Justice committee  No, Mr. Coleman has covered it nicely.

Justice committee  I think you've touched on a couple of things that are really important about the court. One is the continuity of personnel. There is a main drug treatment court judge, Mr. Justice Bentley, and a small number of backup judges. I am the main federal prosecutor with the drug treatment court.

Justice committee  The person has never left the criminal court. The drug treatment court is not the Gladue court. The Gladue court is a separate aboriginal court. The drug treatment court is still a criminal court. It's still presided over by a criminal court judge. We have a 30-day assessment period when someone pleads guilty and comes into the program.

Justice committee  They are not in terms of actual budget contributions, but they are in in-kind contributions, certainly.

Justice committee  I mean the court room, the judge, court staff, Ministry of the Attorney General prosecutor.

Justice committee  Probation.

Justice committee  A Legal Aid Ontario duty counsel is in the drug treatment court every Tuesday and Thursday. That counsel participates in the closed pre-court sessions and represents the interests of the participants in exactly that adversarial way. It's a modified adversarial process when something is contentious.

Justice committee  It's a bit hard to quantify. Coming to this as a criminal justice system participant, I would define recidivism in terms of a subsequent conviction for a criminal offence. I think the presumption of innocence obliges us to treat it that way. However, the report that the research and statistics branch of Justice has just released, which relies on reports from across the United States and Canada, as well as two reports from Australia, defines recidivism not just in terms of subsequent convictions, but also in terms of subsequent charges.

Justice committee  I have a copy of it with me. You're welcome to have my copy if you like. I can provide it to the clerk afterward. I'm sure I can get another copy.

Justice committee  Which report?

Justice committee  The funding for the four additional courts was announced, I think, in 2004. There was a lengthy application process that led to the decision to fund the new courts in the four new cities where they're now being set up: Edmonton, Regina, Winnipeg, and Ottawa. As for the reasoning behind the government's decision, I'm afraid I'm not in a position to know.

Justice committee  It's not so much that they're being denied treatment; they're just being denied this particular avenue of treatment. Whenever someone applies to the court, comes in, and then isn't successful or is screened out, they always have the opportunity to seek treatment elsewhere. I'm afraid I can't speak to what treatment is or is not available in either the provincial reformatory systems or in the federal penitentiary system.

Justice committee  We don't see a lot of first nations people in our court. We've had a handful, but our courthouse, the Old City Hall court in Toronto, also houses the Gladue Aboriginal Persons Court, which has a specialized clientele of first nations accused. In my experience, that's the court that first nations accused tend to go to, rather than to our court.

Justice committee  It wouldn't be about having a conviction; it would be about having a charge before the courts. In our court, typically, many of our participants have long criminal records, but sometimes we'll get someone who applies who has no criminal record. Whether they have previous convictions or not is not going to determine whether or not they get access to the program.

Justice committee  As I said, there's a six-stage screening process. Part of it has to do with screening people out for things like violence, commercial trafficking, and using young persons. There's also quite an in-depth treatment screening to go into the addiction history and to ensure as much as possible that the person is someone who really is in need of drug treatment.