As Ms. Barnes mentioned, the reality is that although the Gladue decision came from the Supreme Court of Canada, it is not being acted upon across the country. We know that. I get calls every day from lawyers who have never heard of the decision, and I get calls from clients who say they've heard of this decision but no one seems to want to hear about it. We hear about judges who don't want to hear about Gladue in their courts. The reality is that things are not changing.
We've discovered with the Gladue court that when judges are given the resources they need, they have the opportunity to come up with creative sanctions. It doesn't mean that people never go to jail. In Gladue court people do go to jail on occasion, so it's not that the judges feel it's their job to keep aboriginal people out of jail, but it's to look at all the available options.
The difficulty is that the resources have not been put into the criminal justice system to give judges the information they need to come up with the responses they need, nor have the resources been put into healing centres and addiction programs so there are options for people. So judges often feel hamstrung.