The committee met at 9:04 a.m.

[D. Routley in the chair.]

D. Routley (Chair): Good morning, everyone. My name is Doug Routley. I'm the MLA for Nanaimo–North Cowichan and the Chair of the Special Committee on Reforming the Police Act. This is an all-party committee of the Legislative Assembly.

I would like to acknowledge that I'm joining today's meeting from the traditional territories of the Malahat First Nation.

I'd like to welcome all those who are listening and those participating in the meeting.

Our committee is undertaking a broad review with respect to policing and related systemic issues in B.C. We are taking a phased approach to this work and are meeting with a number of organizations and individuals over the fall to follow up on input we've already received and to learn more about new models and approaches that have been drawn to our attention.

For today's meeting, we'll be having discussions with a number of representatives from restorative justice associations and programs. Each presenter has 15 minutes to speak, followed by time for questions from committee members to the entire panel.

[9:05 a.m.]

All audio from our meetings is broadcast live on our website. A complete transcript will also be posted.

I'll now ask the members of the committee to introduce themselves.

K. Kirkpatrick: Good morning. Love to see the North Shore here, and just thrilled that we have an opportunity to hear about restorative justice. I'm a big fan, as you guys know.

I'm Karin Kirkpatrick. I'm the MLA for West Vancouver–Capilano.

I am calling in from the beautiful territories of the Squamish, Tsleil-Waututh and Musqueam First Nations.

T. Halford: Hi. Trevor Halford, MLA for Surrey–White Rock.

I'm on the traditional territories of the Semiahmoo people.

D. Davies (Deputy Chair): Good morning, everyone. Dan Davies, MLA for Peace River North.

I'm coming to you from the Dane-zaa territory.

This is two days in a row I've had someone from my riding on a presentation, so I'm excited.

G. Begg: Good morning, everyone. I'm Garry Begg. I'm the MLA for Surrey-Guildford.

I am coming to you today from the traditional territories of the Coast Salish peoples, which includes the Katzie, the Kwantlen and the Semiahmoo First Nations.

G. Lore: Good morning. Really glad to have you here. I'm looking forward to hearing from you. I'm Grace Lore, the MLA for Victoria–Beacon Hill.

I'm calling in from my community office on the territory of the Lək̓ʷəŋin̓əŋ peoples of the Esquimalt and Songhees Nations.

A. Olsen: Good morning. ÍY SC̸ÁĆEL. Adam Olsen, MLA for Saanich North and the Islands.

I'm thrilled to be working from my home office today in the W̱JOȽEȽP village in W̱SÁNEĆ.

R. Singh: Rachna Singh, MLA for Surrey–Green Timbers. Welcome.

I'm joining you today from the shared territories of Kwantlen, Katzie, Kwikwetlem and Semiahmoo First Nations.

H. Sandhu: Good morning. I am Harwinder Sandhu, MLA for Vernon-Monashee.

I'm joining you from the traditional Syilx territory of the Okanagan Indian nation. Thank you so much for joining us.

D. Routley (Chair): Thank you, all.

Our committee is graced with excellent support. Today that is Karan Riarh from the Parliamentary Committees Office and Amanda Heffelfinger from Hansard Services, who race between committees and support all of the work of the Legislature. We thank them very much.

Now I'll introduce our first presenter. That's Mr. Richard Tarnoff, the president of the Vancouver Island Region Restorative Justice Association.

Please go ahead, Mr. Tarnoff.

Presentations on Police Act

VANCOUVER ISLAND REGION
RESTORATIVE JUSTICE ASSOCIATION

R. Tarnoff: I'll just say I'm calling from the traditional Hul'qumi'num'-speaking peoples' territories.

The Vancouver Island Region Restorative Justice Association, or VIRRJA, represents 18 independent restorative justice programs on Vancouver Island, the Sunshine Coast and the Gulf Islands. We appreciate the invitation from the special committee to meet with you and make recommendations for improving the justice administration in B.C. I will just note that I have omitted some of the written submission so that I'll fit into the 15-minute time allowed.

We commend the government for undertaking this review of policing and related justice issues. It is inevitable that as conditions and attitudes in society change, the administration of justice must also evolve. An example is our response to addiction and the use of illegal drugs. What was formerly viewed as a criminal problem is now understood to be a health issue, and the goal is harm reduction.

