Justice committee  Well, two parliamentary committees in the 1990s recommended that 5% of federal money should be spent on prevention, so that's where 5% comes from. The other 5% comes from an analysis that I've done in my book of what it would cost to implement the sorts of things you're talking a

Justice committee  Well, I'm a fan of the ombudsman, as you've heard. I think it's one of the best things your government has done for Canada and to put us on the world map, in terms of victims. I think you have to require Statistics Canada to collect data around this. I think you also have to lo

Justice committee  Absolutely. Sorry; I had only so much space. The same survey shows that less than 10% of victims of sexual assault report it to the police in Canada. We don't have this between different provinces.

Justice committee  Yes, there are very big differences, so I think there are things you could learn from that piece of legislation.

Justice committee  The one that I focus on more than anything is the importance of the General Accounting Office being involved in seeing how it's implemented. They've had this for a number of years now, so there is feedback to the police, feedback to prosecutors, and feedback to judges. It really

Justice committee  I think the comparison between Quebec and the rest of Canada speaks for itself. If you look at what is already available in Quebec in terms of professional services, in terms of compensation—

Justice committee  It's not a different criminal justice system.

Justice committee  The police, courts, corrections are in general terms the same. All I've done is I've made a comparative between countries. I think what is shocking is that Canada, the rest of Canada in simple terms, is an outlier with these very low rates. If you look at where we've gotten, we

Justice committee  The statistics in both the graphs you're looking at are taken from the Statistics Canada general social survey. These give you information on assaults and robberies. There is not very good information on sexual assaults, but it is included there. They also give you information on

Justice committee  I'm saying it's in the federal area so it's something that you can do as a committee. As you probably know, Bob Lunney in the late seventies had a provision like this in Edmonton. He doubled the number of people who applied for compensation across the whole of Alberta. The RCMP a

Justice committee  This legislation lacks any specificity as to what the complaint procedures will be. We already have some complaint procedures within the RCMP, so I assume those would be adapted to this. I think the federal ombudsman office is an obvious place to concentrate issues of complaints

Justice committee  Absolutely. The most fundamental thing if you want rights is to set up the way they're going to be enforced, and this is a major lack in this legislation.

Justice committee  I'll quote a Justice Canada publication that says the estimated dollar equivalent of harm to victims is $83 billion. That same document talks about $20 billion being spent on police, courts, and corrections, and about something in the order of half a billion dollars going toward

Justice committee  Good afternoon, Mr. Chair and esteemed members of the committee. Thank you for inviting me here. I am going to make a pitch that if this is going to be a first step in providing a cornerstone for victim rights in this country, it needs some additional help to what is already i

Justice committee  Let me answer that question. You have to remember that the UN declaration on victim rights was adopted in 1985 and that, starting with Manitoba in 1986, most of the provinces adopted victim services legislation that used a fine surcharge system. Ontario didn't move until 1996, a