Justice Committee on Feb. 23rd, 2016

[Alyson MacLean]

No, we don't have research that would point to that.

[Colin Fraser, Liberal, West Nova, NS]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Anthony Housefather]

Ms. Khalid.

[Iqra Khalid, Liberal, Mississauga—Erin Mills, ON]

Thank you.

That was a very good presentation. Thank you very much for coming in and speaking to us about this.

After listening to the questions of our peers and your responses, I'm wondering about how this information is collected. How are these stats put together? What information are they based on?

[Donald Piragoff]

I'm going to let Alyson take this.

[Alyson MacLean]

The best source of national statistics in this area is Statistics Canada's Canadian Centre for Justice Statistics. It obtains the information through the national justice statistics initiative, which is a partnership with provinces and territories.

The Canadian Centre for Justice Statistics collects national policing data, courts data, and corrections data. However, there are gaps, and some of those have been noted during this session. Additionally, there are academics who provide other sources of information to us.

[Iqra Khalid, Liberal, Mississauga—Erin Mills, ON]

How often is this review, collection, or compilation of information done? Is it done on a yearly basis, every couple of years, or...?

[Alyson MacLean]

The police, courts, and corrections data are provided annually.

In addition, I might mention that Statistics Canada does a victimization survey every five years. That is a source of information on crime that is not reported to police. The most recent one was conducted in 2014.

[Iqra Khalid, Liberal, Mississauga—Erin Mills, ON]

I have questions that are very similar to those of my colleagues with respect to remand times and why they're increasing. What would you recommend that would help to decrease remand times and the cost of the administration of justice?

[Alyson MacLean]

As acting director of research and statistics, I would like to see better data in this area, of course. To my mind, the best decisions would be data driven. However, there are certain challenges, of course, to obtaining this data in a timely way to inform decisions.

[Donald Piragoff]

The department is focusing right now, along with some of the provinces and territories, on administration of justice offences. The question is whether there could be alternative measures, as opposed to laying a criminal charge, for an administration of justice offence.

For example, with the conditional sentence that Mr. Fraser raised, one of the methods to deal with conditional sentences is to bring individuals back before the court, not to charge them. Essentially, the judge asks, “Why are you here? Why did you breach your condition? I can send you to jail. What's going on?” Some people say that, maybe, the same kind of process should be done.

I think there's an Australian state—it could be New South Wales—that has a process where, for an administration of justice offence, the police officers can give a warning, rather than charge. The person can be brought before the court, not for a charge but just brought before the judge, so the judge can ask why they're there and why they're breaching their curfew. The person may have a good explanation for it, such as getting a new job and the bus schedule is such that they can't get home any earlier. Why charge the person when you can just change the condition in that case?

We are looking at what other countries are doing in handling administration of justice offences so that we can maybe avoid some of these, I would say, needless charges and convictions and people getting huge criminal records. What happens when you have a series of convictions for administration of justice charges is that the judge looks at the record and says, “I can't let you out because you're not reliable; if I let you out, you're going to breach.” The problem is that the record doesn't actually show the reason for the breach. It simply says “breach”. It doesn't say you breached your condition because you got drunk and you're an alcoholic, and your condition says to abstain from alcohol. That's a condition that sets the person up for failure.

[The Chair, Liberal, Anthony Housefather]

Thank you. We've now completed our first round of questions, so we're going to move to our second round of questions. In this round, we have six minutes for the Liberals, six minutes for the Conservatives, six minutes back to the Liberals, five minutes back to the Conservatives, and three minutes for the NDP.

Go ahead, Mr. Hussen.

[Ahmed Hussen, Liberal, York South—Weston, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Piragoff, for coming in and giving us a very valuable presentation.

I have two questions that are both related to the bail issue. As a former criminal defence lawyer, I was greatly concerned with bail because, at least in Ontario, the way the legal aid system is structured tends to discourage criminal defence lawyers from taking on bail, because they're not sure if the person will be approved for legal aid or not.

