Justice Committee on March 25th, 2015

[Sean Casey, Liberal, Charlottetown, PE]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Ms. Ross, at the outset of your remarks you decried the lack of leadership on this issue and you concluded with four specific recommendations. If I have them right, you recommended increased funding for research and data collection, a way for sharing best practices among law enforcement and those in the system, diagnostic centres, and case managers.

I find it interesting that none of the recommendations that you presented to us involved legislative change. They all involve the allocation of resources.

[Elspeth Ross]

Well, that's—

[Sean Casey, Liberal, Charlottetown, PE]

Just let me finish this.

I don't fault you for that. I guess my point is that all too often what we see from government is an amendment to the Criminal Code to cure all ills, as opposed to fiscal and other solutions.

Those are the recommendations you've put forward. Can you describe for me the present state of affairs with respect to each of them? You've said that they need to be built upon. Can you give us some anecdotes or some sense of where R and D, where best practice sharing, where diagnostic centres, where case manager positions are at the present time?

[Elspeth Ross]

That was a big question.

I think I just really thought that diagnostic change isn't going to happen right now. That's why I was focusing on this, which certainly wouldn't include all the answers.

To come back to data collection, I just don't see data collection in terms of.... There are various studies, but they don't seem to be funded, and there could be so much more. When you go to the big conferences, you hear research from South Africa, from everywhere. There could be a lot more in Canada; that's my point. The funding bodies could be funding much more, because we need to speed it up. We are looking for biomarkers, but it's going to take a long, long time to find them. We definitely need to speed it up. When you go to conferences, your head is ringing with research, but I think it would be better if we had some Canadian conferences as well as the world conferences, so that we could focus on what there is in Canada and have the researchers, the clinicians, and everyone together so that we could see where we could pull ourselves up in Canada.

When I look for leadership, I see that the Public Health Agency of Canada was designated as a leader, but there is hardly any staff at all in there. Where is it? In 2012, there was a conference in Vancouver. There is one every year, but the theme in 2012 was FASD and justice. We did see provinces, research, and federal all together in 2012, but now it's three years later, and it seems to have dissipated. From scanning the news all the time and looking at it from the bottom, that's what I see.

I really would like to see much more data collection. We don't have any data storage places anymore. The Canadian Centre on Substance Abuse used to have a very good collection on FASD, but it has dissipated. The library was broken up, so that isn't there.

In terms of your second question about networks, events, and training, there are a lot of things going on. It's all very disjointed. The provinces do their own thing, mostly the western provinces and the north. In the east it's a bit of a wasteland. We would like to see Ontario drawn in. We are the centre of the country. There is some work with Motherisk in Toronto, but—

[Sean Casey, Liberal, Charlottetown, PE]

I thought the centre of the country was Prince Edward Island.

[Some hon. members]

Oh, oh!

[Sean Casey, Liberal, Charlottetown, PE]

Thanks for clearing that up.

[Elspeth Ross]

If it were a really important issue to people, I think it could be given a much higher priority. The RCMP had some good training a few years ago from Ottawa and from Manitoba. They were even training judges at one point, but that's all finished now. I've looked at this for a long time, and it seems to be going.... That's my conclusion.

You asked about diagnostic centres, too. In Ontario, there are diagnostic teams around the province, and there is a provincial website that gives them all. Even at CHEO, the genetics department will diagnose adults. There are a lot of concerns about the inability to get diagnoses for adults, and they have to pay large amounts of money in many provinces, including B.C. CHEO will diagnose adults, but if there is no information on the mother's drinking, then you don't get it.

Another concern with diagnosis is the lack of funding for psychologists. To get a diagnosis, you need a psychological assessment, and that's not covered by the medical. That's really a problem. That is one of the key problems with that.

You asked me about all the recommendations, so I'm kind of rushing along. As far as the case managers are concerned, that's really what we need. In B.C. they have FASD key workers who can actually act as case managers, but there is nothing like that here. That is why we come down, because that's the reality. A person who is really at risk for the justice system needs a case manager. Struggling families need a case manager, someone to help them navigate the system to get on with things.

Have I answered your questions?

[Sean Casey, Liberal, Charlottetown, PE]

You have. Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Mike Wallace]

You can ask one more question, Mr. Casey.

[Sean Casey, Liberal, Charlottetown, PE]

Chief Alexis, thank you very much for your spirited critique of mandatory minimums and their disproportionate effect on the aboriginal community.

You may not be aware, but at our last meeting we heard from the Correctional Investigator of Canada, Howard Sapers, who pointed out that the Gladue principles, or paragraph 718.2(e) of the Criminal Code, came into effect in 1996, but that there has been no appreciable change in the number of incarcerated aboriginal offenders. From that, he concluded that it isn't working. How would you react to that, sir?

[Chief Cameron Alexis]

Thank you very much for the question.

Respectfully, I don't think the Gladue principles are being applied across Canada. That's the problem. It's not so much that they aren't working; it's that they are not being applied by Corrections Canada or other institutions that should be doing so.

