Justice Committee on Oct. 31st, 2006

[Richard Coleman]

I would agree, based on my own experience in working within the treatment field and in social services. I remember your visit.

I feel that a participant in a drug treatment court program in Canada is probably one of the most closely supervised people in the country, perhaps even more so than somebody in custody. They're in court regularly; they have to provide urine screens on a random basis; and they're in treatment and seen regularly. It's better than just sending people to jail and then turning them loose with little or no supervision at the end of their sentence. It's certainly preferable to the courts. They just order an individual to seek treatment, which is very difficult to track. We've got a well-coordinated system that has the support of the community. It's a holistic approach, so we're working on all aspects of an individual's life—not just treatment separate from the criminal behaviour, not just education and employment, but all of it together. Our participants, our graduates, are probably our best advocates. What we see are people whose lives are improved immeasurably as a result of their involvement with the program.

[Derek Lee, Liberal, Scarborough—Rouge River, ON]

The federal allocation for this is only $2.3 million. I presume the provinces are kicking in large bucks as well. The $2.3 million wouldn't run a lot, with half a dozen courts across the country. So how do you relate to the estimate that we have here for the year--$2.3 million--in Toronto? Do you get $800,000 of it? Or do you know?

[Richard Coleman]

Actually, I do know the exact amount and I can't remember it. Basically, there's a cap on what any court can receive, and we are receiving at that level. But it's pretty much equal to what another court in a similar-sized city would be getting.

[Derek Lee, Liberal, Scarborough—Rouge River, ON]

But the provinces must be resourcing these courts as well, big time.

[Kevin Wilson]

They are not in terms of actual budget contributions, but they are in in-kind contributions, certainly.

[Derek Lee, Liberal, Scarborough—Rouge River, ON]

You mean the court room.

[Kevin Wilson]

I mean the court room, the judge, court staff, Ministry of the Attorney General prosecutor.

[Derek Lee, Liberal, Scarborough—Rouge River, ON]

That includes the social worker....

[Richard Coleman]

Health care costs.

[Kevin Wilson]

Probation.

[Richard Coleman]

As I said, these are existing services that these people are accessing, albeit in a very uncoordinated fashion. So a person is entitled to receive treatment in Ontario. Ontario pays for that, so we're utilizing that same treatment. It's just that we're doing it more efficiently, using the hostel system and supportive housing providers and getting them back into a community college program. These are all costs that are picked up somewhere along the way, but they're all costs that people would be entitled to without our support and supervision.

[Derek Lee, Liberal, Scarborough—Rouge River, ON]

Sure, and I don't quarrel with that at all. It's certainly value for money. I just think the federal government is getting a rather good deal in that its money, spread across six drug treatment courts--$2.3 million is not a huge contribution for what's probably a very innovative, effective court system.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

[The Chair, Conservative, Art Hanger]

Thank you, Mr. Lee.

Mr. Petit, go ahead, please.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair. My question will be brief.

You mentioned earlier that the person has to go in at various stages during the treatment to go through the program you described.

If the person fails—that is, if he or she does not meet the conditions you impose—does he or she have to go to another court? You do have criminal courts in Ontario after all, just as we do in Quebec. Do you send the person to criminal court?

If so, do you tell the judge that the person made a mistake by opting for your program in hopes of lightening the sentence, or do you just drop the case?

[Kevin Wilson]

The person has never left the criminal court. The drug treatment court is not the Gladue court. The Gladue court is a separate aboriginal court. The drug treatment court is still a criminal court. It's still presided over by a criminal court judge. We have a 30-day assessment period when someone pleads guilty and comes into the program. Within the first 30 days, they're getting a sense of us and we're getting a sense of them. Within the first 30 days, if they decide the program is not for them, they may have their guilty plea struck and go back into the regular criminal process--start all over again, have a trial, do it however they want to.

Once the 30 days are up, they're put to the choice: do you want to stay with the program or go? If they choose to stay, then the option of having the guilty plea struck is gone. If they then do not satisfactorily complete the program, or if they don't satisfy all the conditions for graduation, they will proceed to sentencing before the same drug treatment court judge who took their guilty plea initially. They will not get treated more harshly on sentence for having tried our program and failed. They may get a benefit from the judge for having tried at all.

