Justice Committee on March 8th, 2023

[Élisabeth Brière, Liberal, Sherbrooke, QC]

Mental health and addiction.

[Emilie Coyle]

Thank you.

Most of the people we are working with suffer from substance abuse and the issues that stem from that. The people who are imprisoned and go through the revolving door of the jail system are people who are often suspended or revoked on breaches that are related to substance abuse and the poverty that comes with that.

In addition to that, mental health disability is something we see as prevalent within the prison system. We don't have enough services to support people who have mental health disabilities in our communities. It would be beautiful if we did and if we were studying that. If we could put money towards that, it would really go a long way toward preventing harm.

[Élisabeth Brière, Liberal, Sherbrooke, QC]

Thank you.

Ms. Myers, the Gladue principles help to ensure that systemic racism and discrimination affecting accused are taken into account.

Can you talk about the importance of those measures, and explain how an accused's race and background in general influence bail decisions?

[Dr. Nicole Myers]

As we very well know, Gladue principles have historically been focused more on the sentencing stage. What we now see is a desire for a greater application of these at the bail stage. While we want to think about how important it is.... These provisions are meant to be remedial. They are meant to target, address and understand our long-term colonial practices of overpolicing and overincarcerating indigenous people, and all the harms that flow from that.

However, the Supreme Court has also been quite clear that it's not meant to result in what might be colloquially called a “get out of jail free card”. That is not what is happening here. It requires a close analysis that considers the greater context and historical space of an individual so we can make the most appropriate decision possible. We can see these decisions are just as applicable at the bail stage as they are at the sentencing stage, because we are talking about people's liberty and the harms that come from custodial time, whether that is spent pre trial or post sentence.

I apologize. I think there was a second half to your question that wasn't quite related to Gladue.

[Élisabeth Brière, Liberal, Sherbrooke, QC]

I wanted to know how an accused's race and background can influence the decision to grant bail.

[Dr. Nicole Myers]

Criminal record is certainly one of the biggest things considered by the Crown when making its position on bail, as well as by the justice or judge. You look at the seriousness of the current charges, the strength of the allegations and the individual's criminal record. We balance that with what the Supreme Court said we absolutely have to do: As our starting place, we have to remember that people are presumed innocent and are to be released unconditionally.

[The Chair, Liberal, Randeep Sarai]

Thank you, Ms. Brière.

Next, we'll go to Monsieur Fortin for six minutes.

[Rhéal Fortin, Bloc, Rivière-du-Nord, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Ms. Coyle, I understand your position. In your view, what circumstances warrant extending the remand of an individual awaiting trial? What circumstances should be added?

[Emilie Coyle]

I don't have any to add, beyond what is currently there. I believe we should be looking at making bail reform less restrictive, not more restrictive.

[Rhéal Fortin, Bloc, Rivière-du-Nord, QC]

All right.

Ms. Dunn, I'm going to ask you the opposite question. As compared with the way things currently are, under what circumstances should an individual be released instead of kept in pre-trial custody?

[Jennifer Dunn]

I can speak specifically to some of the situations the women we serve have explained to us.

It's difficult, because—I said this to Mrs. Vecchio before—women should not have to look over their shoulder all the time, going to the grocery store or to an appointment. Here at the centre, we've had situations in which a woman's perpetrator was, for example, sitting in the parking lot. That situation was a little different. He had served his time and been released. However, it seems as if, sometimes, that doesn't matter.

How far do we need to go to protect the victims in this type of situation? We need to think about the victims on the other side when we're talking about crime and bail, so I don't—

[Rhéal Fortin, Bloc, Rivière-du-Nord, QC]

Sorry to interrupt you, but every second counts.

I'd like you to answer the question you put to us. Under what circumstances should or could we better protect victims?

Obviously, the presumption of innocence is a principle I think we all agree on. However, the rules stipulate that a person awaiting trial is to be kept in custody when it's determined that there is a risk they will not attend court or that their release could pose a risk to public safety.

You told the committee that more people should be kept in custody. I understand, because victims are having to deal with accused who commit crimes while out on bail. Under what circumstances should this approach apply? What provisions need changing so that victims can walk around without fear of their attacker striking again? Which crimes or circumstances warrant stricter decisions about pre-trial custody?

[Jennifer Dunn]

We definitely need to look at all of this through a lens of violence against women, to be honest with you. Coming from where we come from and given the work we do, that is the answer I can give.

With respect to the situation I was speaking about, of the ex-police officer who is on bail now, for example, he has GPS tracking. He's not allowed to use technology. It's situations like that. Perhaps—and we don't know because it hasn't happened before—when this particular individual was on bail before and he ended up offending again and again, if some of those things, such as GPS tracking or a technology ban, had been put in place toward the beginning, they might have been helpful. In that situation, he had to get to the fourth charge before those types of things came into play.

Every situation is going to be different, and there's really no umbrella approach, if you will, when you're talking about domestic violence, sexual assault and that kind of thing. Every situation is going to be completely different. It's difficult to give you an umbrella—

[Rhéal Fortin, Bloc, Rivière-du-Nord, QC]

Sorry for interrupting again, but every second counts, and I have less than a minute left.

