Public Safety Committee on Feb. 4th, 2008

[Yvon Dandurand]

Thank you for giving me the opportunity to clarify certain points.

Indeed, I believe it would be preferable to have a completely independent organization to manage the current program. That is the first part of my answer. And if ever there was willingness to make the federal program a national program, that is to open it up to different participation from all police forces in all provinces, we would be dealing with an independent national program. For the moment, my perception is that the program that is sometimes "national" is strictly a federal program which occasionally offers other police forces or provinces the opportunity to participate in it under certain conditions.

In my written recommendation that you read, there are two sides: first of all, the program should indeed be administered autonomously with close links to police forces of course; secondly, there should also be consideration given to establishing a national program that involves in different ways all national, provincial and municipal police forces, which is more complicated.

Perhaps I confused the matter because I alluded to the fact that there was a proposal circulating. I am not sure whether it has reached this committee. This proposal, which comes from the RCMP, more or less sought to establish a new program, the cost of which would be borne by the federal government. Obviously, I would be very surprised if the provinces refused that type of gift.

But from my standpoint, what needs to be done is indeed to create a national program without removing responsibility from the provinces and the police forces. As a former crown attorney, you probably know that when it comes to witness protection, there is a lot more to it than simply relocating witnesses in very serious cases.

[Serge Ménard, Bloc, Marc-Aurèle-Fortin, QC]

In the written brief that you sent us, you really give a good overview. You truly reassure us about your knowledge, which you can't communicate to us in its entirety. It was my understanding that Ms. Boisvert would have given us more explanations on the systems in Europe, which would have been good supplementary information. I hope we at least receive her written report.

Nevertheless, there is one thing that often happens, and this was confirmed by people who work with this protection system: a lot of work is done to give these individuals a new identity and allow them to go and live abroad. It seems that in a considerable number of cases, after a relatively short time, let's say two years, these people come home.

I'd like you to elaborate on that. Should we give up this approach? I get the impression that these people believe that they've become entitled to a state pension that would replace the profits accumulated through the criminal activities that they were involved in before they informed on someone else. You don't talk about that.

Could you comment on that aspect?

[Yvon Dandurand]

I don't know what proportion such cases represent compared to others. You said it was a very large number. I'm convinced that it is a considerable number, but I don't really know the true magnitude of it.

We have to remember that contrary to what one may think, witness relocation programs are very difficult for witnesses themselves. A very small number of studies have been conducted with these witnesses, and all of them have corroborated the fact that adaptation is extremely difficult for people who are relocated and who have a new identity. They have a great deal of trouble staying away from their family and friends. Of course, we're not always dealing with people who had excellent social or other skills. So you can't expect miracles either.

There are always many difficulties with adaptation. It's true that we can see this as a situation where people have figured out that they've got a cushy deal or a good way to exploit the system, but on the other hand, we mustn't forget that these are people who have to face enormous and very difficult adaptation.

I hesitate to tell you about certain studies, because they don't have much credibility insofar as they were conducted with a very small number of witnesses. However, they do demonstrate that the risk of suicide, mental illness, depression and so forth is much larger among relocated witnesses than in the normal population.

It's a difficult period and we shouldn't be surprised to see that people will break the agreement they had signed with the police after one, two or three years.

[The Chair, Conservative, Garry Breitkreuz]

Ms. Priddy, do you have any questions and comments? It's your turn. Go ahead, please.

[Penny Priddy, NDP, Surrey North, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to the presenter.

I have a question about research. You say in your paper that there really has not been any kind of qualitative—that was my word—research around the efficacy of the programs, although there must have been reviews, obviously, because you quoted the one, and I did try to wade through all of the minutes that you folks got to hear from people last time.

In terms of there not being any research on the efficacy of the measures, can you talk a bit for me, please, about how you might see that research being done, who you might see carrying out that research, and what the challenges would be in terms of access to information to do that kind of qualitative research? As well, we know that for any kind of qualitative research we do, where one person is in a position of power over the other one, it's very hard to get true information, and there are many examples of that, in which others of us have probably been involved in other parts of our lives.

Perhaps you could please talk a bit about that research: the who, the how, the where, the challenges. It concerns me that while we may do reviews of certain things, there isn't any research about this.

[Yvon Dandurand]

Thank you.

