Thank you.
I represent the Canadian Resource Centre for Victims of Crime and I'm grateful for the opportunity to appear before you this afternoon.
The CRCVC is a national, non-profit, non-government advocacy group for persons impacted by serious crime. We provide resources and emotional support to victims across the country, as well as advocating for public safety and improved services and rights for crime victims.
We are pleased to support Bill C-54 today. Our clientele includes families and individuals impacted by persons who have been found not criminally responsible. We remain very concerned about serious acts of violence committed by this small population of offenders and their lasting impacts on victims.
We believe mental illness should be treated as a medical and health issue outside of the criminal justice system, so that patients are stabilized and no longer suffer from symptoms. But we are particularly concerned with medication compliance and the ongoing community supervision of forensic mental health patients.
We support the amendment that would make public safety the paramount consideration by review boards in their decision-making process. Although there have been Supreme Court rulings in this matter, we understand the current approach basically balances four factors, namely the need to protect the public from dangerous persons, the mental condition of the accused, the reintegration of the accused into society, and other needs of the accused.
We support the proposed reforms to codify the meaning of the phrase “significant threat to the safety of the public”, which is the test stated by the Criminal Code to determine whether the review board can maintain jurisdiction and continue to supervise a mentally disordered accused. Consistent with the Supreme Court of Canada’s interpretation, the phrase means a risk of physical or psychological harm to members of the public resulting from conduct that is criminal in nature, but not necessarily violent. The codification aims to ensure more consistency in the application of this test.
We are very supportive of the measures that will enhance victim safety and provide victims with opportunities for greater involvement under the Criminal Code mental disorder regime, namely, ensuring that they are notified, upon request, when the accused is discharged; allowing non-communication orders between the accused and the victim; and ensuring that the safety of the victims be considered when decisions are being made about an accused person.
We understand that currently there is not always consistent interpretation and application of the law across the country. We particularly want to ensure that the information needs of victims are met. This means that they are informed about the accused if they wish, as well as having their personal safety concerns heard and understood by review boards.
Given our work with family members across the country who've been impacted by NCR rulings, we want to reiterate what we hear from the victims themselves, which is that they do not want what happened to them or to their loved one to happen to anyone else. Public safety is their primary concern.
In the most horrific cases, where serious personal injury or death has occurred, victims are often very upset by the fact that the accused person was free in the community prior to their offence and had not received proper help and treatment for their mental illness. They deteriorated. They were unable to recognize the early symptoms of their deterioration, and they caused serious harm or took a life. Victims are fearful that this cycle will repeat itself, especially when it comes to ensuring that the offender will remain on their medication for the rest of their life.
We support the proposed high-risk designation, which would be applied where the accused person has been found NCR and there is substantial likelihood for further violence that would endanger the public, or in cases in which the acts are of such brutal nature as to indicate a risk of grave harm.
We support the fact that they would not be granted a conditional or absolute discharge, and that the designation could be revoked only by the court, following a recommendation by the review board. We understand that this would apply only to those found NCR and not to persons found unfit to stand trial.
Lastly, we feel this amendment would only apply in a very small handful of very serious cases across the country every year, and that is our interest in supporting it as well.
We furthermore agree with the proposed amendment that the review board may decide to extend. We support this. It's not that they must extend the review period for up to three years, but they can choose to.
Again, we're pleased to be here. We're pleased that this high-risk designation would not affect access to treatment by the accused, as has already been discussed.
Thank you.