Justice Committee on Oct. 31st, 2006

[Kevin Wilson]

I would add that it's very difficult to quantify what the savings are and what the costs are. I think I saw one American study that said that for every dollar you spend on a drug treatment court, you save up to seven dollars. They were taking into consideration things like all of the break-and-enters that this person did not commit that they would otherwise have committed over the rest of their life had they not been through the program and overcome the addiction.

I believe Ms. Merriam, who testified here on October 18, is providing to the committee the executive summary of the evaluation report of the Toronto court. That report certainly does have some numbers in it, but very deliberately steered away from trying to come up with a cost-benefit analysis, because it's simply so hard to quantify.

[Réal Ménard, Bloc, Hochelaga, QC]

Do I have time for another question? Thank you.

What is the process for selecting people who are eligible to appear before a drug treatment court? You mentioned holding something like what might be called a preliminary hearing in legal terms. So there is an initial screening to assess people's motivation. How do they decide who gets to benefit from these services?

[Kevin Wilson]

As I said, there's a six-stage screening process. Part of it has to do with screening people out for things like violence, commercial trafficking, and using young persons. There's also quite an in-depth treatment screening to go into the addiction history and to ensure as much as possible that the person is someone who really is in need of drug treatment. There's also a stage in the screening when the drug treatment court judge actually has a dialogue in court with the applicant, to try to test the person's motivation for picking this point in their life to come into the court. So there are a number of ways that we try to see—

[Réal Ménard, Bloc, Hochelaga, QC]

Do I have any time left?

[The Chair, Conservative, Art Hanger]

No. Thank you, Mr. Ménard.

Mr. Petit.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair. My questions are for Mr. Wilson and Mr. Coleman.

I understand from your presentation that the courts you deal with are located mainly in Ontario.

I also understand that there are no such courts in Quebec. Is that the case? Are there Gladue courts in Quebec?

[Richard Coleman]

If I may, there's interest in Quebec. Justice Céline Pelletier and I have been having conversations for several years now. She would like to start a drug treatment court in Montreal. However, there has been very limited support on the part of the province until recently. My understanding is that her chief justice has given her permission to go ahead and form a committee that will do some of the preliminary investigations around starting a drug treatment court in Montreal. We've been offering her as much support as we can through the Toronto court, and if requested, we'll give her all the assistance she needs.

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

Earlier, you said that there are six steps to determining who is eligible for the program. We do not have Gladue courts in Quebec, so we have to send people through traditional criminal courts.

Here is an example that got a lot of media attention in Quebec. A Chief of Staff spent $37,000 on cocaine. He did not sexually assault minors. He had a good job as a Chief of Staff. Yet he spent $37,000 on cocaine and used false documents to steal public funds to pay for his addiction.

Would he be eligible for your program?

[Kevin Wilson]

I'd have to know more about the situation than that.

[Richard Coleman]

I would say you could certainly benefit from a drug treatment court program. Generally speaking, with the type of profile you've mentioned, obviously, the individual would benefit from treatment. We've found the addition of court supervision is a very important component in this type of program that increases the likelihood of success over just treatment alone, especially when there's some criminal activity involved.

[Kevin Wilson]

It's important to keep in mind too that people come into the drug treatment court because they are already in the criminal court system. So it's not enough to say that this person who worked for the cabinet would have a drug problem and use public funds and so on. But if he were charged criminally with something arising out of that and then brought before the criminal courts, then we'd have a look at the nature of the charge, the nature of the addiction, whether there were some other reasons for screening the person in or out, and make a decision from there.

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

Do I still have some time?

[The Chair, Conservative, Art Hanger]

One more.

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

I am trying to draw your attention to a case that the media were really interested in. This was the Chief of Staff to Mr. Boisclair, leader of the Parti québécois. His Chief of Staff was charged with and pleaded guilty to using cocaine and stealing $37,000 from the government.

I would like to know if a person has to have received a prior conviction to have access to a court like yours in Ontario. We might have such courts in Quebec one day.

[Kevin Wilson]

It wouldn't be about having a conviction; it would be about having a charge before the courts.

In our court, typically, many of our participants have long criminal records, but sometimes we'll get someone who applies who has no criminal record. Whether they have previous convictions or not is not going to determine whether or not they get access to the program.

[The Chair, Conservative, Art Hanger]

Thank you, Monsieur Petit.

Mr. Bagnell.

[Larry Bagnell, Liberal, Yukon, YT]

Thank you.

You said a lot of the clients were homeless, indigent, when you got them. If one of the conditions is they have to be home after 7 p.m., where do they go if they don't have a home?

[Richard Coleman]

Before we release them from custody, I have two staff in the court, called court liaisons, who are part of the assessment process. After they've interviewed the individual and determined that there's an issue around housing—even for people who do have housing but it's deemed unsuitable because there may be other people living there who are drug users—this is where we rely on the community network that's a part of any functioning drug treatment court.

Our community service providers offer not only medical services but housing, shelters, and all sorts of ancillary services. So we would be securing an address to release the individual to. That would be part of their bail. Their bail might say they are to reside at this address and they'll have a curfew between certain hours, and then that will be modified over time.

[Larry Bagnell, Liberal, Yukon, YT]

If you take one of these people who's just on the line, such that they might be allowed in or might not, in the real world, if they don't get allowed in, what are your experiences as to the treatment they get? Do they get treatment that's just as good and the same number of hours of treatment as a person who is allowed into your courts?

[Richard Coleman]

Essentially, the program we offer is the same program that's available to people who aren't involved in the drug treatment court program. However, one of the added benefits of the drug treatment court is that people have immediate access to treatment. They'll be released from court to the address we've secured for them, they'll be reporting to treatment the next day, and the treatment starts then. It's generally 24 hours.

[Larry Bagnell, Liberal, Yukon, YT]

So you're saying an incarcerated person would not get the treatment that quickly, but they have access to the same treatment.

[Richard Coleman]

No, the incarcerated person will actually get the treatment more quickly.

[Larry Bagnell, Liberal, Yukon, YT]

The person who doesn't go through the drug courts?

[Richard Coleman]

A person who's just coming in, who doesn't have any charges and wants access to treatment, would be going through the standard process. They might wait six to eight weeks in Ontario.

[Larry Bagnell, Liberal, Yukon, YT]

What I'm talking about is the violent offender, someone who can't go through the drug courts but has the same addiction. Do they get the same amount of treatment in the prison system, and as quickly, as if they go through the drug courts?