But when they come in, I, as the Crown, say, “This is the sentence that I'm looking for if they do not complete the program”, and I'll put a sentence position on the record. Unless there's something that changes dramatically, that's the sentence position the Crown takes, if they then end up not successfully completing the program and being sentenced. It's still open to the judge, then, to give them a lesser sentence in part in recognition that they tried the court. But they certainly would not be treated more harshly because they didn't succeed in the court.

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

A lot of people with drug problems come to you. In Ontario and Quebec, many people who had been living in psychiatric hospitals were sent home. Many of them ended up on the streets. Should it not be up to doctors, not the courts, to look after them?

The courts are designed for criminals who are mentally competent. In many cases, your clients—I will call them your clients—are people who are really sick from a psychiatric point of view, who are taking drugs, and they are sent to your courts or your program. Normally, they would be in psychiatric hospitals, not in the courts.

[Richard Coleman]

In Toronto, we have the benefit of also having a mental health court. If people were suffering from such a profound psychiatric disability that they were unable to function within a drug treatment court, a referral would be made to the mental health court in Toronto. However, that being said, we are willing to work with people with psychiatric illnesses, where appropriate. We have access to a concurrent disorder program, which is a treatment program geared toward individuals who have both an addiction and an underlying psychiatric disorder. So it is possible for people with a psychiatric illness and an addiction, who are committing crimes, to benefit from treatment specialized to their needs, while participating in the drug treatment court program.

[The Chair, Conservative, Art Hanger]

Thank you, Mr. Petit.

Ms. Barnes.

[Sue Barnes, Liberal, London West, ON]

Thank you very much.

I saw one television program about the Vancouver court, and I know there's terrific support. I'd like to give you an opportunity--one or both of you--to talk about the level of community support that has to surround these courts for them to be successful. If you can give some specific detail, I'd appreciate that also.

[Richard Coleman]

Speaking to Toronto, we have the benefit of a very broad spectrum of community services that are committed to the program, everything from harm reduction providers to a client card that our graduates made up that is provided in the safe crack pipe and needle distribution kits to increase awareness about the program. We have housing providers, we have schools, but the community also provides governance to the program. We have a community advisory committee and numerous other subcommittees looking at the specific needs of our participants that the community is part of. So they have some direct involvement in how the program evolves. It's a unique partnership because they are partners in governance as well as in providing services to the program. There needs to be really broad-based community support for these to be successful. In Toronto we've been lucky that we have that broad support.

This program started as a three-part partnership--treatment, justice, and the community. We were all there in the consultations that led up to the program. Eight years later, the community is still every bit as involved as it was before we started our original consultation process.

[Sue Barnes, Liberal, London West, ON]

Mr. Wilson, did you want to add anything to that?

[Kevin Wilson]

No, Mr. Coleman has covered it nicely.

[Sue Barnes, Liberal, London West, ON]

I want to ask, is there any demographic you would see more often than others? Are older people, all ages, or younger people getting the benefits of this program?

[Richard Coleman]

I would put the median age somewhere around 37 or 38, although we've had participants in their late teens, early twenties, and people in their late sixties, close to 70 years old, participating in the program. Currently, we have more men than women in Toronto, but that's a dynamic that changes. We've also had six women who were participating in the program give birth to drug-free babies while in the program. The last two were doing well enough that the children were able to go home with their mothers.

[Sue Barnes, Liberal, London West, ON]

I noticed in this program--and I wish I had had the advantage of my colleague, having visited.... It seemed to me there was a really intimate knowledge of the people in the program and the players in the courtroom setting. The judge seemed to know these people and seemed to be encouraging their development. It struck me as highly unusual from the courts that I used to go to. When I did drug court in my city years ago, it certainly wasn't like that. It was in and out fast in the court I was in, and nobody cared what your name was, barely. This is a completely different environment, and maybe Mr. Wilson could talk about the atmosphere and the support mechanisms and the knowledge of the individual. Again, when there was a slip-up or something, it seemed as if it were being dealt with in a much more empathetic manner, and it obviously worked for some people.