I am, indeed.
I might start off by saying that I'm honoured to have been invited here today. I will note that I testified before the Standing Committee on Justice and Legal Affairs on the Witness Protection Program Act on the eve of its passage, and I'm grateful that some of my concerns were respected.
Of great interest to me is the fact that Mr. Bulmer gave you some indication of his background. I have a much longer background, not necessarily better or worse. I have been acting for vulnerable people for close to half a decade. It started off many years ago when I wrote mental health legislation for Ontario and for a number of other provinces, and served as a consultant for all the other provinces. So I'm very used to acting for vulnerable people.
Over the last two or three decades I've acted for witnesses who have been protected; witnesses who wanted to be protected but weren't; and witnesses who didn't want to be protected, but because of some negligence or error on the part of the police or administration, ended up being protected.
I would like to make one thing clear. Mr. Bulmer said—or I got the sense that he said—that protected witnesses were sometimes involved with crime. I have many cases of protected witnesses who are innocent. They were taken by the RCMP or by provincial or municipal police forces and protected, placed in the program, and they had nothing to do with crime. I've had abused women or persons who were extorted who went to the police, told on those people, and had to end up in the witness protection program. And let me tell you, in certain circumstances it's the innocent people who think they're dealt with like criminals.
Now, the first area I want to cover is that I think the Witness Protection Program Act should embrace all witness protection programs. Right now it embraces only the RCMP program, and I know there are some provincial programs and some municipal programs.
I agree with Mr. Bulmer that the existing act needs an overhaul. It could stand a lot of improvement. But I think the major thing now is that Parliament should address the concern of other witness protection programs. Apart from the Witness Protection Program Act of Parliament, there is no other legislation anywhere in Canada. I'm of the view that where there is no legislation, there are no minimum standards. I'm sure there are standards, but these standards might be substandard. Moreover, they could be changed at will.
There's no reason that Parliament cannot legislate across the board. It legislates the Criminal Code, and the Criminal Code is dealt with by the provinces and municipal police forces. It's my submission that there would be no problem legislating witness protection for all of Canada.
Now, I don't mean to say that those provinces or municipalities that don't have programs would be required to have programs. What I'm saying is that wherever there is a witness protection program, the province or municipality should have to subscribe and live up to minimum standards.
An example of that is that the Criminal Code embraces persons who are not convicted, who are found not criminally responsible, and each province has decided to have a review board dealing with those individuals who are found not criminally responsible, but the federal government legislates the standards.
Now, leaving that, I want to talk about legal advice to the person who would be protected. That is one of the most important areas, I think, that your committee should be discussing. There are many cases—and I'm thinking of several handfuls—in which I've been involved or my firm has been involved where the individual who enters the program does not have independent legal advice. That independent legal advice should be given as soon as possible, as soon as it's known that the person is a potential protectee. It sometimes happens that the police officer tells the potential protectee that the verbal promises that he or she is making to the potential protectee cannot be put in writing. He or she is saying, trust me, we can't put that in writing, and the potential protectee might be told, the reason we're not putting it in writing is that we don't want to compromise your ability to testify, so that defence counsel don't ask how much you were paid for testifying.
So there is a built-in problem. Sometimes the police officer tells the potential protectee that there's little or no time to consult a lawyer, and representations are made, and the individual who becomes protected is expecting a lot more than he or she is getting. That's very, very unfortunate, because if a lawyer were there and looked at what was being promised and what was put in writing, because generally there is a writing, the lawyer would advise the potential protectee that he or she was not getting what was promised. There would be fewer lawsuits if the legal advice was given right at the outset. And the law has, in its wisdom, said in the case of a husband who is mortgaging his property that he must get independent legal advice for his wife so she knows what she's signing. So these things aren't unknown to Anglo-American law. I think that if there were mandatory legal advice, then there would be much less litigation, and the people would know what they're bargaining for and what they might get.
Another problem is that the police officer who's making the representations or the promises is overzealous. He or she wants to get a conviction and will promise the sun, the moon, and the stars to the individual; but especially if there's a relocation across the country, the handler—the person who is expected to support the protectee at the new location—didn't make any promises; and there's a lot of friction that could be caused there.
So I think the legislation should be amended to make it mandatory for the police to ensure that the potential protectee gets independent legal advice. It could well be that the person can't afford it. I've had one or more situations where the police services come to me and ask me to advise a potential protectee, and they paid me. I think the legislation could certainly be improved in that way.
Am I getting out of time?