Basically, there is a bit of research asking police officers, prosecutors, judges, and others whether they feel that in their opinion the program has assisted in the development of a proof or a condition, or whatever. The evidence that you would be looking for really requires some kind of contact with the witnesses, and the whole purpose of the program is to deny people access to those witnesses.

So usually this is being done either through vetting a researcher or research team through a very stringent process to make sure you're not exposing witnesses, and that's complicated, but possible. It has been done. The second one is to function and to ask your questions of the witnesses through their handlers or through the people responsible for their protection.

I do know, for instance, that there was a questionnaire that was given to some of the witnesses in the current RCMP witness protection program as part of the work of the commission of inquiry into the Air India incident. So it is possible to do so and it is possible to get information from them. I believe the methodology in that particular case was that questions were developed by the commission's counsel. The questions were vetted, discussed with the RCMP officials responsible for the program, and then they basically administered the questionnaire, if you would call it that, to the witnesses.

I do not know whether the findings have yet been made public by the commission. I presume it will be part of its report. So it's possible. Even in Canada, it's possible.

The normal reaction you get in all countries, and I think to a certain extent in Canada, when you ask whether you can do this kind of research...the first response is, “No, we cannot do it, it's too secret, it's too difficult. You have to protect the witnesses. There are no methodological ways of doing it.” That's not true. It's not because it's a program that requires a high level of security that it's not possible to do some research. That's what I mean by using the word “transparency” here and there in my report to you.

[Penny Priddy, NDP, Surrey North, BC]

How big a pool of witnesses do you think you would need to get some kind of evidence in which you could actually make recommendations or that the research could actually come to some conclusions? You're talking about the Air India bit. I'm wondering how big a pool you would need.

[Yvon Dandurand]

Because of the wide variety.... And it's not just witnesses but it's also their families. Remember that other people get protected.

[Penny Priddy, NDP, Surrey North, BC]

Yes, I understand that.

[Yvon Dandurand]

You probably would need somewhere in the neighbourhood of 10%, minimum, of the people who are currently in the program. That looks like a large sample, but the population there is a fairly small one. So 10% of them would probably be a good start.

Also, I do not think it's a one-time-only kind of research. Basically, that situation is a fluid one and it needs to be monitored from time to time.

[Penny Priddy, NDP, Surrey North, BC]

So it's longitudinal?

[Yvon Dandurand]

Longitudinal.

[Penny Priddy, NDP, Surrey North, BC]

As my last question, can you name organizations? Do you think it's universities? Who would be appropriate for that kind of research?

[Yvon Dandurand]

There are any number of groups, but I think it would be highly credible in the eyes of the population and others if it were done by academics, universities. It should be done by people with a reputation and a history in that area—criminology schools and so on.

[Penny Priddy, NDP, Surrey North, BC]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Garry Breitkreuz]

We'll now go to the government side. Mr. MacKenzie, please.

[Dave MacKenzie, Conservative, Oxford, ON]

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Dandurand. It's certainly interesting to hear your comments. I don't think any of us have heard anything we would disagree with very stringently.

It would seem to me that in a country the size of ours, a witness protection program presents a number of issues. Likely as not, the role of administering it fell to the police. The Americans have their U.S. marshal system in place, but in Canada the police are the body we would rely in most of our communities. So it seems that this fell to them.

My recollection—I just asked the researchers and I don't think I'm out too far—is that we have fewer than 1,000 people in the program. The number may not be big, but it's extremely important to those 1,000 people. It's also important to a lot victims and other people who appreciated the testimony provided by those now in the program.

It would seem to me that your comments to Mr. Ménard are right in a stand-alone organization. But I'm not sure how we'd do it across the length and breadth of the country, given that folks come from each part of our country. They're not all in large cities, and they're not all in any one or two provinces. Would it not be a fairly significant operation to put in place?

I'm not sure that I've heard any of the RCMP people say they want to retain it. With the logistics, it's difficult to get it into some other domain.

[Yvon Dandurand]

I think you're right in saying that it would be difficult, but I don't think it would be impossible or even unmanageable. It clearly would require a lot of cooperation between the provinces and the federal government. A lot of it currently exists already, between police forces and between the RCMP and the provinces and those people in each province who might be responsible for police services and so on, but it's primarily basically conceived of and administered as a police collaboration program.

