Justice Committee on March 29th, 2022

[Ian Broom]

I'm happy to respond to that question. Thank you.

The board is committed to ensuring that victims' voices are heard, their rights are respected and there's the opportunity to participate.

However, as you point out, as a result of limited access to CSC institutions at the outset of the pandemic and throughout, depending on the situation in the communities in terms of transmission, PBC hearings were conducted remotely. In April 2020, the Parole Board implemented an interim solution for victims to participate by teleconferencing—

[The Chair, Liberal, Randeep Sarai]

Mr. Broom, I'm going to have to cut you off there. I'm sorry.

We'll go over to Mr. Morrison for five minutes.

[Rob Morrison, Conservative, Kootenay—Columbia, BC]

Thank you, Chair.

I'm just going to dive into something we haven't really talked a lot about, which is national standards for training for the treatment of victims. I guess I'd like to see both sides. We have justice and we have public safety.

Are there national standards for the treatment of victims right now for, say, the judges, and for all the departments on the public safety side? If there aren't, are you going to develop them?

The last question is, who's accountable to ensure that people in those departments are actually treating victims under a national standard, so they're all treated consistently? It seems we're kind of all over map.

Maybe each department can just explain a little bit about what you're doing to ensure there's a national standard for the treatment of victims.

[Susan McDonald, Principal Researcher, Research and Statistics Division, Policy Integration and Coordination Section, Department of Justice]

Perhaps I can begin, Mr. Morrison.

Are you speaking about standards through the Standards Council of Canada—the SCC—and the formal development of national standards?

[Rob Morrison, Conservative, Kootenay—Columbia, BC]

Sure, but I'm also speaking of when we require, for example, criminal justice or law enforcement personnel to have continuous training. Part of that training would be if they aware of the treatment of victims. Do they know how to treat victims?

Maybe we could close that gap from unreported to reported if there was a standard.

[Susan McDonald]

I think the Canadian statement of basic principles addresses that standard. That has been signed on to by all provinces and territories, which are responsible for the administration of justice. That falls under their domain.

I can turn this over to our Public Safety portfolio colleagues to address the issue of standards in their respective agencies.

[Chad Westmacott]

Thank you very much.

I'll just jump in very quickly and say that training is available through the Parole Board for their regional communications officers and in the CSC for the victim services officers. That helps to ensure consistency in services.

Also, the complaints process that is set up through the various agencies is a way to ensure that, if these services are not provided in a way that a victim feels is appropriate or respects the rights, there is that opportunity to raise that complaint and concern.

I'll turn to my colleague, Kirstan.

[Kirstan Gagnon]

Thank you.

Registered victims tend to be those who are affected by the most violent crimes. They may be more seriously harmed, so it's super important to do really good training.

We have victim services officers across the country who get regular training. We also have it in the parole officer induction program. Working with stakeholders on an ongoing basis to get advice on how best to reach victims on an ongoing basis is key, as well as organizations that are trusted—

[Rob Morrison, Conservative, Kootenay—Columbia, BC]

Okay, perfect.

I know I didn't get to parole, but I'm going to run out of time here and I wanted to move on to data.

The sharing of information between agencies seems to be a consistent issue, not only in the federal government, but in a lot of different places. Reading through some reports...the police, for example, don't report the number of interactions with victims. Crown prosecutors' information isn't shared. Courts, review boards, correction services, parole boards are pretty well the same, where we do not have any sharing of information.

This is probably more for Public Safety because there are more agencies there. How do we correct that?

[Chad Westmacott]

Please go ahead, Kirstan.

[Kirstan Gagnon]

I just was going to say, to kick that one off, that to ensure better protection of the public, our parole officers work with and share information with police agencies across the country in most jurisdictions where offenders are released into the community as law-abiding citizens. This helps to ensure public safety on an ongoing basis and also to protect victims in those communities.

[Rob Morrison, Conservative, Kootenay—Columbia, BC]

Okay.

Maybe I have one last question for Public Safety. I have only 30 seconds.

We talked about restorative justice for offenders, which is a great program, I know. I have been involved in that, especially on Vancouver Island.

Restorative justice for victims is really interesting. Is there federal funding there, the same as federal funding for victims services?

[Kirstan Gagnon]

Our restorative opportunities program is funded some through existing funding at CSC. Were you looking for those exact figures?

[The Chair, Liberal, Randeep Sarai]

Unfortunately, you're out of time. If you have those figures, you can send them to the clerk afterwards.

Next, for five minutes, we have Madame Brière.

[Élisabeth Brière, Liberal, Sherbrooke, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Good morning to you all.

I thank the witnesses for being with us this afternoon.

In the January 2021 report of the Office of the Federal Ombudsman for Victims of Crime, the ombudsman said he wished that the Canadian Victims Bill of Rights would give victims better access to information and that greater consideration would be given to their safety.

