I will wrap it up.
I'll just touch on the two categories. The first one is conflict of interest. According to the legislation, the Witness Protection Program Act, there is a contract or an agreement in every case, one between the commissioner or his designate and the individual protectee. There's a conflict of interest there, because the commissioner or his designate can decide that there's been a breach by the individual and say, look, you're out of the program, and that becomes very unfair.
We had a case in our office where we went to the Federal Court and brought an application for a judicial review. I'll just read what the judge said. It will be very quick. This is Mr. Justice Phalen in the Federal Court:
Regard must be had for the potential consequences to the protectee of termination of protection. The protectee is in the most vulnerable state - his utility to the authorities is terminated, he is a burden to his protectors, yet he is dependent on that protection for his security. He has honoured his bargain and is now totally dependent on the protectors to fulfil their end of the bargain. Termination of protection potentially exposes him to physical harm. His life and security could be at risk. Therefore, the expectation and requirements of procedural fairness are high.
A protectee should not have to go to court to establish that. It should be built in.
Finally—and I'm skipping a couple of things—I want to say that I don't know how your committee can fairly assess the program, because enough information is not coming to you. I read the transcript of the police officers who gave testimony to you, and in many cases they wouldn't answer the question because they couldn't or they didn't know the answer, etc. Unless there is an independent study of the program with the RCMP, and the other programs, to see actually where the money is going and how it's spent, how can your committee fairly seize on what should be done?
I think I'll leave it there.
I have one final note. I'm going to say that in dealing with the case of the protectee who apparently committed murder and the RCMP's not being able to give the information, my reading of the act is that the RCMP is dead wrong; this comes within an exception, and they should be able to discuss the individual's identity.