Justice Committee on May 8th, 2014

[The Chair, Conservative, Mike Wallace]

Thank you very much.

Our next questioner, from the New Democratic Party, is Madame Péclet.

[Ève Péclet, NDP, La Pointe-de-l'Île, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

The raison d'être of the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions is specifically to provide legal advice to investigative agencies and federal departments. You don't need me to tell you what your role is. In some relatively complex cases, the RCMP can consult your service to determine whether the evidence is sufficient to take someone to court.

In a letter to the RCMP, my colleague said: “I was quite surprised to read in a statement to the media from the Office of the DPP that said they had not been party to discussions on this case [of charging Nigel Wright]”.

Can you confirm this statement?

[Brian J. Saunders]

I have not seen the letter you are referring to.

[Ève Péclet, NDP, La Pointe-de-l'Île, QC]

In a statement, the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions said that it was not consulted on the RCMP's decision not to lay charges against Nigel Wright. Can you confirm that statement?

[Brian J. Saunders]

You are saying that the RCMP said that it did not consult the Director of Public Prosecutions. Did I understand your question correctly?

[Ève Péclet, NDP, La Pointe-de-l'Île, QC]

No. What I meant is that the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions was not consulted.

[Brian J. Saunders]

The media contacted us twice. First, they asked us whether we participated in the investigation. We said no, because we are not an investigative body. The second time, they asked us whether we provided a legal opinion. I think the answer the spokesperson gave was the same as the one I gave at the start of this meeting. We said that our policy was neither to confirm nor deny whether we gave a legal opinion to the investigators, because that violates the solicitor-client privilege.

[Ève Péclet, NDP, La Pointe-de-l'Île, QC]

We were not talking about the content. We simply wanted a yes or no answer. Your answer is clear.

My second question has to do with the Canadian victims bill of rights.

As Mr. Wallace and my colleague said earlier, the budget will probably be revised later. There is an increase of $1.4 million in funding for the victims fund. Will the money be earmarked for enforcing this piece of legislation or for the national registry for missing persons? Could you tell us what the breakdown is?

[William F. Pentney]

Thank you for your question. Ms. Merriam will provide you with the details on this.

[Barbara Merriam]

Of the $1.4 million that you're talking about, $1 million will go to increase a component in the victims fund for child advocacy centres, and $400,000 is for victim-serving organizations. It's time-limited, operational funding, and it's another component of the victims fund. This is what the amounts are for.

[Ève Péclet, NDP, La Pointe-de-l'Île, QC]

Has the department conducted a study to determine how those surcharges will help enforce the victims bill of rights or increase the victims fund? Has this money simply been identified by the department?

[William F. Pentney]

For now, we have a victims fund and programs that support other activities, including youth centres.

Clearly, if Parliament passes the victims bill of rights, the already existing funding will be used to support the application of this bill. We have also looked at other needs and opportunities, whether it be the initial implementation, the transition to a new piece of legislation or other programs. This study is still in progress. We are waiting for the legislation to be passed and for the details of the funding. The next steps will depend on whether the bill of rights is passed as it stands.

[The Chair, Conservative, Mike Wallace]

You have 30 seconds.

[Ève Péclet, NDP, La Pointe-de-l'Île, QC]

Thank you, Chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, Mike Wallace]

Thank you very much. Thank you for those questions and those answers.

I'm going to take the next round, if that's okay with my Conservative colleagues. I'm going to ask the deputy minister about this.

Page 16 at the bottom, under “Program Expected Results”, says, “Justice laws and policies promote a fair, accessible and relevant justice system in Canada”, which is beautiful. Then under “Performance Indicator” we read “Canada's international ranking with respect to fairness of the justice system”, and our goal is “10th”.

That doesn't seem too high to me. I don't know why our goal is to be 10th. What does that actually mean?

[William F. Pentney]

It means that we would aim to have Canada ranked among the top 10 nations in the world in terms of this. It certainly in no way represents, in a sense, an end goal or a desired state, but it does represent a realistic assessment of what we think, within the resources, within the context.

As you know, some of the countries being ranked are unitary states. Some have very different kinds of legal systems and in a sense may be more hands on, more levers to control the administration of justice. As you well know, the administration of justice in Canada and our capacity to achieve our goal is very much dependent on a network of partners.

So this represents a target against which we're—

[The Chair, Conservative, Mike Wallace]

So if the target is to be in the top 10, where are we now?

[William F. Pentney]

That's a question that I will have to get back to you on, unless it's—

[The Chair, Conservative, Mike Wallace]

Well, you let me know.

[William F. Pentney]

I will, absolutely.

[The Chair, Conservative, Mike Wallace]

The next question I have for you relates to page 18 of the document. It again is a program for Canadians to “have confidence in Canada's criminal and family laws”. The performance indicator is the “Percentage of Canadians who rate their level of confidence in adult criminal law as 6.0 or greater on a 10-point scale”.

Is this a goal, to be at 60%? If my kid comes home with 60%, I'm not that happy with it. Should we not be aiming higher than six out of 10?

Now, if I had gotten that, I'd be happy, but not my kid—sorry.

[William F. Pentney]

I think it's fair to say that perceptions about the effectiveness and efficiency of the criminal justice system are formed by a variety of factors, starting with one's general underlying trust of one's neighbour; second, the kind of perception formed from local coverage of what's going on in local communities—and crime is measured nationally in many ways but is experienced locally—and then by other potentially high-profile instances, such as the extent to which there has been recent coverage of a wrongful conviction or something, although it may be one case out of 400,000. All of those would be factors that we know, just from research, affect Canadians' perceptions.

So again—

[The Chair, Conservative, Mike Wallace]

It's a realistic number.

[William F. Pentney]

Well, six out of 10.... We would hope that 100% of Canadians would have 100% confidence.

People who are accused of a crime, people who are victims of crime, crimes that aren't solved, people who perceive that crime is high in their neighbourhood, people who perceive there is wrongdoing or inefficiency in the system generally.... There are a lot of factors that we don't completely control.

[The Chair, Conservative, Mike Wallace]

I appreciate that.

I found it interesting on page 10. I thought the amount of documentation that's now available electronically might make the administration of justice more efficient—maybe not more effective but more efficient—because things could be moved around faster and so on.