Public Safety committee  That's something we've always liked to try to do, because in the average murder investigation.... I've heard differing comments on it, but if there is such a thing as an average murder investigation, it could be millions of dollars. I can tell you one instance that I know of, a

Public Safety committee  It's always a double-edged sword. Remember, as forensic scientists we provide investigative aids to the investigator, and if that individual is not out there doing the work that they do—and, I might add, it is a lot of hard work and it's fine work.... The issue of science and,

Public Safety committee  Unfortunately, we can't tell you that information, from the national data bank perspective, because the very safeguards in place for encoding the samples for privacy and security prevent us from actually knowing the individual who may be involved. To be honest, we can't tell you

Public Safety committee  We'd be happy to provide a copy.

Public Safety committee  From the national DNA data bank point of view, I can give you pretty well exact costs. I believe copies of our annual report have probably been provided to the members of the committee. There's always a table included in this with regard to the costing; so for instance, in 2007-0

Public Safety committee  There's provision within the law to take either a hair sample, a saliva sample, or a blood sample. This was discussed extensively over a long period of time. In fact, just as we were designing the kit that we currently use today, we had the unfortunate circumstance of Swissair 11

Public Safety committee  I was just going to make some observations. You asked what the average person on the street thinks about how we could improve certain components. For me, I'm kind of a common-sense individual. Even though we're surrounded by high technology, the reality is this: what do we do wit

Public Safety committee  Having been involved with things like Swissair and the identification of those victims, we know the responsibility involved with familial searching and kinship analysis, but there are also ways to deal with that.

Public Safety committee  I'm a member of the RCMP, so I'm caught there, I guess.

Public Safety committee  We truly are a national service, a component of the RCMP that delivers service throughout Canada, not just with the RCMP members but through all our laboratories as well as other federal requirements as necessary. Although the paycheque comes from one source, I would think that

Public Safety committee  Yes, there are two types of twins. Fraternal twins, which is what you described, would just be like having a brother and a sister born at different times. They will have similarities to the parents, but they're quite distinct and different. On the other hand, there are identica

Public Safety committee  We've done very well with what we have, and obviously with every change of legislation. The last one in particular—a 75% increase in the number of DNA samples. That's with a staff of 24 individuals. Our full budgeted staff would be 32. Originally when this data bank was created

Public Safety committee  Since I began dealing with DNA in 1988, when I first started with the RCMP, I think there's been a major change every few years. The technology has to evolve to the sophistication of the ability to discriminate individuals, that is, the identity. We also are becoming very good at

Public Safety committee  Thank you. I'll try to be succinct. The National DNA data bank is a program that falls within the scope of the national services and research directorate of the RCMP, which is part of Forensic Science and Identification Services. I'm the director of the national services and res

Public Safety committee  Yes, thank you. Let me say on behalf of the group here that we're happy to be here and look forward to the discussion. The way we're going to organize today's session is that Mr. Yost will lead off from the Department of Justice, followed by my colleague David Bird of RCMP legal