The many articulate and passionate submissions that have already been made to the committee are a further indication of the importance of this issue to First Nations, government agencies, advocacy groups and individuals. Restorative justice is an alternative judicial measure that is well established as part of our legal system. It is endorsed by provincial and federal governments for good reason.

It is a practice and philosophy whose goals are accountability, repair and healing as the best responses to harmful acts. It encourages offenders to take responsibility for their behaviour and reduces recidivism. It gives victims the opportunity to be part of the process in determining what they will need to heal. It reduces the growing backlog and financial burden on police and courts, and it contributes to making our communities safer.

[9:10 a.m.]

We also believe that by improving access to restorative justice, B.C. and Canada will be meeting their obligations under the convention on the rights of the child and the United Nations declaration on the rights of Indigenous peoples. Together, these international agreements form an interlocking web of commitments. We will come back to the details of the UN agreements in a moment.

Although restorative justice has a proven track record and conforms to Canadian law and international agreements, implementation has been slow. The Youth Criminal Justice Act requires police officers to consider the use of extra-judicial measures such as restorative justice before deciding to recommend charges. Nevertheless, there is no documentation required to track whether this has been done and what the reasons for not using restorative justice may have been.

To bring the process in line with the Youth Criminal Justice Act, we propose recommendation 1. Every police officer, on apprehending a suspect and having carried out their investigation, shall be required to provide a clear, evidence-based reason if they are not referring the file to the local restorative justice program. Absent such a rationale, the file ought to be referred to restorative justice for disposition. There should be a specific space provided on the report to Crown counsel where the rationale is clearly visible to any reader.

In support of recommendation 1, the Police Act should, recommendation 2, require every serving officer to undertake restorative justice awareness training, with regular refreshers every two to four years to ensure that the officers are aware of the range of files that their local program is competent and trained to handle. The training needs to undermine the presumption held by many officers that restorative justice cannot handle certain offences, certain age groups or an individual with underlying issues involving mental health, alcohol, drugs, poverty, homelessness, etc.

In recommendation 3, where it is not the local practice to have an officer attend every resolution conference, part of the training required in recommendation 2 would include attendance at a resolution conference as an observer to ensure familiarity with how restorative justice works, its benefits for both the complainants and the respondents and the positive outcomes for the community.

These recommendations will improve the delivery of restorative justice, but equally important is that the people who are victims or responsible for crimes understand their rights and options. If all citizens were informed about human rights, enabling them to consider using restorative approaches to conflict and crime, we could move beyond the current quagmire in which we find ourselves, one in which police and related ministries have become gatekeepers.

Currently the restorative justice community struggles to convince the gatekeepers to increase their use of restorative justice. Most of the people who are involved in conflict and crime remain unaware of the restorative justice approaches and the benefits they provide that are available to them.

The UN convention on the rights of the child, CRC, established an international framework for protecting the rights of children. Article 40 requires states to develop and use effective alternative mechanisms to formal criminal proceedings that respect human rights and the procedural safeguards and are child- and gender-sensitive. These alternatives include diversion, restorative justice processes, mediation and community-based programs, including treatment programs for children with substance abuse problems.

Since the adoption of the convention in 1989, considerable progress has been achieved at the local, national, regional and global levels in the development of the legislation, policies and methodologies to promote the implementation of these rights.

Having taken these steps, it remains a challenge to translate the provisions in the treatise and the legislation into changes in the day-to-day workings of the justice system. This may be because the older paradigm of criminal trials and incarceration is deeply entrenched in the education and training of justice professionals. It also may reflect the reality that the majority of the people involved in conflict and criminal incidents are unaware that alternatives such as restorative justice exist.

[9:15 a.m.]

Fundamental to the implementation of these alternatives is that people should be allowed to participate in decisions that affect their lives. Article 12 of the convention on the rights of the child says: "States parties shall assure to the child who is capable of forming his or her own views the right to express those views freely in all matters affecting the child, the views of the child being given due weight in accordance with the age and maturity of the child." Since criminal procedures are certainly a matter affecting children, children would seem to have the right to request dealing with the matter in a restorative way.

