Justice committee  Thank you very much. Thank you for the opportunity to speak here. It's a privilege. By way of introduction, I'm Eric Woodburn speaking on behalf of the Canadian Association of Crown Counsel. We represent the interests of over 7,000 crown counsel across the country, including f

Justice committee  I will. I wrote a two-hour speech for my 20 minutes.

Justice committee  I would have written a one-hour speech if I had known it was 10 minutes.

Justice committee  Form 34.2 lists several points not traditionally included in the victim impact statement, and I would like to add this as a cautionary tale. This is a real case. In a case of domestic violence, a husband beat his wife with a wine bottle and a clothes iron. She ran out of the ho

Justice committee  This is a cautionary tale about listening to the victim. The crown appealed that. He went back and he received a 22-month real jail sentence. The court of appeal said that the judge had erred in taking that into account.

Justice committee  Are you saying I can't leave?

Justice committee  I agree. Education's important from this point of view: when we're sitting around the table discussing it, the pitfalls of how you use a certain section, I think it's important that it will be educated police and judges on the uniformity of the use of this act, but they also need

Justice committee  Even now, in its form, our provincial policy-makers are interpreting the language themselves and we're running into problems because we're going down to their office and saying, no, I don't think that's the way it's supposed to be interpreted. As for the complaints, for example,

Justice committee  It can be viewed as unconstitutional.

Justice committee  I'd have to say no, because a justice or a judge can still order that the identity of somebody—including name and everything—be hidden from anybody in the courtroom and still consider all parts of clause 17 and the other part in clause 20 and still say, “Yes, we can still do it”.

Justice committee  With regard to the “life and death”, there are measures in place that we deal with. A couple of weeks ago we brought in a witness in witness protection. I think everyone in the courtroom except for me had a bulletproof vest on. They didn't know where he was coming from; they di

Justice committee  I'm not afraid to answer.

Justice committee  If I have longer than 10 seconds I can attempt it.

Justice committee  Yes. Thank you. It's a matter of where the resources.... We just don't have enough people; we don't have enough staff in order to deal with the amount of work that's going to be added. It's not only for us in legal aid; I'm also incredibly worried for the people in our victims

Justice committee  I have nothing more to add.