Justice committee  You would have to legislatively amend the provisions, because the common law now creates a very limited regime, as I've talked about. You would have to amend the Criminal Code to allow a judge to engage in a challenge for cause process to question potential jurors about issues related to bias.

Justice committee  I would look for guidance in the suggestions of Professor Roach, where he details it in his brief, and we certainly would adopt that as well.

Justice committee  Somewhat ironically, when you hybridize the offences and eliminate the preliminary inquiry, you have exactly the same procedure for both cases, except as it relates to the jury aspect of the case. It would only be in those cases where a sentence of five years or more is available.

Justice committee  I'm going to let my colleague speak to the first and third matter. It is on the record that this is our position, but I will allow my colleague to expand on it a bit.

Justice committee  I did. We're talking about Jonathan Rudin's submissions to this committee, in which he fully endorses the recommendations of Professor Roach. This is about how each organization may choose different ways to express the point, but if you reflect on our submissions and reflect on Professor Roach's submissions, all of which were adopted by Aboriginal Legal Services, you'll see that we are all talking about the same thing—that a stand-alone elimination of peremptory challenges combined with the one other change, which is allowing a judge to determine the challenge for cause, will not result in actual diversification of the jurors who are chosen to decide a case.

Justice committee  It is very much an anecdotal exercise when you ask us to reflect on what happens. As it stands now, this is what you know about potential jurors absent a challenge for cause: you know their name, in most cases; you know the city where they reside and perhaps their municipal address; and in some cases you know their occupation.

Justice committee  No. The proposal would be to allow some limited questions, and then allow submissions to the trial judge as to why a particular person's questions display a bias or not. With the new proposal, you're going to be doing that for challenge for cause, but challenge for cause is currently practically limited to race-based challenges or publicity challenges.

Justice committee  I'll add to the member's question. The criminal process is about enhancing the truth-seeking function. That's part of what the criminal trial is about. The way in which the government has said it is going to abolish preliminary inquiries, for all but those cases where life imprisonment is at play, acknowledges implicitly that there is a value served by the preliminary inquiry in terms of the truth-seeking function.

Justice committee  Thank you, Mr. Chair and honourable members. We're glad to be here and to be invited to speak to the work of this very important committee. Really, we appear today on behalf of the 1,400 members who are part of our organization, which includes criminal defence lawyers and also academics in Ontario and otherwise.