Public Safety Committee on May 31st, 2007

[Gerald Shur]

But it's difficult. I think for us it would probably be a difficult thing to do.

What has been done is that witnesses have been interviewed by some of the agencies I mentioned are inside government. Then sampling has been done, where letters have been sent to relocated witnesses, asking about problems and such. Then information on complaints we've received from either investigative agents or U.S. attorneys, or from the witnesses, is turned over—again internally—to governmental agencies, but outside of those who handle the witness protection program.

[The Chair, Conservative, Garry Breitkreuz]

Would you wrap it up with just one more question?

[Sue Barnes, Liberal, London West, ON]

Okay.

I was quite surprised at your six-month cut-off of funds. That's relatively fast, I would think.

If people are trained in one area and they go to another location and try to obtain the same type of employment, I would think they're more likely to be found than somebody who was retrained in another area.

I was wondering, both of you, if you're aware of retraining for people inside the witness protection program, and how often it's done or not done in different communities.

[Gerald Shur]

Let me correct that six-month figure. There is a memorandum of understanding that witnesses sign, which simply sets out what will happen for and to them, and so forth, if they're relocated. In there it says that employment would be expected within six months.

That is not realistic; they do not find jobs in six months. I thought I had made that clear earlier, but obviously I did not. It says six months, but it takes over a year. I think I said 16 months is how long it's actually been taking. It may have been my mistake, I'm not sure, but they are receiving assistance until they are employed. They're not just terminated and dropped.

If they refuse to go to work, we might try to seek a welfare benefit for them. We've had one witness who refused to work and said, “I'm too proud for welfare.” It's one of the dilemmas you're confronted with.

[The Chair, Conservative, Garry Breitkreuz]

Professor Fyfe, do you have a comment?

[Prof. Nick Fyfe]

Yes, briefly.

I'm not aware of retraining being provided to witnesses—certainly from the work we've done in the U.K.

I think one of the other things we came across when we were doing the research within Scotland was that the vast majority of relocated witnesses were not in employment before they went into the program. They were living on welfare support, and therefore when they were relocated they were simply kept on welfare programs after that. So the issue of employment, certainly in the short term, didn't arise for them.

[The Chair, Conservative, Garry Breitkreuz]

Thank you very much.

I'm sorry, but did you have another comment?

[Gerald Shur]

I keep doing this to you. You'll never invite me back, I'm sure.

Retraining is very important. We do retraining. We will take people who do not have a skill and we've sent them to truck driving school and those sorts of thing. What we try not to do is take a hijacker and get him a job as a truck driver or send him to truck driving school. You don't take a counterfeiter and put him in a printing plant. You don't do that.

But we do retraining, and we have even sent people to college.

[The Chair, Conservative, Garry Breitkreuz]

Thank you.

We're now going to go to the government side again. Mr. MacKenzie.

I would like to notify the committee that I'm turning the chairmanship over to Mr. Cullen, as I have to leave.

I would like to thank the witnesses very much. I'm sorry I can't stay until the end, but I will be reading the transcript. Your testimony has been very, very helpful. Thank you very much.

Mr. MacKenzie.

[Dave MacKenzie, Conservative, Oxford, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Just for the witnesses, I also come from a background in policing, most of which was in criminal investigations and then as chief of police.

In some of what you've said, particularly Mr. Shur, you talked about a gut feeling, and I think sometimes police officers refer to that as policing intuition.

But what we're talking about here is not necessarily what people would think of as the family down the street. The people being relocated—and I think somebody indicated they are in the area of less than 5%—are not whom you would call witnesses that were not involved. We're talking about people from inside the crime family, in the biggest sense.

I think, Professor Fyfe, you indicated that very few of these people were already working.

In our view, we need to look at 100%, but the vast majority of these people come from backgrounds where they're not professionals; they're not people from a steady employment background, and, equally, they're not coming from what a lot of us would think of as a normal family background.

Am I fair in that assessment?

[Gerald Shur]

That's correct.

[Dave MacKenzie, Conservative, Oxford, ON]

So to relocate these people...when we talk about them being relocated from their families, many of them have been estranged from families for some time up to that point anyway.

[Gerald Shur]

In the United States, I would say that most of the people we relocate who were married, are married, so their immediate families are being relocated with them.

[Dave MacKenzie, Conservative, Oxford, ON]

But the extended family they've been estranged from?

[Gerald Shur]

If they've been estranged from their extended families, certainly the extended family does not want to be relocated with them or anywhere near them, unless they are in danger. And we have done this; we have relocated extended families in danger to different cities.

[Dave MacKenzie, Conservative, Oxford, ON]

My point is that when we're concerned about the personal hardship in relocating some of these individuals from their extended families, they've already been estranged from their extended family long before this happened.

[Gerald Shur]

Correct.

[Dave MacKenzie, Conservative, Oxford, ON]

So it's not the same hardship.

The other gut reaction I have, and you can comment on it, is that having been involved in that field for some time, my sense is there's a fairly high level of suicide in that body compared to--if we could compare it--the normal population.

[Gerald Shur]

Yes. As we were discussing earlier, we did not find that in the studies I did in the seventies. Mr. Fyfe found a different result.

[Dave MacKenzie, Conservative, Oxford, ON]

Have you looked at the other part of that, Mr. Fyfe, with the criminal body?

[Prof. Nick Fyfe]

No, and that's a very good point, and it would be interesting to know whether the suicide rate was significantly higher among the relocated witnesses compared to the broader criminal body. That's a very good point.

[Dave MacKenzie, Conservative, Oxford, ON]

I agree with you. I just think those are very interesting parts of a study that may be difficult to do, but I think they do bear interest at least from this perspective.

Those are all my questions, Mr. Chair, and like my predecessor, I thank you very much for being here.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Roy Cullen]

Thank you very much, Mr. MacKenzie.

Ms. Barnes, do you have another question?

[Sue Barnes, Liberal, London West, ON]

For the record, I'm going on the assumption that maybe the majority could be characterized as have just been characterized, but I also understood that we only have one witness protection program and there is the possibility of innocent civilians who have witnessed crime, or maybe are bookkeepers to a situation, who are there, and I don't think we should characterize this as saying we have no concern.

I'm sorry, but I really do want to state that from our perspective as the official opposition.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Roy Cullen]

Does anyone have a comment?

We go now to the Conservatives.

Mr. Comartin, did you want to comment?