Justice Committee on Oct. 18th, 2006

[Donald Piragoff]

Yes.

[The Chair, Conservative, Art Hanger]

Thank you, Mr. Comartin. Your time is up.

Mr. Petit.

[Daniel Petit, Conservative, Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles, QC]

Good afternoon.

My questions are for whoever can answer them.

You were asked a question about how you could provide for certain things in relation to new legislation coming into force. I'm going to take you back into the past. In the Montreal area, there was a biker war. Mr. Serge Ménard, who is now a member of the Bloc Québécois, was Minister of Public Safety at the time. He did some good work. He resembled us somewhat, back then. He managed to have a good many people brought before the courts. They even had the Gouin Court House built for the occasion. Of the 36 accused, at least some 20 were drug-related bikers. Some had even set off a bomb in the riding of Mr. Réal Ménard, and young Sébastien Desroches was killed in the explosion. Still, those people were entitled to legal aid. As you know, there was some conflict because the amounts were very high.

I'd like to know how you solved that problem. As we know, the cost of defending those people who were involved in organized crime was huge, and this got a lot of coverage in Quebec newspapers.

A few years earlier, there were the events in Oka, with a significant number of Aboriginal people being charged and brought before the courts. There too, they relied on legal aid. That certainly jacked up the legal aid bill.

How did you solve that problem? That may be the kind of situation we are going to have to deal with.

[Donald Piragoff]

I don't know the details of the two cases you have just mentioned.

Mr. Chairman, I think this is one of the reasons why the legal aid system is pursuant to agreement. Each of the provinces is responsible for determining its own funding criteria. The federal government does not impose what the criteria shall be for granting legal aid because, as I said, this is a shared jurisdiction.

The provinces are responsible for the administration of justice in their provinces. The federal government, a number of years ago and in order to promote legal aid, had agreed with the provinces that it would co-share the cost of legal aid even though the actual operation of legal aid is a provincial responsibility.

With respect to the question that was asked earlier on whether Parliament could enact a law obliging the federal government to pay the provinces, yes, Parliament theoretically could oblige the federal government to pay the provinces, but it would then be obliging the federal government to pay the provinces to do something exclusively within their own jurisdiction. The question then is what controls the federal government would have as to how the money is spent or not spent.

Clearly, when you have flexibility, such as a system based on negotiation, the federal government, whether the agreement is for five years or three years, can take an assessment of what has happened over the course of time. It can say it doesn't necessarily like how the money has been spent in particular jurisdictions and that it would like to address that issue in the next agreement.

[Catherine Latimer]

I think you may also be talking about court-appointed counsel, and oftentimes, if the defendant does not have legal aid, the case cannot proceed and you can't get a conviction against the person. In that case, the judge will sometimes order one level of government or another to pay the costs of legal aid or the legal defence of that person. Oftentimes, that is not necessarily consistent with the legal aid tariff, and if the bills are excessive, it causes some concern. It's an interesting problem and is one that certainly needs to be addressed.

[Daniel Petit, Conservative, Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles, QC]

In Quebec, there is a certificate system for legal aid. No matter how many hours are involved, a set amount is provided. Earlier, the Hon. Sue Barnes said that in Ontario, the legal aid deficit was around $10 million. Do you know how it works in Ontario? In that province, there's an hourly system, whereas in Quebec, there's a certificate system, which is completely different. Lawyers in Quebec earn less than lawyers in Ontario. Might that explain in part the $10 million deficit? If we were to operate the way they do in Ontario, you would owe us $10 million.

[Donald Piragoff]

Each province is responsible for the development and administration of its own legal aid system and program. Some jurisdictions provide legal aid through the private sector, where individual lawyers can obtain legal aid certificates to represent clients. Other jurisdictions provide it by government, through legal aid clinics, and the lawyers there are essentially civil servants. They work for the government. Some provinces have a dual system in which they have legal aid clinics as well as a private sector certificate system.

So each province is able to develop its own system. Each system, of course, has different cost impacts, and that is another reason the cost of legal aid may be different from jurisdiction to jurisdiction. Of course, like all things in politics, everything doesn't come down to costs. There are also other reasons as to why a jurisdiction would go with one system over another, and that again is part of the flexibility that exists with the current scheme, and also with the federal government being able to adjust its negotiations based on evaluations of the past record and what's expected in the future.

[The Chair, Conservative, Art Hanger]

Thank you, Mr. Petit.

I have one question in reference to the drug treatment courts. Why were they established? What were the criteria for establishing them, and what criteria were they established on?

