Justice Committee on Nov. 29th, 2007

[Donald Piragoff]

The case you're referring to was a provincial prosecution, and provincial legal aid was responsible. So it was an issue between the Attorney General of Ontario and the legal aid plan of Ontario. It did not involve the federal government.

But I think the broad issue you're referring to is the phenomenon of court-ordered counsel for prosecutions, whether they are federal prosecutions or provincial prosecutions. Some individuals may not meet the provincial criteria for legal aid. Each province has their own criteria for funding level: certain salary limits, income levels, and other criteria as to whether or not a person qualifies for legal aid. Certain individuals may not qualify for legal aid, but due to the complexity and consequences of the case, the judge may be of the opinion that without the benefit of legal counsel the accused person could not have a fair trial with the benefit of full answer and defence. Therefore, the judge essentially looks at the Attorney General and says, “If you want to prosecute this individual, you'd better ensure that this individual has appropriate legal counsel. So Mr. Attorney General or Madam Attorney General, pay for it.”

Where it comes out of the provincial budget, I don't know. Some of it may come out of legal aid; some of it may come directly out of the provincial budget of the Attorney General. It's a purely provincial matter, but that's how the situation arises.

[The Chair, Conservative, Art Hanger]

Thank you, Mr. Lee.

Monsieur Ménard.

[Réal Ménard, Bloc, Hochelaga, QC]

Mr. Chairman, I thought someone was to distribute a document to us concerning the figures that have been advanced. Will that be done before the weekend? I thought Ms. Burke had the document in question. If that's the case, I would appreciate it being distributed to us, unless it is not drafted in both languages. I don't imagine the department would appear before us without having its documents translated. Is the document available?

[The Chair, Conservative, Art Hanger]

Monsieur Ménard, the document is in both English and French, but it alternates. It's not all in one language or the other; it's a combination of both. So we will make an effort to translate it and have it distributed widely.

[Réal Ménard, Bloc, Hochelaga, QC]

But it seems to me that preparing bilingual documents before appearing before us shouldn't be too complicated for the Department of Justice. It seems to me that's a reasonable requirement. I'm somewhat surprised by this amateurism.

That said, you mentioned two amounts to us, $81.913 million and $43.150 million. I'd like you to state the exact amount that each of the provinces will receive. These amounts will become additional funding, which is good news, of course, even though it's largely inadequate. How much will Quebec receive?

I'd like to know whether, once the funding is available, use of those funds will be subject to conditions for the provinces, such as use reserved for defence or for criminal or criminal-related offences, or whether it can be used for the overall operation of their system.

[Donald Piragoff]

Thank you.

Let me address the three issues.

We apologize for not having full copies in both official languages. There were some changes made to the document this morning to ensure that it was accurate and clarified the situation. Accordingly, we were not able to have both an English version and a French version. What we presented was essentially a bilingual version, with part in English and part in French. I apologize for that.

On whether we can provide what each province will receive in this fiscal year, we are not able to do that because we are still in discussions with the provinces as to the exact amounts. We can, however, provide you with a list of what was allocated last year province by province, territory by territory, as well as the percentage of the federal allocation, as opposed to the total shareable expenditure between the province and the federal government, province by province, territory by territory.

[Réal Ménard, Bloc, Hochelaga, QC]

The provinces will be using these funds to operate their systems as a whole, but what will be the criteria for allocating the funding? Will there be a province-by-province negotiation based on population or the crime rate of each?

[Donald Piragoff]

I have a list of the exact criteria used.

[Réal Ménard, Bloc, Hochelaga, QC]

Perhaps you could send it to me.

[Donald Piragoff]

It's very short. I can basically describe it very briefly.

In terms of the third question you asked, whether there are conditions to this money, no, there are no conditions to the money except that the money has to be used for legal aid.

How is it expended by the province? That is according to the province. There is some legal aid money that is conditional, and that's the money that is provided for immigration and refugees. That has to be provided for that purpose. But the general amount that's provided for criminal legal aid is disbursed by the provinces according to the provincial criteria.

With respect to the question as to the criteria that go into the negotiations and the formula, it's quite a complex formula, but I'll just describe the criteria.

The working group looks at the previous contributions by the federal government. It looks at the population of the province or territory--let me just stick with the province--and the number of rural communities in the province, the number of persons charged under the Criminal Code and the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act, and the provincial contributions toward criminal legal aid expenditures. There's a mathematical formula that looks at these and comes up with a different allocation for each province.

