I can't answer for the justices of the peace, and you have recognized that. It's a relatively new procedure that has occurred with the justice of the peace, within the last three or four years, as to how bail is handled at that level.
Appeals that come to our court, which are bail reviews, have increased substantially over the course of time, and they are now much longer. It's the obligation of the crown prosecutor to bring forth the reports. If he fails to bring forth the information, the police or the public suffer the consequences by reason of this person's probably being released when he should not have been released.
A good example of that was a case here in Edmonton called Martin, for an individual who killed his wife when she was pregnant. He was released by a judge from Calgary on the bail review. If you read his judgment, you could understand why he was being released, because all the reports weren't in at that stage. He was released, and there was a hue and cry about this, but it could not be publicized and no information could be given about why he was released. But subsequently, when you read the judgment, you would ask why you would keep the guy in jail in light of the information that came before that particular judge at that time. The court of appeal reversed it, but by that time we had more information.
The feeling I get is that the general public would like to see these people incarcerated until they get to trial, but we have some very practical problems in the remand centre and the capacity in the remand centres. I've done a lot of bail reviews in my time. In fact, one of my decisions really set the guidelines for bail reviews. That was on Lysiak. Lysiak only stole $17 million from the Bank of Montreal—no petty cash--but I released Lysiak on bail. But I tied him down so that he had to live with his brothers in Mundare, and he surrendered his passport. I allowed him to go to church on Sunday. I asked him what church he went to. I knew from my own practical knowledge that this church was only open once a year—so he went to church once a year.
You can really tie up a person. You spend $13 a day, I think it is, for him to be monitored by a parole officer, while you spend $130 a day for him to stay in jail. You have to be practical about this. In this day and age, with monitoring with bracelets and other mechanisms, you can save a lot of money. Unless there is a very good reason to lock up an individual—usually it is for crimes of violence—I'm a great believer that we can release a lot of these individuals and save ourselves a lot of money and get around the problems we have in the remand centres of overcrowding and yet have these people attend.