We don't have a delay problem in B.C. One of the reasons why we don't have it is that charge approval is done by Crown prosecutors. I've done cases in Ontario and Alberta where charge approval has been done by police officers, and there were cases that shouldn't have had charge approval. If those cases had gone before a lawyer and a Crown prosecutor's office in B.C., they would have looked at them and turfed them. They wouldn't have proceeded with them, or they would have proceeded with some different charges.
It's a fundamental problem in provinces where they don't do that and where police officers are doing charge approval. Police officers have one view of things: the guy is guilty. Prosecutors look at it and ask themselves what the state of the law is, what they can prove, and what is admissible and what's not, and they make a determination.
It's much smarter to have prosecutors using the standard we have in B.C., which is that there's a substantive likelihood of successful prosecution. They're not going to approve a charge otherwise. You're wasting tons of court time running trials and things where there's no significant likelihood of success. As well, it's wrong to put an accused through that. Not only is it about the likelihood of success, but how fair is that to our fellow Canadians that we're going to put them on trial when there's no likelihood of succeeding?