First of all, thank you so much. Your testimony was profoundly impactful, I think, on all of us and all Canadians who listened to it. I think we all tried to put ourselves in the shoes of a juror in a case like this, and it's hard to do so. We heard about the issues with intimacy, the issues with being suddenly overprotective of your kids because you just see your two-year-old as that two-year-old, or the issues you had in terms of burying yourself at work because you're just not able to cope with what's happening. I think we were all really helped by what you said.
I want to clarify what I heard. Perhaps one of you can tell me.
One of the things I heard listed was education in advance about the obligations of a juror when you first walk into that courthouse or maybe even in the letter that's sent to invite you to report for jury service, something better than a 1970s movie.
Another was that, during the course of the trial, we need a better separation of the jurors and the victims and their families, and the accused and their families.
Also, in certain circumstances, we need counselling during the trial, or at least it needs to be made very clear that it's available to you at the end of the jury day or outside of service, from a court-appointed person who is privy to the issues, who keeps confidentiality, and who doesn't seek to influence you as jurors.
Further, there is ensuring that the various things you have to do during the course of the trial are understood, meaning that I can totally put myself into your shoes when you're a juror, and then, after you leave the courthouse, you're going back to the office to do six or seven hours of work. It's like you were away in negotiations all day, but you come back, and you have 300 emails that have accumulated during the day that you still have to finish today. Then you have child care, and then you have responsibilities at home that you're never getting to. We heard about the need for something to help with that in terms of either employers being obligated to give full pay in addition to allowing you to have your job back at the end of the trial, or alternatively, if we can't amend labour laws, make sure the pay and the supports we provide, such as day care, are available to jurors.
Number five is that we need a clear debrief at the end of a trial to talk to you, not only about the experience, to get lessons learned from that jury, but also to advise you of all of the counselling and other services that will be available to you post-trial.
Number six, whether it's Ontario's eight counselling sessions, or something even more generous, a clear number of counselling sessions should be available to each and every juror at the end of trial.
Is that basically what you guys are suggesting?