Public Safety committee  Yes, it would be. When we're considering entrance into the program, the addition of the psychological exam gives you a very good picture of the person you're looking to have enter the program. With the psychological assessment comes a case management plan for how to best help th

Public Safety committee  The people admitted to the program are continually monitored while they are in the program. There's a continual risk assessment done. My expectation would be that in any instances we would perhaps see a change in the behaviour of the individual, and we would take the necessary

Public Safety committee  I think you've addressed the biggest one, because to obtain that secure identity change.... I think there are two. There are probably more, but I'll touch on two. To obtain that secure identity change, you were entering the federal witness protection program, so there was whate

Public Safety committee  Well, I don't know if I would equate it to risk, because while we're doing that, as we recognize, there are provisions for emergency measures. A lot of the time, even with ourselves, we would have those emergency measures taking place while we're perhaps going through that secure

Public Safety committee  Good morning, Mr. Chair. I wish to thank the committee for providing me with this opportunity to participate in your discussions on Bill C-51, the safer witnesses act. The RCMP recognizes the important step forward that this bill represents in promoting a more complete and eff

Public Safety committee  For everybody within the program there are definitive responsibilities that are laid out. I think one of the enhancements from the committees is the addition of the psychologist and the case management plan. The psychologists are there to work with the individuals and develop a c

Public Safety committee  Over the past year and coming up, the witness protection program has actually seen an increase in resources.

Public Safety committee  My only answer is that there are a lot of people coming to the witness protection program; some are inadvertent witnesses, but those, in my experience, are more rare. Most of them stem from cases or investigations we have ongoing, so we only have a certain investigational capacit

Public Safety committee  Quite frankly, I never have discussions regarding sanctions. I think the important thing for a witness is always to understand the process—here's the process, here's what you're going to go through—to make sure the witness has support throughout the process, and certainly to unde

Public Safety committee  We do it as a matter of course in every instance, and we actually encourage it.

Public Safety committee  I guess what I can say is that we have a number of successful investigations that are ongoing, so the number of admissions into the witness protection program fluctuates. It really does; it fluctuates—if it's an individual gang member, if it's a gang member with a family. So if

Public Safety committee  No. I think you have to understand that there's only a certain investigational capacity. There are only a certain number of resources to undertake investigations, and in turn, a lot of those witness protection efforts stem from an ongoing investigation. So there's normally only a

Public Safety committee  I can share that over the last year—

Public Safety committee  —I've administered the program, nobody's been turned away because there wasn't the budget there to do it, so the admissions that came and the people—

Public Safety committee  The program reports to me and....