Evidence of meeting #132 for Public Safety and National Security in the 42nd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was property.
A video is available from Parliament.
Criminal Defence Lawyer, As an Individual
No, not at all. The question is whether or not the force is reasonable and proportional.
It's interesting. Sometimes we don't even talk about a discharge of firearms. It could just be the pointing of a firearm, which is otherwise an offence. It's a crime to point a firearm at someone unless you're in a justified circumstance such as self-defence, but no, we're not talking about self-defence linked exclusively to firearms.
Liberal
Sven Spengemann Liberal Mississauga—Lakeshore, ON
Thank you very much for that.
Mr. Larsen, in the previous panel we had evidence before the committee of a crime that had happened to Mr. Priestley-Wright, with significant indications that he suffered mental trauma as a result of the attack. How are we doing with respect to the provision of mental health services for victims of violent crime in rural settings?
Assistant Deputy Minister, Policing and Community Safety Services, Ministry of Corrections and Policing, Government of Saskatchewan
I guess I haven't seen too much movement on the victimization aspect.
In Saskatchewan, we are making great strides in attending to the needs of those incidents that involve someone with mental health issues through our PACT. That's the police and crisis response team, where a police officer is partnered with a health professional. We have those in almost all of our municipalities throughout the province. Saskatoon was the main starter of this program, which has evolved to Regina, Moose Jaw, Yorkton, and Prince Albert, and will eventually be in North Battleford.
We also are looking at piloting a product that was recently announced in Manitoba and is used by the RCMP there. We're trying to incorporate it here. That's the HealthIM product, a hand-held app that officers can utilize when they have someone with a mental health issue. It makes the communication a lot quicker with the health authority or the hospital that they're attending. It helps to move things along a lot quicker, which helps both the individual and the officer.
Liberal
Sven Spengemann Liberal Mississauga—Lakeshore, ON
I have 30 seconds left for a quick recommendation from your angle with respect to the root causes of crime in rural settings. Is there anything that you would recommend to the government on addressing root causes?
Assistant Deputy Minister, Policing and Community Safety Services, Ministry of Corrections and Policing, Government of Saskatchewan
That's an answer that probably would take longer than 30 seconds.
Liberal
Sven Spengemann Liberal Mississauga—Lakeshore, ON
Yes. That's unfair given the time limit.
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
Yellowhead, CPC
I'll start with Mr. Friedman.
I want to continue on where you were with my friend here. We were talking about police and making that decision to lay a charge in a self-defence situation. You mentioned police specifically. I want to defend them a little bit.
Do you find also that Crown counsels need to be better educated in the rules? I like your theory here about changing the Criminal Code, because there's a lot of confusion there with everyone—with the police officers, with the Crown counsel, and with the public.
Criminal Defence Lawyer, As an Individual
As defence counsel, I'm not going to let an opportunity to give a little jab to Crown counsel go, right?
Criminal Defence Lawyer, As an Individual
No, of course not. I should say at the outset that not only do I have the highest respect for the peace officers who I deal with in my professional capacity, sometimes as clients and sometimes as witnesses in cases, but for Crown counsel as well. They're dealing with the tools they have.
I'll say this about Crown counsel. The Crowns I come up against are well educated, professional and extremely knowledgeable on the law; however, their hands are often tied by policy. Let's go to Ontario for an example.
In Ontario, the provincial Crown attorneys are governed by the Crown policy manual. If you open up the Crown policy manual to the section entitled “Firearms”, you'll see that while individual Crown attorneys have wide discretion to withdraw charges, to proceed by lesser means and to divert charges for a wide variety of offences, they do not have that same discretion for firearms. They have to get approval from either a deputy Crown attorney or the local Crown attorney or another designated Crown attorney. Even when I sit down and say, look, this is a self-defence case, what I often hear is that it's a gun case and it's going to trial, which is not the case for other offences.
I think Crown policy is as important as police policy here in ensuring that charges that don't have a reasonable prospect of conviction or are otherwise not in the public interest—the two general hallmarks for continuing a prosecution—apply equally to firearms offences.
Yellowhead, CPC
That's a very good answer. Thank you.
I want to stretch that a bit. Previously, you mentioned the pointing of a firearm. As soon as you point a firearm, everybody says that it has to go to court. Have you seen that in your experience, even with Crown counsel, because of the policy and procedures laid down by their senior brass or the police?
Criminal Defence Lawyer, As an Individual
Let's just back up a moment so that we're clear on the law. It is a criminal offence to point a firearm at somebody, but there's a comma there: “without lawful excuse”. Now, very often, the responding police officer doesn't want to be the one to make that determination as to whether or not there was lawful excuse.
Sometimes there is good reason for that. I know that I may advise my client not to give a statement to police that can't help them, but there are cases where I tell my client that, in those circumstances, you give your side of the story and tell them exactly what happened. The trouble, though, is a policy one where you have a pointing of a firearm. Even if there appears to be a lawful excuse, we see those winding their way through the courts.
We have to recognize, of course, that there are some acts where the exact same action will be unlawful in one context, but with a lawful excuse or a reasonable defence, such as self-defence, will be completely lawful. The question is, does the policy recognize that distinction? In my experience, I would say not always.
Yellowhead, CPC
I have a question for you, Mr. Drummond.
As a coroner and a rural doctor, you spoke about suicides.
Co-Chair, Public Affairs Committee, Canadian Association of Emergency Physicians
That's right.
Co-Chair, Public Affairs Committee, Canadian Association of Emergency Physicians
Yes.
Yellowhead, CPC
In your experience, what was the most common element that you found in suicides?
Co-Chair, Public Affairs Committee, Canadian Association of Emergency Physicians
Suicides in general?
Co-Chair, Public Affairs Committee, Canadian Association of Emergency Physicians
It was previous mental health issues, predominantly substance abuse—