In Canada, the Victims Bill of Rights amends the Corrections and Conditional Release Act. The Federal Ombudsman for Victims of Crime had this to say about the changes: "Under the Victims Bill of Rights, Correctional Services of Canada will now be required to inform victims about restorative justice opportunities. The impacted victims cannot access the services for programs offered them if they are not aware they exist. Requiring victims to be informed of these opportunities will benefit victims by providing them with information about the choices available to them."

If agencies were to agree that they have a responsibility to inform victims and persons accused of crimes that restorative approaches exist, they would have to be educated in the principles and concepts. Once trained and committed, they would be conforming to the principles underlying the above-mentioned rights. Compliance with this responsibility could include handing a card to someone with the phone number of the local program and saying: "If you're interested in finding out about restorative justice, there are people here who can answer questions."

Even better would be if the police obtained permission from the parties to give their contact information to the local victim services officer and local restorative justice program. They could, in turn, reach out and provide information [audio interrupted] if desired. This would not imply that the agency endorsed the use of restorative justice as an alternative to charges in that particular situation, but it would empower individuals who, with greater awareness, might choose to pursue a restorative path on their own.

Finally, there are legal and procedural changes that would bring Canada more closely into compliance with our obligations under international treaties.

Recommendation 4, clarify the changes made to the Victims Bill of Rights to make certain that all victims are automatically informed about the opportunity that exists for restorative justice. Extend this policy to those accused of committing crimes.

Most restorative justice programs are community-based, staffed and managed by volunteers. Besides facilitating referrals, these programs are responsible for recruiting and training volunteers; developing programs, including school-based programs; building partnerships with community organizations; fundraising; maintaining program awareness in their communities; and keeping abreast of current research and innovations in the field.

Programs that are designated community accountability programs by the Ministry of Public Safety and Solicitor General receive a small, $4,000 annual grant. Any funding beyond this minimum requires applying for short-term grants.

The prosecution service has now established a process for entering into MOUs with programs so that more serious cases can be referred by Crown counsel. These cases will require higher levels of training and more secure procedures for protecting confidential information. Crown counsel has made it clear that they will not be providing funding for these referrals. Clearly, there needs to be sufficient stable funding to ensure that this work is done effectively.

Recommendation 5, the provincial government should initiate a discussion with representatives from the restorative justice community to determine what level of financial support is needed to ensure that the service that is provided meets the highest possible standards.

[9:20 a.m.]

Although there is no specific reference to restorative justice in the UN declaration on the rights of Indigenous peoples, it is clearly stated in article 17 and elsewhere that Indigenous peoples are entitled to all the rights established under international and domestic law. In this way, UNDRIP obligates Canada and B.C. to fulfil their obligations and, under CRC the Youth Criminal Justice Act.

Article 32.2 of UNDRIP requires states to consult with Indigenous people in order to obtain their free, prior and informed consent over projects affecting their lands and resources. In some cases, where disputes have arisen over projects, governments and corporations have obtained court injunctions to prohibit protests. Disobeying these injunctions has led to confrontations, injuries, arrests, trauma for protesters and police, and a lessening of respect for the rule of the law. Using restorative justice to deal with these cases could lead to more positive outcomes.

Recommendation 6, representatives from the restorative justice community should work with the prosecution service to develop a policy for using restorative justice for violation of court injunctions resulting from the protests over First Nation sovereignty and the environmental impacts of projects.

Thank you very much for the opportunity to share our concerns and recommendations.

D. Routley (Chair): Thank you very much, Mr. Tarnoff. We appreciate that.

Our next guest. We'll hear from the executive director.

Is it Sioned?

S. Dyer: Yes. That was going to be part of why I would introduce myself, just because of my name, Sioned.

D. Routley (Chair): Go ahead and introduce yourself, then, Sioned.

NORTH SHORE
RESTORATIVE JUSTICE SOCIETY

S. Dyer: It's wonderful to be here today. Thanks so much for having me. I just want to thank Richard for his very comprehensive introduction and a really great segue into our presentation today, which is to sort of showcase what restorative justice looks like at the local level.

Today I'm speaking to you from the traditional territories of the Skwxwú7mesh, Musqueam and Tsleil-Waututh First Nations.

I'm very happy to be here with my colleague Mara Veneman, who I will introduce very shortly.

I am speaking to you as the executive director of the North Shore Restorative Justice Society. I just want to give a very quick backgrounder of our work. We've been around since 1997. We're the largest restorative justice community-based agency in the province. With that said, we hover between around seven to nine staff, but we are growing quite quickly. We'll have at least three new hires in 2022.

