Justice committee  My response is this: the police became very political.

Justice committee  I don't know when, but police associations began to lobby and to criticize the judges and the system. The team approach, which we have to work with every day or we're not going to get through any cases, got replaced by a politicization of the police forces. The police forces star

Justice committee  It's sacrosanct to our society, and that's what the concern is.

Justice committee  Can I just say one thing, Mr. Chair? One of the things that really struck me is when Professor Ratushny said “police as an institution” as opposed to “individual”. That was very helpful to me in trying to understand the concerns—not as individual citizens of the country, but as a

Justice committee  It's a problem. Police officers are one group. There are lots of other groups, as Mr. Ménard has said, that were not consulted about their representation. My problem is that the government says, we want judges who will follow our law and order agenda and we are going to put pol

Justice committee  Can I just say this? It's not ever going to happen federally, because it can't. I've testified about this before, but one of the best systems is the interview process. An in camera interview process really separates the highly recommended political people from the people who prob

Justice committee  Nothing. With great respect, first of all, the Criminal Code provides under section 718—and it's the law—that jail should be the last resort. That's the law, and I don't want to get into a debate with Justice Craig about whether judges are too soft or whatever, because at the end

Justice committee  Mr. Chair, thank you very much. It's an honour to be asked to appear here today on this very important topic. It's always a pleasure to come before the committee, but this is a special day for me, because Professor Edward Ratushny dragged me kicking and screaming out of the fir

Justice committee  We are grateful for being invited. When we are invited, we always come. We always try to assist. We have a great deal of respect for the work you do. We wouldn't want to be in your position, I don't think.

Justice committee  Let me respond by saying this. Let's just say, for example, that you, as a member of this committee, felt that a bill was wrong; some people suggested you were going to take too much time in fighting this bill, but as a principle, you passionately believed the bill was wrong. You

Justice committee  No, it's not an opposite point of view. If you feel that the sentence for careless storage, the ceiling for careless storage—and careless storage—

Justice committee  That's not what I was saying.

Justice committee  I believe, as a citizen and as a defence counsel, that the last thing we should do is send someone to jail, but if that person is a danger to society, they should go to jail. Then you decide how long they should go to jail. And if they are a repeat offender, if they are a dangero

Justice committee  In our exception provision that we suggested to you, we left treason and murder as the only ones. What we did was go out on a limb and say that you don't need minimum sentences. You can have a judge decide in the particular circumstances whether or not the minimum sentence should

Justice committee  In response to your first question, Mr. Lee, I can't tell you, but I am so afraid that that's exactly what we will see. We will see aboriginals and we will see judges struggling to try to do something other than what is commanded of them. We will see aboriginals in custody and th