Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
And thank you to the witness for appearing today.
It seems like most of your intervention today had to do with dollars and cents, because police services boards deal with that every day. Given the fact that there is only one taxpayer, whether the money goes to the federal government, the provincial government, or the municipal government, if you ask for more money, that money will come out of the very pockets of the very people who live in your community.
So I guess my submission to you would be that we have heard from many witnesses so far with regard to this legislation, primarily police officers whose job is to actually make it work, and they have had nothing but accolades for the legislation. That would be number one.
Number two is that we have had heard appreciative statements of the legislation by a chief of police of the largest city in Canada and by two ministers of justice—and I strongly suspect most ministers of justice and attorneys general across Canada are as well.
I understand there never is enough money, no matter whom you talk to. But if we could move that part of it aside, if we could move the dollars and cents aside, we're led to believe by the people who actually make the system work that most of their issues have to do with some of the inadequacies of the previous legislation to which this legislation directly refers and seeks to amend. And I refer specifically and directly to Staff Sergeant Townsend, who is intimately involved with the system, that it does do exactly what police officers want it to do. He said in his statement just prior to your testimony that he went to the officers who actually make the system work, who actually deal with this day in and day out, and asked them if there were anything further they would require in this legislation.
The money aside, specifically what did you mean when you said that we needed to have more protection for witnesses who give evidence before the courts?