Public Safety committee  Yes. I've been to judicial review hearings with many families. It's a difficult and painful process. I know there were steps taken a number of years ago to limit the number, but it's a really painful process for families to go through. I would definitely applaud the government fo

Public Safety committee  Probably not; certainly no court-based service or police-based service that I know of would provide media assistance. Certainly non-government groups would probably help families. I mean, it can be cathartic for some individuals. Some people have the need to speak out, if it's

Public Safety committee  It is, absolutely. The challenge--this is the next point I was going to make--is that there are some families who would like to have attention on their loved ones, but those victims may not be the ones who make the news very well. For instance, a family might want to talk about

Public Safety committee  Yes, to protect their officers, and I think they see the value in protecting the community at large as well. The example an officer gave me once was that they get an order from the court that says Joe Blow, who just beat up his wife, can't have any guns. When they go to his hou

Public Safety committee  Yes. I believe it provides protection to the public and victims.

Public Safety committee  Well, just as a follow-up, I was at an event today in Ottawa on how to get victim services in Ottawa working better together. Somebody said they looked at a newspaper today and saw Karla Homolka's picture, on national victims of crime awareness week. That's the focus of what's be

Public Safety committee  No. I don't know why the government made the decision it did.

Public Safety committee  Yes. There were many positive initiatives. I think we pointed out where they could even go a little further, but certainly the steps taken in that bill would have been very positive.

Public Safety committee  Yes, I would agree. The bill would have enhanced services for victims, which is only a good thing, and that has been delayed by however long. I guess we'll have to wait to see.

Public Safety committee  What I can agree to is that I wish the program had been better managed so we wouldn't have spent all that money. We did waste some. It was mismanaged and there were mistakes made. So would I have liked to have seen that money go to victims of crime? Absolutely.

Public Safety committee  I'm aware of the commitment in the budget. My understanding was that it will make it easier for families of homicide victims to access the first six weeks of those sickness benefits. It's a positive step. I'm the victims ombudsman, so I'm always going to push the envelope as far

Public Safety committee  Absolutely. Victims have an interest in the ultimate sentence. In our current use of victim impact statements, we don't actually allow victims to speak to a sentence. Judges have decided that's not appropriate for victims to speak to a sentence. That's actually a frustrating aspe

Public Safety committee  Thank you.

Public Safety committee  Thank you.

Public Safety committee  That's right.