We facilitate two main programs. Our restorative response program is our pre-charge police diversion program. As you likely know, restorative justice can support and impact at many levels of the traditional justice system. We support at the pre-charge level, so we work very closely with our police stakeholders, including North Van RCMP and West Vancouver police department. And I'm very pleased to say that we are expanding our support up the Sea to Sky into Squamish, Whistler and Pemberton.

As a part of our work, because we deal with both youths and adults — and everything between shoplifting all the way up to serious assaults as well as sexual assaults with very specific parameters — in 2013, we developed our restorative justice and education program, which Mara manages. That, really, was our preventative response to the high number of youth we were seeing in meeting with police.

We work very closely and specifically with our Indigenous neighbours, Squamish Nation as well as Tsleil-Waututh Nation. We've got a formal MOU signed with Squamish Nation and provide support in Tsleil-Waututh Nation's outdoor school.

Just a little bit about the two presenters today. Mara is a lawyer, and she practises law in California, but she lives in Squamish, and she's been a supporter of North Shore Restorative Justice Society for well over three years. So we're really excited to have her and the staff team.

Myself, I'm born and raised on the North Shore and have been working in social justice and anti-oppression for over 15 years. I recently completed my master's in urban studies at SFU, where I looked at reconciliation issues at the municipal level — how the municipalities engage meaningfully in reconciliation. And I was one of three founding board members of the Restorative Justice Association of B.C., our provincial association.

[9:25 a.m.]

I just want to share that part of our goals…. We've got some formal goals that will be familiar after Richard's presentation today. One of the issues that we're speaking to today is for this committee to consider the proportion of government budgets allocated to policing, the mistrust of police by racialized individuals and other vulnerable populations, as well as the growing challenge of police being the first responders to mental health and addiction crises that are on the rise. And with that, the opportunities that restorative justice provides as a viable alternative to our traditional justice process, including as a pre-charge process.

There's a quote here from the B.C. Civil Liberties Association that I won't read in full. I hope you all take an opportunity to read that. I will share the first part: "B.C. has the shameful honour of having the country's highest rate of police-involved deaths." Also, to acknowledge that growing proportions of government budgets go into policing.

With that, I will turn it over to Mara.

M. Veneman: Thank you, Sioned. I'll just be going through this briefly.

The slide discusses, sort of, the difference between restorative justice and the traditional criminal justice process. A couple of highlights are that in the traditional model, it's really, really focused on the offender. The offence isn't even against a victim. The offence is packaged as against the Crown. They want to know what rule has been broken, who did it and what punishment can be imposed.

Restorative justice, on the other hand, is very, very victim-focused. It looks at who has been harmed, what their needs are and how they can heal that harm. In our model, we really work collaboratively with all the parties so that they come up with solutions to move forward.

One little thing I would add, too, is that it really provides an opportunity for offenders to reflect and make positive changes in a way that going through the traditional criminal justice system doesn't. In the traditional system, the offender is really encouraged, in fact, to downplay everything and minimize the impact on the victim, which can be very traumatic and harmful to parties.

Why restorative justice? Basically, it works. It decreases recidivism quite dramatically when compared to the traditional criminal justice system.

Police officers are still part of the process — in our model, at least. Sometimes we worry that they're going to feel that we have taken their job away, in a certain way, or part of their job. We have noticed that that's just not the case. They really do view it as another resource, and they value the effectiveness of the process.

Again, victims' needs are central. As Richard pointed out, too, it's supported by federal and provincial legislation, both on the adult and the youth side.

Safety checks in place. That basically means that we have implemented procedures to ensure positive outcomes. We have a really rigorous referral process to make sure that the case is actually appropriate for restorative justice.

Then we also have staff that follow up at the end. If the parties come up with an agreement of, "Okay, the offender is going to do XYZ" — for example, pay financial restitution for the damages caused, whatever it may be; perhaps community service — we follow up and require proofs that they've actually done what they said they were going to do before we let the police know: "Okay, this file has been completed successfully."

It is cheaper. We'll get into that in a minute. It is much, much more cost-effective that the traditional criminal justice system.

