News Release/News Conference - Jan. 18, 1996. Re: The proposed 33% reduction in Ontario's Crown Attorney System


Toronto, Ontario, January 18, 1996

(Released prior to a Queen's Park press conference in which CAVEAT participated, along with the Ontario Crown Attorneys Association, the Ontario Provincial Police Association, Child Find Canada, MADD Canada, and victims lawyer Tim Danson.)

CAVEAT accepts the financial realities that face our province and recognize the need to cut government spending. However, the financial initiatives that are being suggested concerning the proposed 33% reduction in the Crown Attorney System shows a naivety and a lack of intelligent planning which flies in the face of the Conservative government's commitment to law and order.

The overcrowded, understaffed, disorganization of the courts in Ontario has been glaringly apparent in the light of Askov, which resulted in at least 50,000 criminal cases being dismissed in order to allow a seriously backlogged system to function.

The Yeo Inquest, which examined the failure of the criminal justice system to protect my daughter, Nina and Karen Marquis of New Brunswick, from a dangerous sexual predator, allowed a rare glimpse into the court system. The disorganization, the lack of standard practice from jurisdiction to jurisdiction and the spectacle of inexperienced assistant crown attorneys with case loads of 130 cases per day, or more, showed with dreadful clarity a system that had broken down.

The Martin report and the recommendations from the Yeo Inquest led to some restructuring, improved training and 60 contract crown attorneys being hired to prevent another backlog. How can we possibly be expected to accept that one third fewer crown attorneys can begin to keep the system running and ensure public safety.

This is particularly troubling as the Conservative party had a decade in Opposition to study the issues and design an intelligent and comprehensive restructuring and reorganization of the criminal justice system in order to fulfil their avowed dedication to law and order.

Instead, it seems that the Harris Government is proposing an ill-considered and precipitate truncation of an already overburdened system, which makes a mockery of their rhetoric of the last ten years. For example, they could have looked at the endless remands, judge shopping, crown shopping, and offenders changing their lawyers several times, each time taking up valuable court time, as well as the Ontario Criminal Review Board, to name but a few.

There is little evidence that they are considering other solutions such as public defenders or re-thinking the entire Legal Aid system

The Krever Inquiry into delivery of blood by the Red Cross all too clearly illustrates the tragedies that result from a blinkered approach to the bottom line.

The Coroner's jury and the Yeo Inquest directed 35 recommendations at the Attorney General of Ontario and of those seven were either rejected or unresolved. Reading through the recommendations again we see quite clearly that the improved training of the crowns, and the attention to address the needs of victims, for example, will almost certainly be lost.

This impression is reinforced by the Victims' Bill of Rights announced by Attorney General, Honourable Charles Harnick, on November 23, 1995. Section 2.vi-xii of the Victims's Bill of Rights addresses many of the real inequities in the treatment of victims. However, the section entitled, `Limitations' states ``The principle set out in subsection 1 are subject to the availability of resources...''. Bill C-23 was first read approximately eight weeks before the governments' proposals on the Crown Attorney System. We can only consider the Victims' Bill of Rights as a cynical attempt to appease victims of crime.

However, as the crown attorneys have difficulty with their case load at the moment, the extra time required to consult victims and keep them informed at all stages of the case of all significant proceedings, trial arrangements, and plea bargains etc. would obviously place too heavy a burden on such a seriously depleted work force.

Are we going to rely on Askov to purge our system periodically?

Are we to rubber stamp a decimated court system that acts as the gate keeper of public safety in our province?

We appreciate the need to cut government spending, however, the mandate that we, the tax payers, give to our elected government, is that they make the best possible use of our dollars.

We demand that the Harris Government accept the challenge and restore their credibility by re-examining the imminent breakdown of our court system in a comprehensive and intelligent way, instead of implementing simplistic, naive and draconian measures which will surely put every citizen of Ontario at risk and seriously jeopardize law and order in this province.


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