As long as the difficulty we experienced is recognized, I'm not here to say that a suggestion that we made is the only one. What the program lacked in our view was independence in assessing who was eligible for witness protection. In certain cases, it was used by particular officers of the RCMP as a threat: if you cooperate, you get into witness protection, if you don't, you won't. We were somewhat concerned that the investigating officers had that power.
On March 19th, 2013. See this statement in context.