Mr. Speaker, the member raises two points. One is with respect to commitment to the program. I indicated that it was former prime minister Jean Chrétien who introduced the program. Obviously, it shows that the Liberal Party, has been very supportive of the program since its origin.
I do not know how the NDP would have voted back in 1996. Maybe one of her colleagues could update the House as to whether the NDP actually supported the creation of it. Hindsight is 20/20, of course.
Regarding money, at both second reading and report stage, we have raised concerns with respect to the money issue. At the end of the day, not only is it important that we have appropriate funding levels for our RCMP in the national program, but we need to be concerned about the other witness protection programs, whether they are provincial or municipal. We need to recognize that one can anticipate an increase. I tried to provide an example. We saw close to a $2-million increase in a very short period of time.
Today, it is a $9-million program. I suspect that the costs of the program are going to increase. If we really want to use it as an effective tool, I suspect that it will not be long before we will be getting into double digits to properly and adequately finance the program.