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.