Mr. Speaker, it is interesting. Some witnesses did say additional funding was not required and a minority of witnesses, actually one who I recall, said that the lack of resources could be a problem. However, they were talking apples and oranges.
The RCMP came and said that if it needed to protect a witness, it would find the money. I believe the RCMP. I believe that will be the case.
However, the point that Ms. Ruth brought up was not related to whether the RCMP had the budget to accept all the witnesses who needed to be protected. It was more to the fact that a separate fund was not available, created by law for example, that smaller police forces could access if they brought someone into a provincial witness protection program. They may find that the matter is taken up by the RCMP and the RCMP then sends them a bill for protecting that witness.
That is a very different issue than the RCMP saying that it will protect all witnesses who apply directly to the federal witness protection program.
The witnesses were not necessarily on the same wavelength and were not necessarily talking about the same thing when it came to funding.
It will be effective because it will be more timely. I really do believe that will help. However, if we are going to include witnesses to potential terrorist incidents or plots, we may need more funding because we are bringing in CSIS, National Defence and so on and so forth.