Sure. Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Professor Fyfe and Mr. Shur. My name is Roy Cullen. I'm a member of Parliament from the Toronto area, and I'm vice-chair of this committee. This will sound strange to Professor Fyfe, but Oxford, London, and Windsor are bedroom communities of Toronto. So you can see our British roots.
We've been talking about the traditional witness protection programs. Typically a criminal person is relocated, with identity changed, etc. But let me tell you a bit about my part of Toronto, where we've had a lot of gun-related crime and gangs and drugs. In fact, in my area they arrested 120-odd people in a big swoop a year or so ago, so there's been less of it, but we're still very concerned.
We've had in my area drive-by shootings, shootings in daylight, and no witnesses coming forward. The police are struggling with this constantly. You might have upright, honest citizens who have witnessed these events. They're not criminals. They probably don't want to move to Florida, notwithstanding the lovely climate there, sir, but the way the justice system works in Canada, though I'm not a lawyer myself, you cannot really do anonymous testimony, because at a discovery it becomes a public matter.
So I'm wondering whether there are other models that have been looked at, or whether you've had any experience with working on witness protection programs that are dealing with, let's say, normally honest citizens who have witnessed crimes but are absolutely petrified to come forward because of possible retribution.
Are there ways to deal with that, or are we stuck with the kind of model you've described and that is the traditional witness protection program?