Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Dr. Zinger, for your presentation and for drawing our attention to such an important issue.
Retired justice Jean-Charles Coutu is a family friend. He was known as Quebec's far north judge. He worked in indigenous communities for more than 20 years, and then he wrote a report. Over the holidays, I had the opportunity to visit him. He shared how sad he was that his report had essentially been shelved.
I believe that a number of the points you raised today deserve a brief historical overview.
Just this past year, Jean-Charles Coutu received the very prestigious Order of Canada. During an interview, he said that, whenever he was working in the far north, he would always meet with Cree band councils and Inuit municipal councils, because sitting next to the band chief was an important contributing factor for the acceptability and social peace that certain judgments could generate. He was always talking to communities about how to make things better and position first nations to take charge of various things.
His report contained 54 recommendations. Mr. Coutu made some very innovative suggestions. For example, he often opted for more lenient sentences so people could remain in their communities. Exiling an Inuk to another village is a much harsher sentence than you might think. We know that the circle is important in Inuit and indigenous culture. Taking an indigenous person or an Inuk out of their community is often a much harsher penalty than the sentence itself. That leads to some degree of disengagement from the system, which in turn leads to the problems you raised in your report.
Another of the recommendations in his report was for a “comprehensive strategic presence of the administration of justice in indigenous communities, tailored to the specific needs of each community in accordance with their social values”. There was also a program to appoint justices of the peace in indigenous communities, one that included more indigenous people, and to set up a special court. Those were some of the things that stood out.
In his 1995 report to the Government of Quebec, Mr. Coutu wrote a passage that I find interesting:
To restore harmony, a judge should be able to go beyond the disputes submitted to him…. It is rare for our system to grant such broad powers to a judge. It seems clear that, if we apply our system indiscriminately in Aboriginal communities, we will continue to provide a form of justice that lacks the necessary elements to achieve positive results and inspire the respect that justice deserves.
In short, by being too strict in indigenous communities, we are not adapting to their culture, and we end up with problems like overcrowding.
Do you think our justice system should explore the idea of including band councils and giving indigenous communities more autonomy in enforcing their rights?