions in which bans were obtained under the Canada Evidence Act. Can you supply us with that type of information? It may be helpful as we're doing research here. It was referred to in a previous--

[David Bird]

We'll do our best, at the same time as we give you information on the three cases you asked about.

[The Chair, Conservative, Garry Breitkreuz]

We're down to the next round.

Ms. Barnes.

[Sue Barnes, Liberal, London West, ON]

I think we have lots of questions on this side, so we may have to have these witnesses back. I'll tell you that now.

First of all, in my last round of questioning you talked about having a policy regarding how the funds...and quite frankly, I'm not as concerned personally about the expenses of the RCMP involved, that you're talking about in a revamped 2006-07 report. That does not concern me as much as how the funds go to the individuals. You've said you have a policy. Is this a written policy?

[A/Commr Raf Souccar]

Yes.

[Sue Barnes, Liberal, London West, ON]

Can this policy be forwarded to the clerk of the committee?