Thank you, Mr. Chair. Good afternoon.
I'm speaking here today as one representative of the Church Council on Justice and Corrections, which is a national coalition of eleven Christian denominations with multi-faith and other community partners. It is well known as an NGO in the criminal justice field, nationally and internationally, for its work since 1974 to bring public attention to more socially responsible approaches to crime and justice. Recent council activities have included educational conferences, supporting local community restorative justice projects, analyzing public policy, and partnering with the arts community in public education about justice.
CCJC was created by eleven founding churches: the Presbyterian Church in Canada, the Religious Society of Friends--the Quakers, the Roman Catholic Church, the Salvation Army, the United Church of Canada, of which I am a minister, the Anglican Church of Canada, Canadian Baptist Ministries--we have a representative from them today as well--Christian Reformed Churches, Disciples of Christ, Evangelical Lutheran, and the Mennonite Central Committee.
We realize that our own faith tradition has had some negative influence in fostering a culture of justice and legal institutions that have been steeped in retribution in ways that have worked to further marginalize often some of the most vulnerable citizens of our Canadian communities. We take responsibility for helping to undo the harm this has done.
Our primary mandate is to assist our own faith constituencies to reflect upon this and to become aware of the people in their midst who are suffering from the causes and effects of crime and the fear of crime. Our educational resources encourage citizens to reach out to each other with responses and services that can help us all come to grips with the evil of crime when it happens, to survive and to heal, to discover that life can still be good and worth living, and that we can learn better ways to live together in safety and peace.
The focus of CCJC are the human realities that people in our communities are struggling with related to crime, its causes and effects, and the repercussions of how our legal system, the justice system, and society generally deal with crime. We do not expect our legal system alone to be able to do this for us. The job of justice is also a community responsibility, reaching far beyond what any law or justice system of the state can accomplish.
Long years of experience have taught us that how the state carries out its responsibilities, the laws it enacts, the financial resources it allocates, and the public statements it makes can either assist community effort or undo community initiatives by giving the problems of crime a twist for the worst. It will either assist efforts based on sound evidence to transform attitudes and criminal justice practices or perpetuate prejudices and understandings of the true realities of crime. This is what we wish to discuss with you today.
We believe that the changes in law that these two bills are proposing will make what is already a bad situation even worse. There are other, better ways to remedy the concerns that these bills seek to address. We would all be safer if the resources that would be needed to support the implementation of these unhelpful changes were put toward some of the effective new approaches that have emerged in recent years.
Our book, Satisfying Justice, has documented over 100 of these initiatives. One example is the collaborative justice program, which is here in Ottawa in the courthouse. We have representatives here today, Tiffani Murray and Kim Mann.
The proposed legislation will severely restrict the ability of judges to make use of these programs. We want to take our time with you to explain why we have come to the conclusion that the proposals in Bill C-9 and Bill C-10 would not contribute to better justice for our communities and would make things worse.
The distress of Canadians, the trauma and anguish and fear of crime, is a very compelling force. We are all united in our desire to make changes that will make Canada a safer place to live, and the key challenge is to know what will bring the desired results. It may seem that all that is required would be a simple shifting of words here and there--more time for more crime. We believe, however, that what is being proposed is bound to lead to many unintended consequences, consequences that have been unforeseen because the changes proposed are not strategic in any informed way. Our purpose here today is to bridge the two realities: the words, and the human realities that will be impacted by these words.
We urge you to vote not on the words in a battle of rhetoric taken in a vacuum, but with a meaningful reference to their impact on people's real lives.