Justice committee  No, it's not, for this simple reason. The natural inclination when dealing with mentally disordered persons who have committed an offence is to presume that they're dangerous. The courts have recognized that. There are lots of studies. The public perceives it that way. The reas

Justice committee  Yes. I think that's the practice in Ontario, even though it may not be legislated.

Justice committee  I agree that's a very important statistic to look at. With respect, I just don't think you're reading it entirely correctly. You have to go to the appendices and break it down. The vast majority of those percentages you're citing about people who have previously been convicted

Justice committee  I can only tell you from my experience appearing in front of the review board, that's applied. Anyone who's found NCR for murder or a really serious offence, there is a very high threshold that a review board applies before they ever let them back into society.

Justice committee  Absolutely.

Justice committee  It's more than 20 years, 21 or 22 years.

Justice committee  I wouldn't say many, but some yes, some no.

Justice committee  It might be between 100 and 200.

Justice committee  Typically, those at greatest risk of reoffending are those who, I'll say, are often living on the streets. Absolutely they reoffend. But we're talking about people who come up.... There's a court in Toronto at the downtown courthouse called Old City Hall, which is a designated m

Justice committee  Other than being invited here, no.

Justice committee  That's an excellent question. Part of the concern of the high-risk offender designation is that it really is overly broad. By incorporating the definition of “serious personal injury offence” in, and I can't remember the section, but it's the one that's in proposed section 202.

Justice committee  The problem with trying to do something for victims of mentally ill persons or mentally disordered offenders is that they start being victims long before an actual offence has been committed. If you look at the Crocker study, the vast majority of actual victims, that is the peopl

Justice committee  Mr. Chair, on behalf of the Criminal Lawyers' Association, I want to thank this committee for the opportunity to comment on this very important issue. It's personally a privilege and a pleasure to once again appear before this committee. My name is Paul Burstein. I'm the immedi

Justice committee  I think that question is actually aimed at me. Sir, it's not that we're suggesting that people should smoke and drive. The concern about section 253.1 isn't about using drugs while driving, it's just while having them in your pocket. As far as driving while you're impaired by a

Justice committee  You made two points, sir, about surely we must be able to come up with a system where we can get to the blood test and that would provide reliable evidence of conviction and isn't that going to essentially help reduce the incidence of drug-driving through the deterrence. I want