Thank you, Mr. Chair, and I appreciate your granting me my request to have this in public.
I just want to bring to the attention of my honourable colleagues on the committee that last week I had the honour of meeting two jurors, Mr. Mark Farrant and Mr. Patrick Fleming, and these two individuals organized the 12 Angry Letters campaign.
It's a campaign on behalf of jurors across Canada who have all been witness to some of the most horrific and graphic crimes imaginable, but unlike every employee in the court system, they are let loose at the end of the trial with absolutely no supports.
We are hearing a lot of information and evidence these days about first responders in a variety of jobs. No matter what you do, if you are exposed to some graphic scenes it can affect you mentally later on, and we're starting to learn a lot more about PTSD.
I have copies of the 12 angry letters that prompted this motion. I won't go through all of them, but the common theme through all of these letters is that all of these jurors were exposed to some pretty troubling images and have suffered from it. This is a duty that is imposed upon jury members. They are basically dragooned into service, they are made to witness these trials and to help render a verdict. To let them loose without support I think is a critical oversight in our justice system.
That's why I move the motion that we study this issue and make a recommendation to the Minister of Justice on what kinds of supports we can offer these men and women who do this service on our behalf.
Thank you.