Public Safety committee  I do, and I think that is a place to encourage people. I also think, though, that at a more grunt level, doing the actual clinical work, we would do well to follow some of what's been done in Quebec in terms of CLSCs and getting more and more mental health resources into the community and community health centres and family medicine centres, and giving those people incentives to pick up difficult populations.

Public Safety committee  Yes, and that's why I emphasize that we should really be focusing on people who, but for their mental health, wouldn't be in there. And that isn't everyone, but it's important.

Public Safety committee  I think it is really important to have those links. You're talking about RPC in Saskatoon. That's a real model. The bottom line is that you have to be able to get money from different sources to make this work. You have to be able to encourage that collaboration. We see it here.

Public Safety committee  I certainly would see it anecdotally. Often it interrupts a course of treatment. People are also exposed to environments that worsen their mental health, so they come out of it often untreated and in a worse psychosis or a worse depression than they were previously. They may have become criminalized, unintentionally.

Public Safety committee  I'd like to comment on that from the point of view of mental health. It hasn't been said yet, but the proportion of our clients in the mental health courts who have addictions is probably about 80%. But we are nowhere near expecting them to go into abstinence-based programs. In fact, best practices in concurrent disorders, which is mental health and addiction, suggest that harm reduction is the way to go.

Public Safety committee  Actually, I referred to their work. I'm not working with them directly. Some of my colleagues are, as chairs. What I was doing was commending the work of the Mental Health Commission. I think they have it right in terms of looking at stigma and in terms of looking first at housing in some of the preliminary work they're doing.

Public Safety committee  Yes, there's a law and mental health subcommittee as part of the Mental Health Commission, and I know that they've put out a call for proposals to evaluate certain areas of the mental health and justice system. It was a pretty big call for proposals, so they're not really looking at it at the micro level yet.

Public Safety committee  Right.

Public Safety committee  Absolutely.

Public Safety committee  I wish I had something brilliant to suggest. I don't think I can really give direction at this point in time. It is important to have some minimums, and if it comes from looking at crime federally, then maybe it can be transmitted that way through requirements from the courts. However, I don't know how you're going to touch the mental health acts of the provinces.

Public Safety committee  I still think it comes down to giving us stronger tools. We need to be able to enforce treatment for people as a civil measure, particularly if someone has been involved in the criminal justice system. That may take a lot of twists and turns legally, because ordering treatment for someone is a very serious thing to do legally.

Public Safety committee  There are many mental health courts in Canada. There are probably eight or ten in Ontario, and they are right across the country. There's one in Montreal that recently came to visit us here. I'm sure there are more in Quebec, but I'm not aware of them.

Public Safety committee  Again this is my personal opinion, but a mental health court could be used in areas that wouldn't traditionally be considered to be divertible, for example, domestic assault. It's very common in our court to see a couple who both have mental health issues. They've been living together.

Public Safety committee  Are you asking what types of mental health problems we deal with?

Public Safety committee  We wouldn't deal directly with those crimes in terms of a positive legal outcome, but we might deal with them in the court. There's a provision for someone to be assessed for criminal responsibility for all severities of offences. My program would assess someone who had committed murder, if the court ordered an assessment, and would go back and bring provisions.