Justice Committee on Nov. 18th, 2014

[Sylvie Albert, Member, Association of Families of Persons Assassinated or Disappeared]

Yes. The victim, who has already been harmed, must in addition face her aggressor or the offender. If on top of everything she has to justify to the court her right to obtain that to which she is entitled, I think that is asking a lot. That person did not ask to have this status: she is enduring it. This isn't a situation one prepares for. If it were an automatic process and if that responsibility could be withdrawn from the victim, I think that would be greatly appreciated.

[Philip Toone, NDP, Gaspésie—Îles-de-la-Madeleine, QC]

So there should be an amendment to the bill of rights in that regard.

[Sylvie Albert]

I think so. Currently, it says that the victim has the right to make this request, but in my opinion this should be done automatically, which would free the victim from that responsibility.

[Philip Toone, NDP, Gaspésie—Îles-de-la-Madeleine, QC]

And is that AFPAD's position?

[Dolores Mallet]

For my part and on behalf of AFPAD, I think that that is one step. It could be an automatic process, as suggested by my daughter Sylvie. That would be ideal, but nothing on this earth is perfect. Moreover, according to what I understood, the offender would be forced to do so after his release. So there is a follow-up.

[Philip Toone, NDP, Gaspésie—Îles-de-la-Madeleine, QC]

The bill says that the judge could grant an extension.

[Dolores Mallet]

That is correct.

[Philip Toone, NDP, Gaspésie—Îles-de-la-Madeleine, QC]

Someone criticized that. If the offender were granted an extension, he could declare bankruptcy before having to reimburse these amounts.

What is the position of the AFPAD on that?

[Dolores Mallet]

Let us say that the AFPAD would like see the best-case scenario, which is that the victim would receive restitution and the offender would not have the opportunity to declare bankruptcy before having made restitution.

[Philip Toone, NDP, Gaspésie—Îles-de-la-Madeleine, QC]

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Conservative, Mike Wallace]

Thank you for those questions and answers.

Our next questioner is Mr. Calkins from the Conservative Party.

[Blaine Calkins, Conservative, Wetaskiwin, AB]

I want to thank our witnesses at the committee today, particularly those who told very personal stories about their own incidents of being a victim. It's not the easiest thing to listen to, to be quite honest with you, but I certainly appreciate your candour. I'm very pleased with our bill and I respect the fact that a lot of you have come here today offering not only support for it, but also the constructive feedback that is trying to make something good even better. I look forward to the deliberations we're going to have as we go on.

Ellen, a change in the bill proposes a right to request testimonial aids. I think that's going to be very beneficial, specifically when it deals with children who have to appear. Do you have any thoughts on that?

[Ellen Campbell]

With regard to...?

[Blaine Calkins, Conservative, Wetaskiwin, AB]

The amendment on testimonial aids and how it would benefit other people when they're in the system.

[Ellen Campbell]

I think I mentioned the more natural it can feel for a child, if a child did not have to go before the perpetrator at any time. They could be videotaped. It's done a lot now, but I think it could be done more and more. For instance now they have the Sheldon Kennedy Child Advocacy Centre in Calgary. We have something in Toronto now too that helps the child through the whole process. It's a one-stop shop. The testimonial aids in any way, absolutely.... It's already there. I think we can probably tighten it up and increase what can happen.

[Blaine Calkins, Conservative, Wetaskiwin, AB]

Okay. Fantastic.

My next question is for you, Greg. You're a pretty sophisticated victim, and I say that with the greatest of respect. A lot of folks don't have.... I have very limited legal training due to my law enforcement background, and that only gets me so far into the system before folks like crown prosecutors and so on take over. My questions are based from that kind of perspective.

You're a very sophisticated person, who became sophisticated and knew what was going on, and yet you still felt like you were a victim. The interesting thing I got out of all of this was that a victim starts feeling like a victim right away. The legal system—I'll call it a legal system, and I'll get to my next question after this—doesn't produce a result until we go through the legal process. Meanwhile, all the way through that process the victim still feels like a victim.

I'm just wondering; you talked about their not being guilty until proven so in a court of law and so on. Do the provisions in this bill go far enough insofar as making the victim feel like they're more adequately taken care of, in your opinion? You said you agreed with the government's perspective on this bill. Have we actually gone far enough in the legislation?

[Gregory Gilhooly]

I think the unfortunate reality is that you can never go far enough to make a victim feel whole in the process. The fact that this is a start is a good thing. To be frank, I don't know how much further you could go at this stage. In my view, like most of what happens....

Twenty years ago the big debate around the justice system, or the “legal results system”, as I prefer to call it—there's no justice in the legal results system—

[Blaine Calkins, Conservative, Wetaskiwin, AB]

Don't steal my thunder.

[Gregory Gilhooly]

—was incarceration versus rehabilitation. Now we've moved to a time when we can consider a victims bill of rights and the focus on the cost to society of victims. This will be a continuing societal change where we increasingly focus on victims, the cost to society that victims themselves have, beyond the cost of incarcerating a criminal.

[Blaine Calkins, Conservative, Wetaskiwin, AB]

I want to go to the numbers that were put out there. I think Irvin quoted these numbers as well.

In Quebec they have a fairly sophisticated system where they have a caseworker assigned right away and so on and we talked about the reporting of crime being at 40%. Right now we're talking about the reporting level being at approximately 30%. Do you see the differences between the provinces and the differences at the international level for the reporting of crime having anything to do with how victims...?

I think you were making that case, but can you refer to anything specific to edify this committee, a study or whatever the case might be, to clearly draw the line between, or connect the dots, so to speak, and show that when victims are a part of the process, after a while, when the legal structure and the framework are in place, it actually results in a higher reporting of crime?

[Dr. Irvin Waller]

I think the comparison between Quebec and the rest of Canada speaks for itself. If you look at what is already available in Quebec in terms of professional services, in terms of compensation—

[Blaine Calkins, Conservative, Wetaskiwin, AB]

But it shouldn't be just anecdotal, or cultural. Has anybody actually done an actual study based on the actual implementation? It's a different legal system in Quebec as well, right?

[Dr. Irvin Waller]

It's not a different criminal justice system.

[Blaine Calkins, Conservative, Wetaskiwin, AB]

Okay. Fair enough.

[Dr. Irvin Waller]

The police, courts, corrections are in general terms the same. All I've done is I've made a comparative between countries. I think what is shocking is that Canada, the rest of Canada in simple terms, is an outlier with these very low rates.

If you look at where we've gotten, we are a long way behind those other countries. If you look at the U.S. or the European Union, which has been talked about, or Australia, any of these countries are doing a lot better than we are. France even has lawyers for victims in the courtroom, and the world doesn't collapse.