Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to rise, and I want to thank my colleague from St. Albert—Edmonton for the private member's bill he put before us. It is consistent with the report by the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights, which had unanimous approval.
I also want to salute my colleague from Cowichan—Malahat—Langford who, along with the member for Victoria and the member for Niagara Falls and all of the other members of our committee, have worked so diligently in bringing this issue to the fore.
Jurors throughout Canada have a serious issue. As the member for St. Albert—Edmonton reminded us when he quoted Mark Farrant, jury service is essentially the only compulsory service left in this country. It is the only time that members of the public often find themselves in contact with the justice system.
While the bill before us deals with a very important component of the issue, the study we did showed many flaws in the way we treat jurors in Canada. For example, it showed us that in some provinces, the rate that we pay a juror has not increased since the early 1970s and that there is a great divergence among provinces, with some provinces paying up to $163 a day and other provinces paying nothing for the first few days of jury services, leading to many people being unable to afford to be on a jury. We want juries to be representative of the public at large, and not simply one small group that can afford to do jury service.
We found that in some provinces, there have been excellent services provided post-trial to jurors in recent years, and some provinces have started real legal support programs. Other provinces have absolutely no legal support programs. As my colleague from St. Albert—Edmonton said, one of our important recommendations was to ask the federal Minister of Justice to work with her provincial counterparts to ensure that all provinces are able to provide post-trial support for jurors.
We heard the quotes that were read by my hon. colleague from St. Albert—Edmonton. We heard compelling testimony before our committee that showed how deeply people were affected by their jury service. We heard that people have come out of a trial unable to take care of their children, unable to have relationships with their partner, unable to fend for themselves in the world, but dropping out of the world and secluding themselves. That is not an acceptable result in Canada today from a compulsory service that we ask of our citizens.
I would only hope that in addition to this very well-timed bill, there is more that can be done through the provincial and federal governments working together to improve the lives of jurors across Canada. The last thing we want is people disinclined to perform jury service.
As to the bill put forward by my hon. colleague, it lies purely within federal jurisdiction. This is an issue that is in the Criminal Code. It is an issue that results from the fact that in Canada, we have determined that it is generally inappropriate for jurors to discuss the matters that have arise during deliberations, except if they are somehow raised in open court or are the subject of a criminal proceeding. However, that is not the case in every jurisdiction in the world. In the United States, for example, jurors are able to speak freely about their experience in deliberation, which has led to many books. All of us can remember the O.J. Simpson trial and how many books came out of the Simpson jury.
Now, that is not the approach our committee is proposing. We are not proposing, and neither did any of the jurors who came before at committee propose, that jurors be allowed to enrich themselves by talking about juror deliberations in titillating or sensational trials. That is not the approach we are proposing. We took the time to listen to expert testimony from different jurisdictions in the United States, Europe and Australia. As my hon. colleague mentioned that we are proposing the model used in the Australian State of Victoria, which, by the way, has a coordinator for juries, a person whose entire job is to be responsible for making sure that the juror experience in that state is appropriate and that jurors are well taken care of.
We in Canada would be well advised, at the provincial and territorial level, to create the position of jury coordinator so there is someone who has overall responsibility. It would not just be for the purposes of one trial or one case, but overall in talking about the juror experience and making it better.
We have bailiffs, judges and others who, with appropriate training, can do excellent jobs, but that does not mean the experience should stop there.
We heard testimony of jurors being confined to small rooms and small spaces. We heard testimony of jurors being told to park next to the accused or next to family members of the accused, of walking into court next to people who were testifying at trial. All of this could be avoided if we had someone who had an overall responsibility of walking through our courthouses, determining how best to allow jurors to have a decent experience.
In this case, Victoria, whose jury coordinator, by the way, came from Canada, told us that it had an exception to the secrecy rule, which we have in section 649 in our Criminal Code. When it came to speaking to mental health professionals, jurors were allowed to do so and it was an exception to its general criminal principle that jurors could not talk about deliberations. This is exactly what my colleague from St. Albert—Edmonton is proposing in this legislation.
In our report, we recommended using Victoria as an example, and that is exactly what the member has done. He has carved out a very small exception to allow those jurors who were or could be deeply affected by the deliberations to speak to mental health professionals. We heard about the most stressful parts of juror service. Jurors could have conflict with their fellow jurors in deliberation. They could be hearing about gruesome, horrific testimony. They could, for example, be even at a point where they would be in an altercation with fellow jurors because they were the only ones who believed the defendant should either be acquitted or found guilty.
Coming out of their service, while jurors can talk to a mental health professional about the other things that have impacted them during their service, in Canada we do not allow jurors or someone providing support to jurors, for example if the juror is hearing impaired, to talk to a mental health professional or other medical professionals about the stress they experienced in deliberations, which could be the major source of their stress.
Therefore, while it is well and good and excellent that we are pushing for provinces and territories to each have a mental health support program for former jurors, it still does not work as effectively if this exception is not created in the Criminal Code to also allow them to talk about their experience in deliberations.
My colleague from St. Albert—Edmonton has taken a recommendation, which was unanimously supported by all of the members of the committee, has taken a concrete example that exists in a different Commonwealth jurisdiction in Australia to show it can be done and he has put this into legislation. I dearly hope we can unanimously support this in the House and move it quickly toward the other place, so we can move forward down a path of helping jurors in an area of federal jurisdiction to be treated better when it comes to mental health services.
I think this is a very important piece of legislation. I thank my colleague from St. Albert—Edmonton and all the members of the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights for their work. I hope this bill will be adopted very quickly.
I appreciate the opportunity to speak in favour of the legislation. Let us get it through.