[Donald Piragoff]

The reason for the establishment of the drug treatment courts was the realization that the issues of drug addiction, drug crimes and other crimes that are associated with drug crimes, are complex. It is not simply a question of motivation by greed; some of it is motivation by illness, maybe health reasons. Once people become drug-addicted, it's no longer a crime that is motivated by greed but crime motivated by a desire to fulfill a medical need to consume drugs. Therefore, as part of an effective crime prevention program, the government should be looking at ways to ensure that rehabilitation is available to certain offenders who are amenable to being rehabilitated to cure their drug addiction.

It's a recognition that solutions to drug crimes, particularly dealing with drug offenders, are multi-faceted. Depending on the crime, some traditional penalties may be appropriate for some. For certain offenders, long periods of incarceration are the appropriate means of sentence. For other offenders, because of their circumstances, other types of measures may be more appropriate, such as trying to steer them into treatment programs.

[The Chair, Conservative, Art Hanger]

So every drug offence in a place where there is a court, every drug charge, will go before a drug court.

[Donald Piragoff]

No. There are criteria for the drug courts. The drug courts, for example, will not accept violent accused persons. Persons who are involved in commercial drug trafficking are excluded from the drug courts. If the person is charged with a violent offence in association with the drug crime, they will not be entitled to the drug treatment court. If they have used a young person under 18 in the commission of the offence, or if they are charged with a residential break and enter, again they are not qualified to enter into the drug treatment court.

So the drug treatment court is really geared toward a specific type of offender, and those who use violence, are in commercial trafficking, exploit youth, etc., are excluded from the program.

[The Chair, Conservative, Art Hanger]

Thank you.

Mr. Bagnell.

[Larry Bagnell, Liberal, Yukon, YT]

Just to go on record, the Liberals are strongly supportive of well-funded drug courts and legal aid.

Following up on Mr. Comartin's question and your points on evaluation, I assume there is an evaluation for the court challenges program.

[Donald Piragoff]

That's not a responsibility of the Department of Justice. That's Heritage Canada, so I can't speak for another department.

[Larry Bagnell, Liberal, Yukon, YT]

Okay, that's fine.

You've evaluated the costs of the new initiatives the government has brought forward, Bill C-9, Bill C-10, etc. Could you table those estimates of the costs with the committee?

[Donald Piragoff]

That's a question I think you'd have to ask to the Minister. Some of those costs were discussed in cabinet, so it's up to the minister to release what he discussed in cabinet with his fellow MPs or not. I can't release what was discussed in cabinet.

[Larry Bagnell, Liberal, Yukon, YT]

I've been told that one of the provincial justice ministers suggested today that the cost of these new initiatives could be in the order of $1 billion to $1.5 billion in capital, and over $300 million a year in operating costs for all the provinces except Quebec. In your knowledgeable opinion, are they in the ballpark?

[Donald Piragoff]

In the assessments the provinces have given us, there are variations in not only the final figures but also in basic assumptions on how the figures were evaluated. The federal-provincial-territorial ministers agreed that the officials should pull out the pencils and start playing with the figures to try to get a better assessment, because there are discrepancies in the estimates.

Those discrepancies don't exist only between the federal government and the provinces as a whole. There are discrepancies between individual provinces, because not all of them have used the same assumptions or the same sort of baseline data.

[Larry Bagnell, Liberal, Yukon, YT]

The estimates also show a $1.5 million decrease from the territories. I assume that's the same as in the provinces, and that will be in the supplements. Do you have supplements partly drafted with these figures in them now? Roughly when will they be tabled?

[Donald Piragoff]

Yes, they have been drafted. They will be tabled in November or December.

[Barbara Merriam]

But weren't they tabled yesterday?

[Catherine Latimer]

I believe the supplementary estimates have been approved and they're just now moving them out. So I don't think there's any doubt that those resources will be flowing in December.

[Larry Bagnell, Liberal, Yukon, YT]

On public security and anti-terrorism, why is the contribution for those areas being quadrupled, and what is legal aid for public security and anti-terrorism? Who are you defending?

[Donald Piragoff]

The funding for legal aid in the public security area is the result of a public security fund established in 2001 as part of the government's response to the events of September 11. There was an anticipation that, with the new legislation enacted by Parliament in December 2001, there would be increased litigation related to terrorism offences, together with more requests for extradition from other countries, and that this increased prosecution would have litigation costs associated with it. Instead of making it necessary for the provinces to absorb these costs, the federal government, as part of its program to address terrorism, also set aside a fund to address legal aid costs.

As to your second question of why the cost has gone up, last year I believe there were six individuals receiving legal aid funding under the PSAT funds. I believe this year there are 19. Within the last year to 18 months, a number of prosecutions have been launched and charges laid.

[Larry Bagnell, Liberal, Yukon, YT]

What percentage of crimes can legal aid cover? There are a lot of things that poorer people would like to go to court for, but they can't afford it. Is that not true, over and above the backlog?