I'm the president of the International Organization for Victim Assistance. I have been working to get services and rights for victims for some 40 years and I have recognition in the United States and a number of other countries for my work. I've recently done a book, which actually was written for the people around this table, called Rights for Victims of Crime: Rebalancing Justice.
In relation to Bill C-37, this book says we should be paying for services for victims out of general revenue; that's where we pay for most other services. However, I'm a pragmatist, and any progress to help victims is worth it. I've been an advocate—a reticent advocate—for fine surcharges since they were first introduced in the U.S. in the seventies and early eighties and when they came to this country in 1989.
I think Bill C-37, with the doubling of fine surcharges, is a reasonable step to take. However, I think it's extremely important to see that Canada is way behind other countries in terms of what it does for victims, and we should not confuse a doubling of the fine surcharge with a genuine strategy to meet the needs of victims.
The $83 billion in harm for victims is totally inexcusable in a country like Canada; that's the data used by the Prime Minister's Office earlier this year, or maybe late last year. The fact of 440,000 violent crimes known to the police is totally inexcusable in a country of this wealth. Also, totally inexcusable are the 1.3 million property offences known to police.
The most inexcusable statistic used by the Prime Minister's Office is that only 69% of victims in this country go to the police. These are third world statistics. Once you begin to provide services for victims, once you begin to get police providing information to victims, and once you get some sort of reasonably coherent system of criminal injuries compensation, you can expect more victims to go to the police. I think that's what you see from looking at other countries.
Just to back up what you see in other countries, let's go to the United States for a moment and see what they did with victim fine surcharges. They didn't just go after the small-time offenders. They went after big corporations. They actually raised more than a billion dollars a year out of the Victims of Crime Act that dates from 1984. These are fines on major corporations that have cheated in some way.
I'm concerned that while we double these sorts of fine surcharges, we make sure that our courts and the regulations are such that we can see, maybe not billion-dollar fines, but a hundred-million-dollar fines here, and I think this will enable us to have, from coast to coast, the sorts of services we need.
Let me take you for a moment to the European Union. They recently adopted a directive that applies to 27 countries—not 10 provinces, but 27 countries—where the inhabitants don't even speak the same language, and 75 million victims in an area of 500 million people will now have guaranteed access to victim services.
This will not guarantee access to victim services for victims in this country. We should be making sure this happens. If the European Union can do it, then we can do it.
The Prime Minister of the United Kingdom recently said that prevention is the most effective and most cost-effective way of dealing with crime and everything else is picking up the pieces. Well, guess what? The United Kingdom just recently introduced a restorative justice procedure across the whole of England and Wales. They've done this because the evidence shows that victims are much more satisfied with restorative justice, and it's an effective way of reducing recidivism.
My plea here is, yes, go ahead with this legislation, but let's get a bipartisan, tripartisan piece of legislation. Every year I give a speech to the bipartisan caucus of the U.S. Congress. This does not have to be a political game. This is something that all sides of the House can agree on.
Let's get a real action plan that is actually going to reduce the number of victims significantly and that is actually going to provide services to all those victims who need it. It's not that costly in a country like this. It's going to ensure that police forces give information—including the RCMP, who are controlled by a federal act—that we get a much greater participation of victims in the process, and that we get a real, genuine policy to reduce that $83 billion.
We, in the next five years, with leadership from the federal level, could reduce those statistics on violence and property crime, including those who don't go to the police, by 40% to 50%, for a percentage of what we are currently spending on reacting. We need to do that. That's what a genuine policy that is going after the needs of victims would be about that.
Thank you.