Public Safety Committee on May 8th, 2007

[A/Commr Mike McDonell]

I've held this position for 18 months. My response would be that there are not a lot.

[Laurie Hawn, Conservative, Edmonton Centre, AB]

Would it be a hockey team, a football team, the National Hockey League?

[A/Commr Mike McDonell]

I won't go there, sir.

[Laurie Hawn, Conservative, Edmonton Centre, AB]

Do these folks come from a variety of...? I mean, they're not just Canadians. And again, you may not be able to answer this, but are we protecting a mix of Canadians and foreign nationals who happen to be in Canada?

[A/Commr Mike McDonell]

I can't answer that.

[Laurie Hawn, Conservative, Edmonton Centre, AB]

They would come from a variety of countries, but you wouldn't be able to answer that either, and I understand. Non-answers are sometimes as good as answers, so that's okay.

We may not know these numbers, but how many have we lost from the witness protection program? By “lost”, I mean protection has broken down to the point that they've been killed. Do we have a number?

[Supt Gordon B. Schumacher]

I'm not aware of any, nationally or provincially.

[A/Commr Mike McDonell]

I'm not aware of any deaths, but there has been one failure in the system within the RCMP in which the identity got out.

[Laurie Hawn, Conservative, Edmonton Centre, AB]

According to the information we have, there have been a number of cases of involuntary termination of protection. I assume that to mean the person wants protection and has had protection, but has been subsequently told he or she doesn't need it any more. What kind of decision-making would drive that, Mr. Izzett?

[S/Insp Steve Izzett]

I'm not so sure. What do you mean by that question?

[Laurie Hawn, Conservative, Edmonton Centre, AB]

Well, the 2005-06 annual report indicated there were seven cases in which there was an involuntary termination of protection. I take that to mean that a person wanted protection but was deemed not to need it.

[S/Insp Steve Izzett]

That's the federal document, sir. I'm not aware of that.

[Laurie Hawn, Conservative, Edmonton Centre, AB]

Mr. McDonell, do you have any--?

[A/Commr Mike McDonell]

In some cases those would be instances in which the person returned, against the direction of their handler, to the area from which they were removed. In other cases they became involved in criminality again. Then they're instantly....

[Laurie Hawn, Conservative, Edmonton Centre, AB]

In terms of the objective being employability and getting these people off somebody's effective welfare payroll and back into being relatively productive citizens, what kind of success rate do you have with that, federally? Do you have any numbers on that?

[A/Commr Mike McDonell]

I can take that.

I don't have a specific number, but I know that we spend quite a bit on retraining people. There are psychologists and everything. Significant effort is put into seeding them into society as contributing members of that society. I can attempt to get numbers of who actually holds a job and who is still a drain.

[Laurie Hawn, Conservative, Edmonton Centre, AB]

It would indicate how successful that is, or if it is just a permanent welfare program, which in some cases it obviously will be.

Were you cutting me off there, Mr. Chair?

[The Chair, Conservative, Garry Breitkreuz]

If it's on that particular point, is there any clarification...?

[Laurie Hawn, Conservative, Edmonton Centre, AB]

No, that's fine. I just thought I heard you say--

[The Chair, Conservative, Garry Breitkreuz]

Yes, you are over time. Thank you.

That ends the first round. We'll now begin the second round.

Go ahead, Mr. Cullen, please.

[Roy Cullen, Liberal, Etobicoke North, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to the witnesses for being here.

Staff Inspector Izzett, I'd like to come back to a comment that Superintendent Schumacher made earlier in response to Mr. Ménard. He implied or more directly stated that most, if not all, of the people in the program have been engaged in some form of criminality.

I'm wondering, in the Toronto experience, are there no people who come forward who are just honest citizens and say, “I know who did this, I'd like to cooperate, but I'm going to be in real trouble”? I'm thinking of my riding of Etobicoke North, the Rexdale-Jamestown Crescent, where we've had a spate of this type of gun crime. Are there any people in the Toronto Police Service program who are just honest citizens looking for protection, or are they all involved in criminality?

[S/Insp Steve Izzett]

Absolutely. It has been mentioned here on a number of occasions, and in my opening remarks I tried to comment on the fact that this is not about organized crime only; this is about criminality within communities that erodes those very communities.

We do have witnesses to whom we have afforded protection who, through socio-economic circumstances, were in the location or in the wrong location at the wrong time, happened to witness an event, and required protection from society. Yes, that's absolutely correct.

[Roy Cullen, Liberal, Etobicoke North, ON]

Okay.

I remember a chat I had with Chief Blair one time about witness protection, and he said to me that yes, we need these programs where people's identities can be changed and they're shipped off somewhere, but there are things that can be done equally efficiently through the judicial process, the judicial system. I'm not a lawyer, but I gathered from that that he was indicating that things could be done in a way that people provide testimony at trials, maybe in camera. I'm not exactly sure what he was referring to.

Are there things that could be done, in addition to the kind of identity change program that we've been talking about, through the judicial process that will protect witnesses who want to come forward?

[S/Insp Steve Izzett]

Without speaking on any specific case, I have three detectives full-time who look after witness protection for the Toronto Police Service. They apply creativity in every single instance, and that creativity includes the issues we talk about: employability, location, other avenues and options to enhance the safety of the individual. It is not just about relocation and change of identity; it's a number of different factors that can create a safer environment for the witness.

As for testimony in camera, I can't comment on that. I'm not fully conversant with that issue.

[Roy Cullen, Liberal, Etobicoke North, ON]

I may have just inferred that from what he said, and maybe he was talking about the kinds of things you've just mentioned.

Now, I come back to my colleague Ms. Barnes' comment. If you look at my riding, Rexdale, there have been a lot of gun-related crimes, innocent people put at risk, but in many, many cases, not many people coming forward. And we have Crime Stoppers, the 1-800 numbers, the anonymous phone numbers. If people won't come forward in those circumstances, how will they come forward if they're offered some kind of witness protection? Is it just that they don't trust the anonymity of a Crime Stoppers number, for example? What's going on there?