Justice Committee on Oct. 22nd, 2009

[Dr. Margaret Shaw]

No. One of them will be in about a month's time, when he leaves our organization and becomes a faculty member.

[Brent Rathgeber, Conservative, Edmonton—St. Albert, AB]

But that's purely coincidental, I take it.

[Dr. Margaret Shaw]

Yes.

[Brent Rathgeber, Conservative, Edmonton—St. Albert, AB]

Thank you.

[Dr. Margaret Shaw]

I do have some material on the organization, and we have produced--

[Brent Rathgeber, Conservative, Edmonton—St. Albert, AB]

Do you have a website?

[Dr. Margaret Shaw]

Yes, we have a website.

And we've produced.... I have a French and an English version. Last year we produced the first International Report on Crime Prevention and Community Safety, which is a look, internationally, at good practices and strategies in development in crime prevention around the world. This is a CD-ROM version. I have a French version and some English copies.

We will be producing the second version next year, the 2010 report, which will have a discussion of organized crime and its links with local crime.

[Brent Rathgeber, Conservative, Edmonton—St. Albert, AB]

Thank you.

Those are my questions.

[Dr. Margaret Shaw]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Ed Fast]

Thank you.

We'll move on to Mr. Woodworth.

[Stephen Woodworth, Conservative, Kitchener Centre, ON]

Thank you very much.

Thank you, Ms. Shaw, for attending with us today.

I want to begin by saying that I was very pleased to hear that the emphasis in your organization is on both community collaboration and prevention. I am pleased with that for two reasons. The first is that I think those are both fundamental principles of our government's policy in this area. And second, they are fundamental to many of the initiatives that have been undertaken in my own hometown of Kitchener, Ontario.

I have had a different experience from what Ms. Jennings has had, however, in that I have seen increasing amounts of money directed towards these efforts over the last few years. I can give you a couple of examples. In particular, in my riding, in Kitchener, in the spring, almost $700,000 was granted toward the development and implementation of a high school curriculum project called the “High on Life” challenge. It is designed to reduce drug use among young people. I know that our Kitchener people are in fact training teachers and others from all around the province of Ontario in that curriculum.

A couple of months ago the government provided $3.5 million to the Waterloo Region Crime Prevention Council, about which I'll speak more in a moment, to deal with anti-gang strategies.

We recently provided something in the order of $7 million toward a project across Canada called Circles of Support and Accountability.

In particular, I'm proud of the Kitchener-Waterloo region, because it has an international reputation in these areas. Mark Yantzi, of Kitchener, has established centres for restorative justice in the Philippines and in other areas around the world.

I would issue a standing invitation to you. If I can ever get you to Kitchener, I'll introduce you around to some of these agencies. I'm very proud of my community and our government's efforts in these areas.

I don't know enough about your organization. I'm assuming that you might be familiar with a lot of the good work being done in Canada. I don't know whether you promote the Canadian models around the world. Are you familiar with these things? Do you promote them around the world? Can you give me some information about that?

[Dr. Margaret Shaw]

I can indeed, yes.

I am very familiar with Kitchener-Waterloo and Christiane Sadeler and all the wonderful people who have worked there for a long time. Kitchener-Waterloo is actually the model poster child for this approach to crime prevention in Canada. It has consistently worked on this across-the-board approach at the local level for the last 15 years, I would think, since ICPC was founded. I think Kitchener-Waterloo was part of the origins of the organization.

We absolutely promote good practice. We produce a lot of compendiums on good practice and good strategy. We talk about effective practice based on good evidence and highly researched pieces of work. But we also talk about practices that are well planned and well developed and look extremely promising so that you can give people a notion of what it is someone has done in their city or in their province on a particular problem.

When we produced the international report last year, it came with a compendium of 75 practices and strategies gathered internationally, including ones from Canada. We have a website. We have a newsletter. We regularly put out information. We will be holding our 15th anniversary colloquium in December, here in Montreal. That will include, among other things, a meeting of the 14 cities across Canada that have formed a network around crime prevention. They will be meeting during our colloquium, or on the margins of our colloquium.

[Stephen Woodworth, Conservative, Kitchener Centre, ON]

Thank you.

