Justice committee  I think, though, the way you phrased that is a bit misleading. We don't know this isn't working. You made three statements. One was that the public is not pleased, and I'll accept that.

Justice committee  You're the politicians; you would know. But then you asked, why should we continue down a road that isn't working? But we don't know that. We know that the public is not happy, but—

Justice committee  I would never tell you how to do your job—and I would never want to do your job. It's an incredibly difficult one, and I have great respect for all of you who do that work. This gets to one of Bob's points, I guess, that we actually have very little information about whether thi

Justice committee  Certainly the constituency that we represent is not clamouring for Bill C-9 to be passed. They're not clamouring for more opportunities to put aboriginal people in jail. What they're looking for are facilities where people who have been damaged can be healed. What they're looking

Justice committee  I can't speculate on that. I know that the Ontario Court of Appeals has just issued a decision in the Kakekagamick case, in which they asked that question. In my more pessimistic moments—

Justice committee  We're realistic with what we do in Toronto. But in my more pessimistic moments, I realize the justice system sometimes works very quickly. As a judge once described it to me, it works sometimes like a sausage factory. People don't have time to talk and discuss and think about wha

Justice committee  There is a series of things a judge could take into account in section 718.2(e). It is one of the elements, but certainly, as the Supreme Court and several courts of appeal have said, it's not a get-out-of-jail-free card for aboriginal people. Where offences are violent, the expe

Justice committee  Thank you. First, I should make it clear that we have a victims' rights component to our organization, so victims' issues are very significant to us as well. I don't sympathize with the dilemma that you have in some ways as Parliamentarians. I certainly know that many people ha

Justice committee  That sums up our position as well.

Justice committee  No, that's fine.

Justice committee  Yes. By the end of the process we know the clients quite well.

Justice committee  No. The drug traffickers we deal with are crack addicts who sell bits of crack in order to get a bit of crack to use. So they're essentially crack-addicted clients, and the only way they can make a living is by selling bits of crack.They're not involved in any large conspiracy. I

Justice committee  Yes. Drug trafficking is another good example of an offence that for many people conjures up images of Al Pacino in Scarface or something--someone living large and doing all those things. The reality is that our clients involved in drug trafficking do it to survive. It's not a go

Justice committee  The courts were established following the Gladue decision of 1999. There was a concern by judges that even though the court had instructed them to do certain things as a result of Gladue, they didn't have the information or expertise to be able to do that. The idea of the Gladue

Justice committee  That's certainly the case.