Justice committee  I think more funding.... I think if you look at the victims of crime act in the United States, you see that it has definitely changed what is going on. It's not a huge bureaucracy; it's part of the U.S. Department of Justice. I didn't actually recommend a new department; I recomm

Justice committee  I do not understand how the European Union, with 27 different governments, can agree on a series of minimum standards for victims that cover most of the things that we talked about, including what is in the bill of rights and more, and we can't get that sort of agreement among ou

Justice committee  Yes. If you go back to my Edmonton example from 40 years ago, that actual victim service unit was reporting to the chief, and it was therefore in the police department. It was therefore funded, although they had a lot of volunteers. The City of Ottawa has a unit within the police

Justice committee  Twenty-five per cent of victims of violence go to the police. About a third of the victims of property crime go to the police, so the police definitely have a role. They're at the front end. I didn't say that they were to provide the service; I said that they were to provide the

Justice committee  I am very keen to tell you about the situation in Québec, which has the VCI, the most generous compensation system in Canada. There are also Crime Victims Assistance Centres, CAVACs, and the Crime Victims Assistance Office, BAVAC, where officials are employed to support victims.

Justice committee  It is very clear that the majority of victims of property crime want to receive compensation. We must find a way to have them participate in the process and offer them legal assistance or a lawyer to help them define the compensation they want. That is how it works in France, whe

Justice committee  I think the bill of rights, frankly, is a bill of goods. There is no remedy, so you shouldn't ever have used the word “right”. Jo-Anne Wemmers has detailed some of those. You have to go through your own civil procedure for restitution, and you're not provided with information. I

Justice committee  Thank you for the invitation to appear before this committee on the government's obligations to victims of crime. It's good to be doing this after the federal government finally appointed a qualified and energetic federal ombudsman for victims of crime, but this appointment is a