Actually, I was going to mention that, because Kitchener has played a leading role in that initiative. It is a collaborative approach, exactly as you described. I am very glad to hear that your agency is promoting our Canadian models around the world. Sometimes Canadians are a little too shy. The good work we're doing in Canada needs to be broadcast. I'm looking forward to visiting your website and reading your report. I appreciate that.

Again, I'll extend that invitation. If you get down to Kitchener, please look me up.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Ed Fast]

We'll have one last question from Monsieur Petit.

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

Thank you very much.

Thank you for being here, Ms. Shaw. You talked to us about your international centre. I didn't listen to my colleagues' questions, but I heard you give your 10-minute address to present your organization.

Have you always practised in Quebec, or have you previously practised in other provinces?

[Dr. Margaret Shaw]

In Quebec.

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

Has your international centre always been in Montreal?

[Dr. Margaret Shaw]

Yes.

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

I'd like to ask you a general question. You may not be able to answer, but you'll be able to give us some clues.

For at least 40 years in Montreal, as in Quebec, we have engaged in a lot of rehabilitation interventions through sociologists and psychologists. I come from Quebec City, and Laval University trains a lot of sociologists and psychologists. The same is true of the Université de Montréal, McGill University and the state universities such as UQAM and so on.

Across Canada in the 1950s, Montreal was considered an open city, a sin city, as they say. A clean-up was done. Afterwards we had major mob problems and the Cliche Commission. Then we had the Commission of Inquiry on Organized Crime, the CIOC, on tainted meat. Then there were the biker wars. It's always Montreal-Quebec City, Quebec City-Montreal.

The other cities have had problems, but we have a lot. You live in Montreal and you work in a prevention and rehabilitation centre. How is it that there are so many in Montreal now? I'm a Quebecker, and I'm asking you for help. Why has it been so big in Montreal and for such a long time and we can't solve the problem? Can you explain that to me? Is there something in the water we don't know about?

[Dr. Margaret Shaw]

It's difficult for me. I lived in Montreal for 23 years. I come from Britain, where I was working in the Home Office. I have tried to understand Quebec as an outsider, but I hope now as a Montrealer, and I would hope to see myself as a Quebecker.

Our centre works very closely with the Government of Quebec. We had the honour of having Serge Ménard, when he was minister, as the president of the organization for Quebec. We work with the police. We work a lot with the Montreal police. We work very closely with the Sûreté du Québec. We work with the City of Montreal. Many visitors come to see us; this week we have Belgians and some Guatemalans coming, and someone from Australia, and we take them everywhere to show them the projects and to meet the significant people in Montreal. We work a great deal with the Province of Quebec, which is one of our main supporters.

I think it's always about perceptions. In terms of levels of criminality, in many ways crime levels are much lower in Quebec and Montreal than in the rest of Canada. I had a phone call from the press last year to ask why there was such a low level of homicides in Montreal; it was way down, down to the levels of the 1970s, and in Quebec City last year, there was not one single homicide, so again the journalist was asking why crime levels were so low.

I think there's always a problem of perception about what is going on, and just as a sociologist, there is the issue of the relations between people living within a linguistic and cultural area for a long period of time. You know, there are these discussions, which are kind of fun; they're important and they're interesting. I don't know the reality of the extent to which problems of corruption and all of these things happen elsewhere, but I suspect they do happen.

I can't answer your question, basically, but I think it's an interesting one.

[The Chair, Conservative, Ed Fast]

Thank you very much, Ms. Shaw, for your testimony.

I'll just make one note, Mr. Comartin. The analysts advise me that the homicide rate in Canada in 2007 was actually 1.8 per 100,000, and we're checking on the 2008 rate, but it's not much different.

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

It is right around 600. I have the 2007 figures, and there were 605 murders in 2007. In a population of 31 million, it doesn't work out, so it must be the adult population they're working on in terms of that ratio per 100,000.

[The Chair, Conservative, Ed Fast]

I'm looking at Statistics Canada figures, and this is on the Statistics Canada website. There were 594 homicides in 2007. That translates to 1.8 per 100,000.

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

They're wrong.

[The Chair, Conservative, Ed Fast]

Anyway, thank you, Ms. Shaw, for your testimony.