Evidence of meeting #49 for Public Safety and National Security in the 39th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was person.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Conservative
Laurie Hawn Conservative Edmonton Centre, AB
They'd obviously be in the same sort of category as the case I just mentioned. They'd be on their own, in terms of moving around and paying their way, and so on, but they would still be under the protection with respect to their identity and the use of information, and so on.
Conservative
Laurie Hawn Conservative Edmonton Centre, AB
So sometimes it's hard to know whether we have a problem.
C/Supt Derek R. Ogden
I guess it's easy to examine individual cases in the intake process, whether or not the person was a good agent to take on; obviously, we deal with high volume.
So do we have problems? Certainly we do at times. We also have a lot of successes, as you're aware, as well. But that's separate from the actual program.
I guess what I would consider a problem in the program is that if we had a protectee and a group was able to carry out a threat against that protectee. That would be an indication we've had a breakdown in security.
Conservative
Laurie Hawn Conservative Edmonton Centre, AB
So in terms of the overall program, I think most people would agree it's a good program and that it's been a successful program. Any program could use tweaking and improvement.
You've learned best practices. How much time do you spend looking at best practices from other countries, from the States, Britain, or wherever?
C/Supt Derek R. Ogden
Actually, I think we're seen as a leader worldwide when it comes to human source handling and development; we have people from agencies all around the world come here. When we set up our source witness protection course, we went abroad as well; we went down to the States to look at their program and we spoke to other experts. But when you look at the adoption rate for the course training standard we've developed and you see that it's taken, I think, pretty much word for word in Alberta and Ontario—and although they haven't put the course on firmly in Quebec, they've come and attended our courses and taken the material back—I think that speaks highly of the degree of credibility we have with it.
Conservative
Conservative
Liberal
Sue Barnes Liberal London West, ON
Thank you very much.
You've tried to be nuanced with some of the rationales for keeping identities, and maybe it's just me who is not getting the total picture here. If someone in the witness protection program commits murder, presumably they would go to jail. Maybe you should answer this. Would they then be removed from the witness protection program?
C/Supt Derek R. Ogden
If a person commits a criminal offence—and obviously murder is a criminal offence—we would look at the criminal offence, and the decision whether or not the person will be terminated from the program would rest with the assistant commissioner for federal and international operations. I can't imagine a case where a person commits a homicide and is not actually terminated from the program.
However, we have been to Federal Court on our termination process. There were some recommendations coming from that process, and I changed the termination process within the last year. Now it's a bit lengthier process than before, and we spell out in great detail what the agreement was in the beginning and how that person breached the agreement; and if they're not happy with the decision or not in agreement with the decision to be terminated, there is a period of time when they can go and get legal counsel and come back and challenge that decision. So that has been changed somewhat.
Liberal
Sue Barnes Liberal London West, ON
Let's just carry on with the hypothetical someone in the program who commits murder. Let's say you take them out of the program; that's the decision.
Liberal
Sue Barnes Liberal London West, ON
At that point in time, they would retain the new identity they had in the program.
Liberal
Sue Barnes Liberal London West, ON
Could you tell us whether or not the individual who had committed murder and been convicted in a courtroom—a Mr. Young—is out of the program now?
C/Supt Derek R. Ogden
I could say that the termination process of Mr. Young is in progress, but it's not finalized, due to the process I talked about. To be more specific, the subject has been advised that he will be terminated, and he's consulted his lawyer and is bringing back information to appeal that decision. But it's our intention—
Liberal
Sue Barnes Liberal London West, ON
At the end of the process, could you reveal the name of somebody who has been terminated from the program? Does the act allow you to do that currently?
C/Supt Derek R. Ogden
No. Even once we're done with the termination process and everything is finalized, and even if we go through the Federal Court in an appeal process, the name won't be revealed.
Liberal
Sue Barnes Liberal London West, ON
Okay.
I was trying to establish, in Mr. Bird's answer, the legal requirements here. Currently the Department of Justice of the Government of Canada and the RCMP are interpreting the rules. There is a “may”, as in, “the commissioner may”. Has any commissioner since the establishment of this act--so not just this acting commissioner but any prior commissioner--utilized that discretionary provision to divulge an identity in any circumstance?
C/Supt Derek R. Ogden
In this particular case, the subject's identity was revealed for the purpose of furthering this police investigation, but it wasn't released outside of law enforcement for the purpose of the public.
Liberal
Counsel, RCMP Legal Services, Royal Canadian Mounted Police
I'm not aware of any case where it was made public, but it certainly has been disclosed to investigating agencies for prosecuting an individual who's subject to an offence that required that information. So yes, it has happened under the circumstances. Further disclosure of that is prohibited by the persons who would receive it. It's not necessarily been done in public, but the information has been disclosed to investigating agencies who have required it.