I think the point I'm making, and it's a point that others have made, is that it has to be a little more than that. It can't all be dictated and controlled by police tactical or strategic goals. It can't always be competing against other police costs. It has to be treated as an independent program.

I believe it's possible to coordinate them. I also think there's a trap in thinking that the measure should always be to relocate the witnesses. Oftentimes a very temporary relocation is sufficient. Oftentimes simply a new identity is sufficient. In my view, this is perhaps not used often enough.

Sometimes when you deal with police forces and police services within the country you hear that they don't feel they have access to that very simple service, which is to create a new identity for someone. You don't need the RCMP to do this. You need a place where you can actually create a new identity and make sure that it will be protected. Oftentimes just that would be sufficient.

There are a lot of witnesses who would rather take their chances.... And I'm not necessarily talking about the head of one major criminal organization. We cannot just be thinking about those stereotypical witnesses. There are lots of witnesses who would take their chances, who would have the courage to come forward, many of them innocent witnesses who are not linked to organized crime or anything, if simply we could just facilitate things a bit--short-term assistance, relocation until the trial is over, a bit of financial assistance to cover the costs of all of these measures we have to take. Sometimes they will need, for instance, private protection from a private security agency to secure their house or whatever. They might need a new identity.

So a whole range of things can be done, and it cannot be a matter of either qualifying for the heavy-duty, extreme program, which involves relocation, or nothing. The advantage of having a national program would be that it would make each police service more responsible for taking the right kind of action.

I think one of the deplorable situations currently is that too many of those decisions are primarily made—and we all understand why—on the basis of costs as opposed to the basis of the protection of the rights of the people who are caught in those situations, whether they themselves are criminals or not.

Again, I think the statistics that have been presented to the committee will tell you that, yes, there are several criminals who were benefiting from that program, but their relatives were also benefiting from the program and in need of protection--as are a whole bunch of witnesses and collaborators of justice who basically have no association with organized crime and right now are left to their own means. The bias oftentimes within law enforcement, not just in Canada but elsewhere, is that, well, these people will be left alone; you compel them to testify, they will do so, and organized crime will understand that they had no choice. But that's not reality.

[Dave MacKenzie, Conservative, Oxford, ON]

I think you've struck on what perhaps many other people feel too, that a number of these programs end up under the police umbrella and then they end up competing for the same resources as the core police function, which typically would be seen to be the important job of the police. Maybe witness protection got tagged on because there was not seen to be another agency out there that was in a position to do it. It would take a fairly significant amount of resources.

I think one of my colleagues asked about which ministry. It might seem that it should be a justice matter more than a public safety or solicitor general side of things. I think that's a major shift in terms of where we are with the program. I wonder if you'd like to comment on that particular aspect.

[Yvon Dandurand]

Thank you for this.

Yes, I think it would be a major shift. Most countries are aligning themselves toward that major shift. Why today, why in 2008 as opposed to in 1998 or 1988, is because countries generally understand better what is required to fight large criminal conspiracies, organized crime, and terrorism in recent years, and basically we need to give ourselves the means.

Methods that were used sporadically and in exceptional, very serious cases are now, we find out, needed to be used more routinely. Therefore, programs such as this one have acquired a new importance.

If you look internationally, ten years ago there would have been at least fifty countries that had no witness protection program that now have protection programs. It is basically a movement, and the movement is because we have realized the need to fight against criminal conspiracies across borders as well.

The next level of this, which I haven't elaborated on, is that the trend is for countries to cooperate with each other. Basically, Canada is one of the countries that is most open to cooperating with other countries on a needs basis.

[The Chair, Conservative, Garry Breitkreuz]

Ms. Barnes, you've indicated you would like to do some questioning.

[Sue Barnes, Liberal, London West, ON]

Yes, and then if I have time, maybe Mr. Cullen....

We know that sometimes witnesses under the program are released for whatever reasons, and we also know that if these people commit a further offence they're still prosecuted. Would you go so far as to amend the bill to explicitly state that if once under protection you were convicted of any offence under the Criminal Code, the protection ceases?

[Yvon Dandurand]

I don't think there'd be any harm with that type of amendment. “Any offence” might perhaps be a little too much, because there are some very minor offences for which you might want to create exceptions. Certainly for any serious offence--

[Sue Barnes, Liberal, London West, ON]

Say for any indictable offence.

[Yvon Dandurand]

Yes. What would be the harm in this?