Justice committee  I would just echo the comments that have already been made. I think offering an updated picture of an offender who's about to return to the community—perhaps it's only four years later, but perhaps it's 25 years later for some family members—is a really valuable thing for them.

Justice committee  Certainly. I think the point is about communication and about victims being able to raise their concerns when they encounter such problems. They should get a response from an agency around their concerns. That is our point.

Justice committee  I don't know the answer to that.

Justice committee  I guess there could be different circumstances where an apology might be necessary. I'm thinking of a lot of sexual assault complainants who come forward and perhaps their allegations are deemed unfounded originally at the moment they come forward, but perhaps later on other vict

Justice committee  I don't know if I can answer that. I don't know what the government has allocated with regard to the educational piece around this bill. Implementation and education, raising awareness, are really important. One of the problems I highlighted is that people who have never been v

Justice committee  Yes, absolutely.

Justice committee  We are. We direct victims. We get tons of calls from across Canada. People don't know where to get help and we direct them locally, first and foremost, to get supports where they live and try to inform them as best we can about what might be available in terms of financial assist

Justice committee  Certainly in our briefs that we prepared we always touched on implementation of the bill. We requested that quite lot of money go into how we were going to raise awareness about this.

Justice committee  I think it's very important for crowns to inform victims as soon as possible about pleas. I think Joe did a really good job in his presentation when he talked about how it makes a difference for people. Maybe they don't necessarily agree with the decision, or with the lesser sent

Justice committee  Thank you for inviting us to appear before the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights today. Our agency is a federal not-for-profit corporation that was created in 1993 with a goal to provide a voice for persons harmed by serious crime in Canada. We offer advocacy, info

Justice committee  Sorry. The clerk took my speaking notes to photocopy and he didn't give them back to me.

Human Resources committee  That's a low figure actually.

Human Resources committee  Absolutely, the cost of crime is borne by the victims. I want to reiterate that point again. Huge costs. I think it's a similar study to those that the Department of Justice have done, but almost 70% of the cost of crime are borne by victims themselves.

Human Resources committee  I would agree 100% with Lenore. We definitely are missing a national strategy that includes those three key areas. I think we need to focus more in Canada on preventing sexual and domestic violence. I think these areas are still very much hidden from the criminal justice system;

Human Resources committee  I would absolutely agree. I think the shelters we have are doing a remarkable job with very limited resources. If I could see a huge cash influx to allow them to hire more staff and expand beds on the front line, that would be amazing. Second, definitely it's affordable, safe ho