Justice committee  Presumably that person is being held in remand because there were concerns about their showing up for the trial. But at the end of the day, if they don't show up for the trial they will be found guilty presumably. They're not presenting evidence and they will have already been punished for the crime that they were found guilty of committing because they spent the appropriate amount of time in jail already.

Justice committee  Yes, absolutely, and it should have been the third bullet in my list, but I was rushing through. The immigration consequences have not received an enormous amount of attention, but I think they are quite serious. Under the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, if you are convicted of an offence and your sentence is over six months, that's considered serious criminality.

Justice committee  Yes, I have two proposed amendments. One would simply state that if there is little to no prospect that a person would be sentenced to jail time upon conviction, they should not be detained pretrial. Our pretrial process should not be more punitive than the sentence that someone would face upon conviction.

Justice committee  No, I don't think it has to go that far. I think there should be a recognition that you've been in a punitive environment for as much as you were likely to be sentenced to, but those charges could remain. It's still important, I think, to find out if somebody is guilty or not.

Justice committee  We don't actually have data on how common it is. Most people faced with that situation will just plead guilty. What we do know, and what we regularly hear from duty counsel, is that they will not participate in guilty pleas where they don't think the facts support that plea. That is very common.

Justice committee  I'll just say that this is not my area of expertise, and unfortunately I haven't studied it enough to have a position on it at this time.

Justice committee  I really appreciate the intent of this. I understand that the intent is to create a procedure where administration of justice offences would be dealt with in a form where you wouldn't end up with a criminal charge or a criminal conviction. What really concerns me, though, is that we're introducing this procedure against the backdrop of a risk-averse system.

Justice committee  I think it would be an enormous help. That suggestion is echoed in slightly different words in Professor Roach's submissions as well.

Justice committee  I do think they ought to remain. If I were convinced that there was a significant benefit to eliminating them for efficiency, I think it would be a harder question. In part it's that they are used so differently across the country. I do not see the evidence that eliminating them would help the justice system in a meaningful way.

Justice committee  If you look at the studies about what is actually happening in bail court—and we ourselves did a study where we observed bail courts across the country—you see that there is practice happening on the ground that is not in line with the law. We've now had several Supreme Court pronouncements very clearly setting out what the law of bail is.

Justice committee  In our view, this points to broader problems. The fact that peremptory challenges are one tool that we're holding out to try to create equal juries isn't itself a problem. For us, this doesn't mean that this particular reform needs to be walked back. It actually means that we need to do more in this bill.

Justice committee  No. I've read the government's charter statement. It's obviously not a very detailed or fulsome explanation of how they believe this comports with the charter. The factors they point to, for example, on clause 294, are that an accused would have had an opportunity to be present during previous cross-examinations on preliminary inquiries or voir dires.

Justice committee  I think it's a very good question. I haven't seen any evidence that contested police evidence is unduly delaying trials. As I've noted, we already have a process, and I do think that the breadth of routine police evidence and the vagueness of these provisions will lead to more litigation and be more time-consuming in the trial process.

Justice committee  Thank you very much for the opportunity to appear before you today. This is a lengthy bill, so in the interest of time I will dispense with the intros to my organization and myself. We support the goals of Bill C-75 and applaud the government for taking steps to address many issues in the justice system that are crying out for reform.