Evidence of meeting #53 for Justice and Human Rights in the 44th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was conditions.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Associate Professor, Department of Sociology, Queen’s University, As an Individual
I completely understand. I'm just saying that at that point, we've proven it.
Conservative
Executive Director, Canadian Association of Elizabeth Fry Societies
Thank you so much.
I just wanted to say that when we are talking about public safety, in the line of work we do, we have to remember that the people we work with and alongside—who are the many people who are criminalized; they are the women and gender-diverse folks who are often in prison—are also part of the public when we're talking about public safety. Merely saying that putting someone in custody, as an aside.... There's a lot more to that simple statement.
We are concerned about people doing irreparable harm. We're concerned about the state doing irreparable harm. That's a really key point for us. If somebody is put in prison or jail and they have been wrongfully convicted—there are many examples of that in our country that we know of, and many that we are aware of that are not public—then the state has done irreparable harm in that case.
Executive Director, Canadian Association of Elizabeth Fry Societies
Think of going to jail for two weeks, which is hard on people's lives.
Conservative
Frank Caputo Conservative Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo, BC
I don't disagree. I can tell you this: When I was a defence lawyer I had a case that I believed was a wrongful conviction, and it still keeps me up at night, so you're not going to get any argument here from anybody about that.
My time is up, so I'll stop.
Thank you.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Randeep Sarai
Thank you, Mr. Caputo.
Next, we'll go to Mr. Naqvi for five minutes.
Liberal
Yasir Naqvi Liberal Ottawa Centre, ON
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
I want to thank all three witnesses for being here and presenting to us.
I'm going to direct my questions to Dr. Myers and Ms. Coyle.
I'll ask the same two questions, because I just want to very clearly understand your perception and your analysis based on your experience as we study our bail system.
For my first question I'll start with you, Dr. Myers. What do you perceive as the challenges we face in Canada within our bail system at the moment, perhaps in both practice and legally?
Associate Professor, Department of Sociology, Queen’s University, As an Individual
We face a variety of issues. It's not something that has a single answer to it.
We bring far too many minor matters into the court system to begin with, and some of this could be resolved by encouraging the police to exercise their powers of release, to use the judicial referral hearings that, at least anecdotally, have not been used in a widespread manner.
We also have difficulties of a risk-averse mentality in court, and this is an understandable mentality, because when incidents like this happen, when police officers are killed by somebody who is allegedly out on bail at the time.... We are also deeply concerned about the violence that women experience. We are understandably concerned about what happens to victims, yet we nonetheless have to step back and think about how we best achieve safety for those individuals.
Holding more people in custody and releasing them with conditions they have no reasonable prospect of complying with are not going to enhance our public safety. We need to be mindful that we have a limited means to what we can do at the front end of the system, because we have to hold it at its centre that we presume people innocent, that people have a right to reasonable bail, and that the bail is supposed to be unconditional.
Liberal
Yasir Naqvi Liberal Ottawa Centre, ON
That's great. Thank you.
Can you also then briefly share with us your recommendations to this committee as we study the matter of bail? If we were to make changes, what would be some of your top two or three recommendations?
Associate Professor, Department of Sociology, Queen’s University, As an Individual
That would be providing better, clear guidance and direction to decision-makers about what we want them to be thinking about and focusing on when they're exercising their discretion.
We might also want to consider what might look like hurdles to custody, something similar to what we see in the YCJA, acknowledging, of course, that young people are different from adults, but thinking about who we want to be holding in custody and who we want to be letting out.
For example, perhaps we want to try to focus our attention on those who have been charged with particularly serious offences and have a criminal record that demonstrates a pattern of behaviour of that kind.
Maybe we want to think about people and what the likely sentence is that they would receive if they were convicted. If it's less than six months in custody, should we be presumptively releasing them into the community?
For those who are charged with failing to comply with a condition of their release, look at if they committed a new substantive offence at the same time, or if that condition of release caused harm to an identifiable victim.
The other thing we might want to think about is how we provide the best level of support for people in the community if we know that is not only less expensive but helps make it less likely that people are going to commit offences. How do we support individuals? How do we support communities so that people can stay in the community and maintain their ties to the community and their investment in the community, making it less rather than more likely that they will commit more offences?
Liberal
Yasir Naqvi Liberal Ottawa Centre, ON
Thank you very much.
Ms. Coyle, in a minute and a half I have the same two questions. Through your experience working with Elizabeth Fry Societies, can you share with us what you see as currently the challenges with our bail system in Canada, from both a legal perspective and practically, and what your recommendations are for this committee?
Thank you.
Executive Director, Canadian Association of Elizabeth Fry Societies
I think that beyond what Dr. Myers has said, because I think she has put it really well, I am concerned about access to legal aid. I am concerned about access to adequate representation, obviously, for the people we work with.
Practically speaking, what I always come back to is investment in upstream resourcing of communities: supporting people who are experiencing poverty; ensuring that precarious housing is something people are not being punished for when it comes to bail; enhancing social welfare supports and increasing investments in education and health care—essentially just keeping people in the community and ensuring they have the supports necessary so they don't experience the complete uprooting that happens when they are put into jail, even for a short period of time.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Randeep Sarai
Thank you, Mr. Naqvi.
Next, we'll go for two quick two-and-a-half-minute rounds.
Mr. Fortin, you have two and a half minutes.
Bloc
Rhéal Fortin Bloc Rivière-du-Nord, QC
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Ms. Myers, at the beginning of your remarks, you mentioned the number of people in pre-trial detention. Did I hear correctly that it's more than 70%?
Associate Professor, Department of Sociology, Queen’s University, As an Individual
That's correct, yes.
Associate Professor, Department of Sociology, Queen’s University, As an Individual
The number of individuals is 14,414.
Associate Professor, Department of Sociology, Queen’s University, As an Individual
It is 70.5% across Canada.
Bloc
Rhéal Fortin Bloc Rivière-du-Nord, QC
All right. That's for all of Canada, not just Ontario. Is that correct?
Associate Professor, Department of Sociology, Queen’s University, As an Individual
Yes, that is across Canada. Ontario sits at about 77%.
Bloc
Rhéal Fortin Bloc Rivière-du-Nord, QC
All right. Thank you.
Ms. Myers, in response to a previous question, you talked about what decision-makers should be focusing on. You suggested that the seriousness of the offence should be the focus.
Our job here is more or less to find the middle ground between adequately protecting victims and keeping innocent people out of jail. I keep asking myself how we should balance those two things, and there are no easy answers.
You said that perhaps we should focus on how serious the offence is, but we know full well that just because someone is accused of a serious crime, it doesn't necessarily mean that they are guilty. Sometimes innocent people are charged with serious crimes.
Can you help us out a little more? What should we focus on? What should we examine and change in the current laws to better protect victims and prevent wrongful convictions?
Associate Professor, Department of Sociology, Queen’s University, As an Individual
It would be providing clear direction and guidance for exactly how we want decision-makers to make that decision. Where do we draw these lines? I don't think it's easy—about where these lines are precisely drawn. I have a lot of hesitation about arguing for wanting to hold more people in pretrial or releasing people with more conditions. That in itself is problematic, but if we have to think about, again, where we draw the lines as to how we identify and focus on those who are, indeed, most serious, I don't think there's an easier, clearer way to identify who those people are.