I just wonder, in terms of the bail issue, if your department has looked at how the structure of legal aid programs across the country affects a person's ability to access those programs and how that affects their ability to get representation, which affects their ability to get bail, because when you don't have representation, it's hard to put together a good case for release.

Is that something your department has looked at?

[Donald Piragoff]

Mr. Chair, with your schedule of six minutes and three minutes and six minutes, I feel like I'm in the penalty box. I'm not sure when I'm on the ice and when I'm in the penalty box.

[The Chair, Liberal, Anthony Housefather]

You're scoring lots of goals. You're doing fine.

[Donald Piragoff]

We're working with the provinces. As you know, the administration of justice and legal aid is a provincial responsibility. We are working with the provinces to undertake best practices.

We actually undertook a study a couple of years ago on innovations in legal aid to see what kinds of best practices.... Each province has a different means of delivering legal aid. Some use a certificate system. Some use more in-house legal aid lawyers, who are government lawyers. Others provide certificates to the private bar. Some jurisdictions have a mixture of both in-house legal aid lawyers and the private bar.

We are looking at that issue, and if the committee wants, we can give you a copy of that report on innovations in legal aid that we undertook a couple of years ago. It was an interesting report, because we got a number of key individuals from other sectors of society to sit on the board. For example, we had the head of the Ottawa Hospital and used the experience that they had in reducing wait times, etc., in the hospital system, and looked at what kinds of innovations they used there, and whether they could also be applied to the criminal justice system. We looked at whether we could learn from innovations in other parts of society.

It's an interesting study, and we can provide you with a copy of it.

[The Chair, Liberal, Anthony Housefather]

You have more time, Mr. Hussen, if you want to continue.

[Ahmed Hussen, Liberal, York South—Weston, ON]

No. That was my question.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Anthony Housefather]

Thank you.

Is there anyone else on this side who wants to continue this round? You have about three and a half minutes.

Mr. Bittle.

[Chris Bittle, Liberal, St. Catharines, ON]

Going back to the issue on incarceration rates for vulnerable persons and vulnerable populations, have there been any pilot programs that have been run by the department or through the provinces that have shown some success and could be replicated on a broader scale?

[Donald Piragoff]

One of the funding programs the department has is the aboriginal court work program. It's made up of about 180 court workers who are spread out across the country. Some of them are co-funded through the provinces.

These individuals are the liaisons between the individual and the court system, whether the individual be the offender or a victim, to help them understand what the court process is about. For many of the offenders the court system is a foreign culture.

For example on the administration of justice offence issue—this is purely anecdotal—I was told by one director trying to reduce the number of breaches of administration of justice offences because of failure to appear, that the problem was that the closest court house was miles away from the reservation and from the band, and people weren't appearing in court because they couldn't get to town.

The court workers got a school bus, went around on court day and picked up everybody, took them to court, made sure they made their appearance, and then drove them back to their homes. This was an innovative way of ensuring people were not being charged for failure to appear when it wasn't anything intentional, but simply that they had no means to get to town.

[Chris Bittle, Liberal, St. Catharines, ON]

As a student at Queen's I had the opportunity to participate in a sentencing circle as a representative of the university. A couple of students, instead of being charged with a property crime, were diverted into a program like that. I was disappointed after law school that I never saw that again. It seemed to be anecdotal. That one instance seemed to be an effective way to get people out of the criminal justice system for a first offence on a minor crime. Have there been any reports on that, or any discussion on that, or any findings on alternative methods such as that?

[Donald Piragoff]

I'm not sure if there have been formal studies, but I know the sentencing circles are not used as much as they were in the past. Of course in some places it's not appropriate. It doesn't make sense in downtown Toronto. It only makes sense where there is a well-known community.

I know that Yukon or the Northwest Territories were using them for a while a number of years ago, but I think they're using them less and less now. I'm not sure why.

[The Chair, Liberal, Anthony Housefather]

You have about 20 seconds. Do you have a fast question?

[Chris Bittle, Liberal, St. Catharines, ON]

I don't know that I have a 20-second fast question because there won't be an answer.