Justice Minister Rob Nicholson said lots of words but offered little substance during his question-and-answer session with lawyers at the Canadian Bar Association conference in his hometown of Niagara Falls, Ont., last week.
In typical fashion for a local MP, Nicholson praised the CBA’s choice of the tourist mecca for the annual event.
At the same time, we heard lots of generalities about what the government plans to do to address crime in Canada.
Of particular concern, Nicholson noted, was the issue of delays at so-called mega-trials, many of which get bogged down in pretrial motions that in some cases result in the prosecution falling apart. “Far from getting better, the problem is getting worse,” Nicholson said last week.
Noting there is a “general consensus” on how to deal with complex trials, Nicholson said the government is now drafting legislation in response. That’s great but, as he pointed out, its speech from the throne had already identified the need to move forward on the issue.
As noted by reporter Michael McKiernan in this week’s Law Times (see “Lawyers assail crime agenda,” page 1), the legal profession had fairly harsh words for the Conservative government’s policies.
“I’m concerned about the whole incarceration policy of your government,” said Thomas Heintzman, a prominent lawyer. “It seems to me more and more crimes are being created, and people are being sent to jail for longer and longer periods. That policy hasn’t worked anywhere else I’m aware of, and I can’t see it working in Canada.”
Most of the lawyers who stood up to ask about the issue expressed similar sentiments. But what did we hear back from Nicholson? Certainly, there was little that addressed the matter at hand - the cost of putting more people in jail for longer periods under a crime policy that seems to have little backing from empirical research or studies.
“We can’t leave the Criminal Code stuck in the 1890s,” Nicholson said at one point. He then repeatedly went on to emphasize those aspects of the legal modernization that few people would disagree with, at least publicly: the rise in the age of consent, the creation of new offences for crimes such as drive-by shootings, and a crackdown on vehicle theft connected to organized crime.
Of course, those aren’t the changes to the Criminal Code the critics were referring to. Most people understand the need to update the law according to the changing nature of criminal behaviour but may still be concerned about the increasingly punitive approach the government is taking towards crime in general.
So Nicholson essentially ducked the lawyers’ challenges to his policies, and the two sides remain at somewhat of an impasse.
That’s unfortunate. While defence lawyers in particular may have a vested interest in a more liberal approach to crime and the government certainly has a right to chart its own course, it would be better if one of the key stakeholders on the issue, the legal profession, had more of a voice.
It’s also worth pointing out that one of the lawyers who challenged Nicholson on his crime agenda is a Saskatchewan Crown prosecutor, Loreley Berra. She and others prove that it’s not just defence lawyers who are concerned.