Yet, in the Canadian criminal justice system, victims continue to report to the Office of the Federal Ombudsman for Victims of Crime that they are not adequately informed about their rights and the services available to them. They even recommend that a distinction be made between factual information about different stages of the judicial process, such as bail hearings, appeals against sentence, appeals of release denial orders, and informal information, such as explanations related to decisions made by judges.

How do you explain this difference between the theoretical law and its practical implementation?

Is the fact that the burden of requesting information is on the victims at every stage of the case a hindrance to them?

[Susan McDonald]

Thank you for the question.

The right to information, as the ombudsman has noted in her 2021 report, she considers a “gateway right”. I think everyone at this table can agree that the right to information is very important. Victims have always wanted information.

There's an article we've prepared that looks more closely at this right to information, but particularly in the context of the impact of trauma on learning and what victims, those who are particularly traumatized by their victimization experience, are actually able to retain in terms of memory being affected, and the different strategies for that. The article is called “The Right to Information” and we can forward the link to you. It is available online in both official languages in the “Victims of Crime Research Digest” of 2016.

Importantly, what we looked at, too, was that, at the outset, even before the Canadian Victims Bill of Rights came into force, the Department of Justice reached out to key victim stakeholders through the Policy Centre for Victim Issues and conducted a survey to really determine how these stakeholders wanted to learn about the CVBR, in what format, in what mode and on what particular topics, exactly as you referred to: the factual aspects of how the criminal justice system works, actual specific amendments to the Criminal Code, etc.

These results came in, and we had 604 responses. There were 38 from individuals and 62 from organizations all across the country, with some really good marching orders in terms of how to get that information out there. That's one aspect of the article. The other parts talk about research from different fields, such as psychology, to really understand the right to information and the particular group of victims.

I hope that begins to answer your question.

[Élisabeth Brière, Liberal, Sherbrooke, QC]

Thank you.

To which bodies can victims turn to get the relevant information? I feel like there is some buck passing going on.

What about the confidentiality aspect?

[Susan McDonald]

The Department of Justice supports the development and enhancement of child advocacy centres, and has been doing so since 2010. In those instances, child advocacy centres include a multidisciplinary team. For those teams, specific information-sharing protocols are signed, so law enforcement can share information with others sitting around the table, which might include mental health professionals, medical professionals, advocates, victim services, Crown, for example. In those cases, the flow of information seems to work very well, particularly where a victim advocate is there to pay attention to the non-offending family member—for example, a parent.

[The Chair, Liberal, Randeep Sarai]

Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Brière.

Now for five minutes we go to Ms. Findlay.

Welcome to the committee today.

[Kerry-Lynne Findlay, Conservative, South Surrey—White Rock, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Section 16 of the Canadian Victims Bill of Rights grants victims “the right to have the court consider making a restitution order against the offender.”

Has there been an increase in restitution orders since section 16 has been enforced?

I'm not sure who wants to answer.

[Susan McDonald]

I can speak to that, Madam Findlay.

The short answer is we're not sure, which sounds very vague and “un-data-like”, and my apologies for that.

We have, through a special request, been able to get data from the Canadian centre for justice and community safety statistics at Statistics Canada. We are able to look at data prior to 2015. It's on a fiscal-year...so it would be up to 2014-15, and then 2015-16 up to 2019-20. At this time, looking at both adult and youth court statistics of restitution orders made by type of restitution order, it does not look like there has been an increase.

Feedback from provinces and territories from which the data are collected has indicated that the numbers provided by our national statistics agency are less than what they have at home. We don't quite understand the discrepancies, but we are going to be following up and scheduling meetings in the coming months to do so.

[Kerry-Lynne Findlay, Conservative, South Surrey—White Rock, BC]

It sounds like the process of monitoring isn't very robust, but if you have some of those figures, perhaps you could table them with the committee.

How are such orders enforced? Would you suggest change is needed to make enforcement easier for victims?

[Susan McDonald]

When enforcement is still in the criminal justice system, so when there are restitution orders, a condition of a conditional sentence or probation, community corrections works very closely with the offender to develop a payment regime. For example, a schedule or payment is made at the outset, paid to the court, and then transferred to the victim. In stand-alone orders, there is no such supervision. If the order expires, this then results in the onus being on the victim to file that order in civil court and use civil measures for enforcement, which can be very difficult.

[Kerry-Lynne Findlay, Conservative, South Surrey—White Rock, BC]

Yes, it sounds quite onerous, actually.

In 2019, a declaration of victims' rights was incorporated into the military justice system, through Bill C-77 amending the National Defence Act. Can one of you tell the committee when victims in the military justice system may expect to benefit from the declaration of victims' rights? My understanding is it's been almost three years since royal assent, and that declaration is still not in force.

[Matthew Taylor]

I think your committee will be hearing from witnesses from the Department of National Defence, and they'll be better able to answer that question. We understand they're working diligently, and they'll be best placed to provide more information.