Ms. Myers, I gather from your opening remarks that you are satisfied with the current rules. However, you heard Ms. Dunn, among others, say that victims need to be better protected. In your view, what circumstances could warrant a higher burden of proof in the decision to release an accused? What measures could be taken to ensure the safety of victims?

[Dr. Nicole Myers]

The challenge is that reverse-onus situations are not going to be what's most effective. Nobody here is arguing against public safety. We absolutely want to protect those who are most at risk of the most serious offences. What we need to then do is focus on those cases and reduce the number of minor or other types of cases that don't present the same kind of seriousness or risks, so we can focus our attention and resources on that which is most serious.

Something else we might want to do is look at how we can improve case processing to get people through the system, so that we convict people and then sentence them appropriately rather than trying to do everything on the front end. Then it's a matter of saying we want to protect people, but let's do this and think about this in a way that doesn't focus on specific incidents but steps back and realizes that we have thousands and thousands of people in pretrial custody. Not everybody needs to be there. Let's focus on who's most serious and figure out how to intervene and let the others out.

[The Chair, Liberal, Randeep Sarai]

Thank you, Mr. Fortin. Now we go to Mr. Garrison for six minutes.

[Randall Garrison, NDP, Esquimalt—Saanich—Sooke, BC]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair, and thank you to all the witnesses for being with us today.

I have a question for Ms. Coyle from the Elizabeth Fry Society. I know the Elizabeth Fry Society runs community-based bail supervision programs. We're talking here about how too many people end up in detention, with all of those negative impacts and the lack of services.

Could we tackle that problem by having additional resources devoted to community-based bail supervision programs?

[Emilie Coyle]

My short answer is yes.

A longer answer is that—

I'm being told that my Internet is unstable. Can you hear me?

[The Chair, Liberal, Randeep Sarai]

Yes, we can hear you, Ms. Coyle.

[Emilie Coyle]

Okay. Good.

The CAEFS network is made up of 23 local member societies all across the country. They do the essential on-the-ground work of supporting the most marginalized people in their communities. Many of them have bail beds, but most of them don't. That's a problem.

We don't have Elizabeth Fry Societies in the north of Canada. There are very few resources for people who could be released on bail into their communities in the north, particularly, because those are people who may need a place to stay. They may need to have a bed to stay in, in order for them to be released on bail.

It may actually surprise you to learn that there are only four bail beds for women in Canada's most populous city, Toronto. Those beds are available to indigenous women only. For the most populous city to have no bail beds for women is a problem. Then, if you go into the northern part of Ontario, for example, we have a couple of Elizabeth Fry Societies that have bail beds, but they don't have adequate resources to meet the demand. Certainly more resources for bail beds would go a long way for the people we work with.

[Randall Garrison, NDP, Esquimalt—Saanich—Sooke, BC]

I'll turn to Dr. Myers.

In terms of contributing to public safety, there's certainly a perception from the public that people on bail aren't well enough supervised, but we put that also up against your very valid remarks that we could shorten the time before we convict people—that would help.

Do you think that community-supervised bail programs would help contribute to public safety and not just the perception of public safety?

[Dr. Nicole Myers]

I guess the short answer is yes. Any effort to keep people in the community is what is going to give us better measures of public safety—restricting very closely those who need to stay in and letting others out, providing the kind of supervision and support that people may need. Nonetheless I think we also need to be somewhat concerned about how some individuals may be oversurveilled or overconditioned in the community. We may be setting people up to fail, leading them to come back into the system.

Again, if we can restrict ourselves from bringing in so many minor matters, it will allow us to best focus on that which is more serious and to monitor those folks in an effective manner.

[Randall Garrison, NDP, Esquimalt—Saanich—Sooke, BC]

In some of the stuff that's been presented to us as committee members, we see some data on the very high rates of breach of bail conditions. Can you talk about why that normally happens in terms of those conditions?

[Dr. Nicole Myers]

There are many difficulties around conditions of release. They tend to be very numerous. For example, on average we're looking at six to seven different conditions that create a brand new criminal offence once attached to a court order. Lots of these conditions may not be specifically tailored to individuals. Why? It's because the courts are busy. They are overwhelmed by the sheer volume of individuals they're having to manage and address.

Again, it's about wanting to take the time to focus so we can carefully craft conditions that are reasonable to comply with but also relate to the grounds for detention as well as the allegations of the offence, rather than simply imposing conditions that we might like or that modify behaviour, which the Supreme Court has indicated is not what conditions are supposed to be doing.

[Randall Garrison, NDP, Esquimalt—Saanich—Sooke, BC]

I'll go back to Ms. Coyle.

In terms of conditions being imposed, Bill C-75 was supposed to create this better link that Dr. Myers referred to between the conditions and the offences and the reasons for detention.

Do you find that's what's actually happening on the ground, or are we still having blanket abstinence conditions imposed on people who have addiction problems, setting them up to fail? Is that still happening?