Thank you
For this, again, there was evidence from Professor Kent Roach. What we're trying to get at here, as a matter of policy, is that we do have a problem that juries tend to under-represent the very groups that are overrepresented in our prison system. That may be a coincidence, but it does seem that the principle that one faces a jury of one's peers is undermined when the juries, just through the structure of our society and the way our jury system is organized, are not necessarily likely to be the peers of those who are in the groups that are overrepresented. The proposal in PV-43, which is identical to NDP-15, again follows the advice of Professor Roach that we should amend this to allow permanent residents to serve on juries. Allowing permanent residents to be jurors could help with the problem of the under-representation of marginalized people who are recent Canadians.
We should also remove language barriers for indigenous jurors. If there are interpretive services available, and a juror who doesn't speak English or French can participate fully in the jury, that would also be a way of ensuring that juries are not composed of people who are extremely likely not to be the peers of the people who appear at the prisoners' bench.
The accused and the jurors who judge them should have a chance, under this amendment, to actually have some small chance at not a full jury of one's peers but at least some representation of under-represented groups on juries that are overrepresented in prison.