Public Safety committee  Well, it may sound a little bit self-serving, but we are the national police force and there is not another police force that does have jurisdiction across the country. I can't imagine that another law enforcement agency would be in a better position to manage the program.

Public Safety committee  Yes. The difference is that we will have some obligations to a protectee who is in the program. So we may agree to do additional training. We may pay their rent. We may help them. We may buy a car for them. We may do several different things. And we may move them from one location to another if there is a requirement.

Public Safety committee  They can be terminated from the program, but they will never revert back to their old identity. Once they've been given a secure name change and new identity, that new identity will remain.

Public Safety committee  Referring to the British Columbia case, which I understand you'll probably want to talk about once you have the report, this individual had not had any criminal convictions, wasn't on probation, wasn't on parole. From that point of view, there were no indicators that the person would go on to commit this serious crime.

Public Safety committee  If you don't mind, I would like to answer that. We do have letters of acknowledgment with the protectees. We have protection agreements with them and we have training on our source witness protection course. It's documented through every step of the way that if you commit a criminal act, steps may be taken to terminate you.

Public Safety committee  I agree, I think the public interest is very important. And I do think it's important that the committee try to separate the difference between if we take on an agent or an informant and that doesn't work out and the actual administration of somebody when they're in the witness protection program.

Public Safety committee  When you look at the broad scope, I'm sure one of the first reasons they probably would consider is we want to encourage people to come into the program. So they would try to restrict disclosure as much as possible. Number two, I think they've recognized there have to be some exceptions to disclosure, but when you look at the act it appears it's when we have to be proactive.

Public Safety committee  I'm not an expert in any way on the U.S. system; however, my understanding is there are a couple of main differences. One, they become involved in a file much later in the process than what we do in Canada, and I can explain that if required; and two, they don't have the ability to do the same thing we do with the criminal records.

Public Safety committee  Yes, we'll be aware. That's correct.

Public Safety committee  I believe that's a big difference, yes.

Public Safety committee  Yes, that's quite correct.

Public Safety committee  I don't have specifics on the other act, and it's not just the criminal record that follows the person. It is the criminal history as well.

Public Safety committee  That's right. I have stayed familiar with some of the other testimony. The person's fingerprinting history obviously doesn't change from old identity to new identity. But what happens is that we house all the fingerprint records, so we have a system that will automatically make it so you can't tie the old name with the old fingerprints; they're automatically tied to the new identity.

Public Safety committee  I expect our office will probably have the final edit on that, but I do want to....

Public Safety committee  I'll have the decision-making for the final edit on that.