Thank you, Madam Chair and members of the committee.
I was last here on October 3, 2001, with the late Joyce Milgaard, when the committee was considering the enactment of the current sections of the Criminal Code that govern ministerial reviews of wrongful conviction claims. I looked up what we said on that occasion. Joyce Milgaard began her presentation by saying that her heart sank when she saw what the proposals were. Her heart sank because we so badly need an independent commission, a commission independent of the minister and the ministerial process.
Finally, today, we are here to talk about legislating such a commission. The late Joyce and David Milgaard would be proud that the legislation is named after them.
Addressing wrongful convictions has always seemed to Innocence Canada to be a non-partisan issue. Peter MacKay has attended many of our functions over the years. Daniel Turp went on a delegation with Innocence Canada, including Rubin “Hurricane” Carter, to try to save the life of a Canadian on death row in Texas many years ago. Elizabeth May has always been a supporter. Irwin Cotler and David Lametti, in particular, have always been supporters of Innocence Canada, and Jack Layton was always with us as well. We believe the present minister, Minister Virani, is too.
We've engaged in 30 years of advocacy, and for us, this legislation is welcome. It presents a sea change for our criminal justice system. It provides a new fail-safe mechanism for those who have been wrongly convicted.
It's hard to prioritize proposals we have for what we think would be improvements to the legislation, but I'll just list four.
First of all, regarding the composition of the commission, there aren't enough commissioners. The present criminal convictions review group, which does the minister's work on wrongful conviction claims, consists of six staff lawyers, one assisting lawyer and three outside, on-contract lawyers. You can see immediately that the proposed number of commissioners—one, the chief, plus four to eight more—is simply not going to be enough, because the applications under the new legislation are going to increase significantly beyond the present ministerial review applications.
Second, we believe that sentences should be brought into the legislation. We think that's particularly important for indigenous people. All commissions in other jurisdictions have always included sentences within the scope of the powers of the commission.
Third, we believe the commission should have the explicit power in the legislation to suggest systemic change arising out of the individual cases they review. The commissioners will be in a fabulous position, we believe, to recommend systemic changes that can avoid wrongful convictions in the future, because we want to do both: We want to find wrongful convictions that have already occurred, and we want to prevent wrongful convictions insofar as we can in the future.
Finally, we believe that appellate courts across the country have not served the role they should to find wrongful convictions at an early date when appeals are heard. We believe that appeal courts should have their jurisdiction extended to require them to consider whether or not convictions are unsafe when they're brought before them on appeal. Presently, appeal courts do not do that. They are courts of process, not courts that properly consider issues of guilt or innocence.
Thank you.