That's what I observe, and I think that's the best way to answer that question. I know Mr. Howard Sapers, and he did....

So thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Mike Wallace]

You have more time.

[Sean Casey, Liberal, Charlottetown, PE]

Are you familiar with Ken Jackson at APTN?

[Chief Cameron Alexis]

I can't say I am, sir, unfortunately.

[Sean Casey, Liberal, Charlottetown, PE]

Okay. So you didn't see the piece he did on the Gladue principles that was published today?

[Chief Cameron Alexis]

I have not seen that article, sir.

[Sean Casey, Liberal, Charlottetown, PE]

Okay, thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Mike Wallace]

Thank you very much.

Thank you for those questions and answers.

Our next questioner, from the Conservative Party, is Mr. Wilks.

[David Wilks, Conservative, Kootenay—Columbia, BC]

Thank you very much, Chair.

I thank the witnesses for being here.

Ms. Ross, I want to go to you first, because I think you probably have some of the most valuable information to provide, and we have rather glazed over it. That is, you raised two sons diagnosed with FASD. I'm really curious to understand something from you. In their child-rearing years, you obviously would have recognized certain things that triggered them, or potentially you could have recognized them. Then there would have been things, potentially, that you could have done or your husband have done to de-escalate the situations.

Could you describe a couple of those? It seems to me that this is the catch to all of this.

[Elspeth Ross]

People with FASD are very different from each other. We have two sons, one of whom has always had behavioural issues—the second son. The older son never has. He only once got into trouble at school for something or other, although I must say that he did intimidate a few people.

We really kept them very busy, with a lot of supervision, which was part of life for us in terms of being an involved family. I think that is really relevant.

Some things that helped in certain cases were things such as competitive swimming to work out incredible energy, and scouting, camping—all kinds of things. Everybody is different, but you tend to promote the things that kids are good at.

But you're asking me specifically for triggers. I'm not thinking about triggers with respect to my older son, but the younger one got into trouble a great deal and did the most peculiar things. The way we benefited in those days was that you could get extra help in school without having to jump through a whole lot of hoops. Because they needed help, the help was provided, and that is key. But that's not what you get now.

I felt we were lucky, because my second son would do very peculiar things, but instead of panicking, the vice-principal would call and say, “Do you know what he did today?” I remember once he even took some old knife that had no blade on it and put it in his sock. The vice-principal simply called up and said “Do you know what he did today?” instead of making a red alert to somebody.

There was just a general awareness that, yes, these boys had special needs, and they were different. They are both aboriginal, by the way, and that was a factor in their being different in an Ontario community. But the general thing was that we cared and we were going to see what we could do for these kids, and that made a huge difference.

Am I answering your question?

[David Wilks, Conservative, Kootenay—Columbia, BC]

Yes, because it sounds to me as though it is a question of structure and keeping them busy because they have a high energy rate, shall we say.

[Elspeth Ross]

It's keeping them really busy, yes.

[David Wilks, Conservative, Kootenay—Columbia, BC]

Thank you for that.

I have questions for Chief Alexis and Wenda, but first to you, Chief.

Section 13 of the Criminal Code, which I brought up before, seems to be prevalent. As as a former RCMP officer, you would recognize this. I'm retired from the force as well. It says:

No person shall be convicted of an offence in respect of an act or omission on his part while that person was under the age of twelve years.

You would know, in your previous career, that from time to time you would be dealing with children under the age of 12 who would be recognized as having challenges and were aiming towards the court system. As a police officer, your only recourse, especially for a person under the age of 12, is to turn them over to social services or to their parents—one of those two. As a police officer, there are no charges involved. You can certainly talk to them, you can certainly try to give them some guidance, but at the end of the day you need to turn them over.

Professor Pei, you can enter into this as well.

Where do you see us trying to recognize and deal with the problems before they get to the court system? We're hearing about them once they get to the court system, but these kids are born with FASD. Yes, they mature at different rates, and yes, they identify differently, but what do you think we can do best for those who start coming into contact with the police prior to age 12?

I'll start with you, Chief.

[Chief Cameron Alexis]

I agree with you. Yes, under the age of 12, unfortunately, we have to bring them to their respective parents or anyone else whose authority they are under.

I touched on first nations, for example, with the sixties scoop. Nobody really knew the implications or the issues relative to FASD or what the effects were going to be, then or now or in the future.

One of the biggest things that needs to happen is to have prevention programs at the outset. They have be there. Yes, there are some out there, but are we really heightening them? Perhaps not.

I thank the parent who spoke earlier as well. I think that data collection is crucial. Perhaps early diagnosis would be of crucial importance too, because that would factor into exactly what we're talking about here. I touched on it. I've had people whom I deal with who have FASD, and it's very difficult. Everybody is different, and they have different ways of dealing with it. At the same time, with some of them you have to repeat yourself 20 times before they even comprehend what you're trying to say. It has to be dealt with in a different way.

Those are some of the recommendations I would like to make.

Thank you, sir.