Mr. Chair, ladies and gentlemen, my name is Arlène Gaudreault. I am here as President of the Association québécoise Plaidoyer-Victimes. I am a founding member of the association and I have been its president since 1988. I have been very involved in the field of victimology for about 30 years. I have taught at the École de criminologie since 1993. My work has been recognized by the ministère de la Justice, which awarded me the Prix de la justice. I have also received an award for my work from the Commission des services juridiques du Québec and the Canadian Criminal Justice Association. As an expert, I am a member of the advisory committee to the Policy Centre for Victim Issues of the Department of Justice of Canada.
I would like to thank you, on behalf of the Association, for inviting us and hearing our views in this consultation. I am simply going to tell you that since 1984, the Association québécoise Plaidoyer-Victimes has been working to create a justice system that is fairer and more humane to victims of crime. In all these years, in everything we have done and said, we have always been concerned with the difficult balance that must be struck between protecting victims and rehabilitating offenders. We have always kept respect for fundamental rights, both of victims and of offenders, in mind. For these reasons, it is difficult to support the aims of Bill C-4, C-4, An Act to amend the Youth Criminal Justice Act and to make consequential and related amendments to other Acts..
It is our opinion that this bill marks a backwards step in relation to the practices and expertise that Quebec has developed, in rehabilitating young offenders and reintegrating them into society. It is also a significant break from the philosophy for the treatment of these young people. It opens the door to an undesirable shift toward incorporating measures modeled on the adult criminal justice system into the youth criminal justice system.
We wanted to meet with the committee primarily to express our concerns and questions regarding this bill, in response to the needs of victims of crime. Protection of society is a fundamental value that must be preserved. In light of our mission, we are particularly concerned about victims' safety.
We do not believe that calling for a more enforcement-oriented justice system will automatically translate into greater protection for society in general, and victims in particular. We are not the only ones who think this. Other organizations and people who advocate for the rights of victims in Canada share our belief. In his recent report entitled "Toward a Greater Respect for Victims in the Corrections and Conditional Release Act", Steve Sullivan, who is the Federal Ombudsman for Victims of Crime, wrote:
Victims understand, better than most, that nearly all offenders will eventually be released from prison. Given their personal experiences, they know the impact violence can have, which is why many victims sincerely hope that offenders will be rehabilitated while in prison. The best protection victims, their families and the community will have is if the offender can learn to modify negative behaviour before he or she is released.
I think those comments are relevant if we consider them in relation to the bill currently being considered. What do victims want? If victims still feel marginalized in the criminal justice system, if they are still disillusioned, that cannot be explained solely and primarily by the fact that sentences are not harsh. Responses to the needs of victims must be addressed from a much broader perspective than sentencing. That is what we would hope to hear.
In 1988, the report of the Standing Committee on Justice and Human writes entitled "Victims' Rights, A Voice, Not A Veto", summarized the legitimate aspirations of victims this way. They ask to be able to participate at all stages of the proceedings, they ask for information about how the justice system functions and they want to know about the programs available to them. They are critical of the uneven availability of programs and services and they want the imbalance they see in the criminal justice system restored.
The question is, when we are talking about the needs of victims where the offender is a minor, how do we meet those needs, when we know that a large proportion of victims, 52%, are young people, and that 20% of those victims are family members? Those figures are taken from Juristat statistics. How do we deal with victims of serious violence and victims who have lost a loved one at present? How much support are they offered in the process, in Canada?
What services are they offered in the courthouses and in the community? How can victims in Canada learn about the what progress a young person is making in closed custody or on probation? How can they know whether that young person has made progress in their program?
I would say that we do not have a good understanding of the special needs of victims who are dealing with the youth criminal justice system and how they are treated. We have no answer to the questions I have just asked, even though they relate to the well-being and physical and psychological security of the victims and the people close to them. Nor do we have data about the services and programs that enable victims to recover. As well, we don't know, in Canada, how we are meeting our obligations to them, and that is a matter of some concern.
The committee noted the imbalance between resources for offenders and resources for victims. We wonder to what extent that imbalance will continue or even worsen, when we see the budgets that are going to be allocated to enforcement as compared to the resources spent on initiatives to help victims of crime.
Victims are not a monolithic group, nor do they follow the same process or have the same needs or the same expectations of the justice system. When we listen to them we must respect their differences. To argue otherwise is reductive.
Unfortunately, victims are often associated with enforcement programs. Victims' cause is increasingly exploited and used as a tool for partisan purposes by political parties of all stripes. Victims' rights are used to legitimize more crime control, but that discourse does not express the position of all victims, with the nuances that must be recognized. It does not serve the cause of victims, and we reject Canada's decision to take this path, in particular in this bill.
As noted by Allan Young, a professor and eminent legal expert who did a study for the Department of Justice of Canada in 2001, there is no evidence to support the hypothesis that victims want harsher sentencing. In fact, studies show the opposite. Initial research involving victims done in the early 1980s highlights the fact that victims are not excessively punitive, any more than people who are not victims. That is also the case among victims of violent crime.
In a letter sent recently to Prime Minister Stephen Harper, Mr. Sullivan recalled that measures that focus on enforcement and harsher prison sentences do not, and I quote, make any real difference in victims' lives.
In fact, every day we receive telephone calls telling us that responding to victims' needs does not just mean keeping offenders in prison longer. In our associations and our groups, we hear victims saying the same thing. They are really looking for services to help them and information to support them in the process, particularly when they are dealing with the compensation scheme or other programs.
We reject the fact that Bill C-4 has been proposed without any real consultation being undertaken with a broad range of people, victims themselves and organizations that have been involved with them for at least three decades and have taken up their cause everywhere in Canada.
The present government still has a lot to do, to give effect to victims' rights, to guarantee them more participation in the criminal justice system and access to services.
Even more effort has to be made in the youth network, particularly to develop a pro-victim culture among all actors in that network. Victims of an offender who is a minor are still being neglected. By trying to toughen sentences for some categories of offenders, the reassuring message is supposed to be that victims are being taken care of and what becomes of them is a matter of concern, but in reality neither the root problems nor the solutions are being tackled. It is a way of salving their conscience.
Initiatives for victims and offenders must be based on a long-term vision and must not be developed for political gain. It is easier to amend legislation than to fund services.
The Association québécoise Plaidoyer-Victimes submits that measures to help parents and families reduce poverty and inequality are essential to combat and reduce criminal victimization. We can restore confidence on the part of victims and the public in general by other means, by other solutions, than enforcement.
Thank you for your attention.