Public Safety committee  Good morning, and thank you, committee, for the opportunity to speak. I will be brief. I'm sure you have some questions. I'll restrict my remarks mostly to policing, which is my sphere of responsibility. Just for the interest of the committee and to provide background, I hold

Public Safety committee  Unfortunately, I probably couldn't answer that question definitively. I don't have that degree of intimate knowledge of the program's running day to day. It has not been brought to my attention that there have been any specific circumstances or challenges with respect to youth, b

Public Safety committee  Thank you. You're correct in your assessment of the somewhat complex policing structure that we have in British Columbia, in particular in the Lower Mainland. It's certainly been commented on from a number of perspectives. The rationale for moving the former program into an inte

Public Safety committee  Thank you. We've just completed a nine-month consultation and public engagement process where we went to British Columbians and asked them about policing generally. We've also, as I've mentioned, recently had the report of Mr. Oppal from the missing women's inquiry. I can tell y

Public Safety committee  No, we haven't done that analysis, but we would certainly, as we move forward in adjusting our program....I think I heard Professor Dandurand speak a little bit about performance measures, I think they were. I'm sorry, but I couldn't quite hear all of his remarks. We very much wa

Public Safety committee  No, it's generally under what we call a provincial business line, so under our provincial policing budget. We do have mechanisms and are working on mechanisms to have a more granular look at how those funds are spent. There are various mechanisms for us to look behind the billi

Public Safety committee  I can neither confirm nor deny for you that there would be any potential costs in a given investigation, in terms of witness management. Certainly, we have no analysis that tells us there will be, as a result of implementing this bill, immediate costs to municipalities—clearly no

Public Safety committee  Yes. We were consulted through Public Safety Canada quite extensively...[Technical difficulty--Editor]

Public Safety committee  We certainly felt that we were appropriately consulted, yes. Do I feel that we were satisfactorily and fully consulted on this bill? Yes, we were.

Public Safety committee  I think I would answer that and go back to the comments I made with respect to our increasing hours within the province of British Columbia and the increasing recognition of the need for standardized processes in policing, at least in this province. Whether it is dealing with inv

Public Safety committee  I'm probably not qualified to speak to the operational aspects of day-to-day witness management. In fact, I don't have that level of knowledge. However, I will say that in British Columbia, especially on files involving agents, our prosecution service is very much involved in d

Public Safety committee  You, and I'm sure other witnesses, have identified an important part. Canada at large, but British Columbia, in particular, is a very diverse society, especially in the Lower Mainland, where we are dealing with some specific gang challenges. We are talking about groups who may co

Public Safety committee  As you know, the program is administered by the RCMP on our behalf in the province. I apologize, but I certainly don't have that level of understanding of what level of training the particular officers in this unit get. However, we have very clearly set as one of the priorities f

Public Safety committee  The integrated witness protection program is situated within our RCMP division. It touches, as I understand it, federal and provincial and municipal policing responsibilities. I believe you had Assistant Commissioner Shean here, who would have more in-depth knowledge of the progr

Public Safety committee  I'm not aware of whether the composition includes anyone from first nations policing, but it would supply support to first nations policing services. We administer first nations police, so it would support that.