[Réal Ménard, Bloc, Hochelaga, QC]

Do you at the department have a table stating what is covered by legal aid in each of the provinces? If so, I would like you to send it to us. It would be interesting to make comparisons. For example, I often hear in my province, which is a nation and which may become a country, that criminal cases in which an individual does not risk conviction are not covered.

Do you have an idea of the coverage rate and of the set of criteria imposed by province? I'm aware that they are imposed by the provinces, but I would like to have an overview. I think that would be interesting, and I'm sure you have that information at the department. Is that the case or am I assuming capabilities that you do not have? I'm talking about information capabilities, of course.

[Donald Piragoff]

Mr. Chairman, I'm not sure that I do have that information, but I will undertake to see if we do. I believe that the Canadian Centre for Justice Statistics does produce the expenditures for legal aid province by province. I'm not sure how comparable they are, because each province may report their statistics differently, but I can see if we have a chart on how each province distributes its own funds. That may be something that they don't share with us, I don't know. But I'll undertake to see what we have and see what we can provide the committee.

We can provide the committee, as I indicated, last year's allocation of federal money as well as the percentages province by province, territory by territory.

[The Chair, Conservative, Art Hanger]

Mr. Piragoff, this document that you handed to me, and there may be one other one floating around, hasn't been completed in both languages. If you could have that translated fully and sent to the committee, we'd appreciate it.

I think Mr. Ménard's points are rather interesting too. If there is the possibility of making some comparison on a graph.... I'm surprised it hasn't been done before.

Do you get feedback from the provinces?

[Donald Piragoff]

I'll ask Ms. Merriam to answer that question, because she's more involved directly with the federal-provincial-territorial working group than I am.

[Barbara Merriam]

As part of our contribution agreement with the provinces, they provide us information on their expenditures for criminal legal aid. Depending on the formula and the total amount of money we have, we calculate how much they would get. But it should be noted that services vary from province to province, and how a province may describe a particular service is different from how another province describes it. So we have relied heavily on the reports from the CCJS that Don just referred to, and we always get the annual reports from the provinces on what they do. But it's sometimes like comparing apples to oranges. It's not 100% clear.

[The Chair, Conservative, Art Hanger]

Thank you very much.

Mr. Comartin.

[Joe Comartin, NDP, Windsor—Tecumseh, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, witnesses, for being here.

I want to pursue Mr. Lee's questions about that case in Toronto.

You have, both in the main estimates and the supplementary estimates, figures for “Contributions in support of Federal Court-ordered Counsel--Unique Legal Aid Cases”. Could you tell me what that is for? And as a supplementary point, why is there such a substantial increase in the supplementary over what was in the main estimates back in the spring?

[Donald Piragoff]

The amount that has been asked for in the supplementary estimates concerning court-ordered counsel is for federal prosecutions. These are situations in which the judge orders the Attorney General of Canada to provide funding for a particular individual.

[Joe Comartin, NDP, Windsor—Tecumseh, ON]

Let me stop you there. Then why, in the main estimates, does it say “Unique Legal Aid Cases?”

[Barbara Merriam]

Primarily the cases we become involved in are federal drug prosecutions, but we have used the language “Unique Legal Aid cases” for the ones in which, say, CRA has a case and perhaps the legal aid plan in that province or the province itself is not prepared to work with us on that case. Then we may have to work directly with the lawyer who is assigned to that case. Those are the unique legal aid cases. The other ones are mostly drug prosecutions.

[Joe Comartin, NDP, Windsor—Tecumseh, ON]

I will go to my second question. Why are the supplementaries for $1.65 million? Why was there such a substantial increase over the original estimates? Am I reading it wrong?

[Barbara Merriam]

I was looking at my supplementary estimate report, and I don't see the request for--

[Joe Comartin, NDP, Windsor—Tecumseh, ON]

It's the same figure. It hasn't increased in the supplementary estimates.

[Barbara Merriam]

No, it hasn't increased. It's the same figure that we've had for the last four years.

[Joe Comartin, NDP, Windsor—Tecumseh, ON]

You have two categories in the main estimates, one for just regular federal counsel intervention and one for the unique. You explained what the “unique” is. What are the other ones for? Are those just federal prosecutions in drug cases?