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.