It's an independent…. The way we do it, at least. I know there are many different models for restorative justice, but the way we do it at North Shore Restorative Justice is an independent process from police, which provides a sense of safety and, really, trust for the participants, which is just not there for a lot of groups in the province, unfortunately, at this time.

[9:30 a.m.]

As Sioned said, there's really a lot of mistrust and historical abuses by police against racialized groups. So having a program that's completely separate provides that buy-in and that openness for people to participate fully.

And yes, it can be applied to a really wide range of cases and situations. We don't have a checklist, like only X, Y, Z crimes can be accepted. We've had great success with some really more serious matters as well.

The next slide talks about recidivism rates. I won't bore you all with a bunch of statistics — you can read those over at your own time, if that's okay — but in general, research worldwide has shown that it works, that it works well, that people do recommit at much, much lower rates after having gone through a restorative process.

One really interesting study, though, that I will point you guys towards shows, as compared with the traditional criminal justice system or process, that for family violence cases —especially violence-against-women types of cases — that go through a restorative process, for those ones, the recidivism rate is much lower, whereas if you go through a traditional process, the recidivism rate actually increases. I won't get you into the details of that, but there are a number of reasons for that. It's just an interesting thing to ponder there.

The next slide — legislation. You know, I think I'll skip that. Everyone is quite familiar with it, and Richard touched on it quite well. Thank you.

Cost-effectiveness. Again, we have found some research that shows, at average, the cost per file for restorative justice is about $100 an hour, compared with $1,200…. Is that right, Sioned? That's quite a difference. Yeah. There's a link to it, if you guys would like to read up more on that, about the cost-effectiveness.

Again, if you think about the fact that this is pre-charge, in our instance, for example…. You just omit that whole court process and the legal fees and even a lot of policing time, too. The police officers don't have to appear in court and testify. So again, greatly, greatly reduced costs.

All right, Sioned. Back to you.

S. Dyer: Thanks, Mara.

Just to sort of build on the slide — because it's an important one — there are also notes around the cost of crime in Canada, which is about $100 billion each year. Stats on government websites share that about 83 percent of that is paid by the victims through loss of wages, pain and suffering, property damage, etc. Less than 5 percent of criminal convictions result in a restitution order where the offender has to repay losses suffered by a victim. If a judge convicts an offender, they don't also get out a chequebook and write a cheque for whatever amount of damages, whereas we actually facilitate thousands of dollars of restitution every year through our processes.

I'll share that a study out of the U.K. showcased that every dollar that you put into restorative justice process saves $8 in the criminal justice system. That's sort of start to finish. So the argument to use restorative justice is strengthened when we look at it from a cost perspective.

Lastly, I just want to share some of the goals that we have. These, again, are echoing some of the thoughts that Richard shared

We want to change the process of policing to make restorative justice a part of the path instead of a diversion from the criminal justice path — of course, unless it's deemed against the protection of society to do so. Richard mentioned first-time offences. We want to flip that idea. Folks should be able to justify why they are not referring to restorative justice versus doing an RTCC, a report to Crown.

A huge one for us — we spend a lot of time educating new police officers in the work of restorative justice so that they've got a very healthy restorative justice process in their detachment or department — is to increase the education of police to provide significant training on making appropriate restorative justice referrals. That starts when they're in depot or other places and also continues when they come to whatever community they're supporting.

[9:35 a.m.]

In our restorative justice organization, we want to be present at all RCMP detachments and municipal police. We want to provide oversight to calls for service for local restorative justice agencies to refer that no referrals are missed, so reviewing the calls that come through and flagging them if it was appropriate to refer to restorative justice. We've done that ad hoc at our detachment at the RCMP and have had great success. It also helps to educate members in terms of what is an appropriate file. We want to standardize that.

A big one as well: we want to provide organizations influence to recognize and promote officers who utilize restorative justice. I'll give you an example. Currently, for the RCMP, the number of reports to Crown you do looks well when you're looking to promote. You could argue that it's actually a deterrent to refer to restorative justice, if you're getting points for doing a report to Crown instead. For us to be able to acknowledge and celebrate and promote members who refer to restorative justice would be a huge carrot, which is sometimes an important piece to know.

Lastly, again, Richard noted the funding to restorative justice organizations to support the attraction of highly skilled and qualified staff. We're probably the only restorative justice agency in the province — correct me if I'm wrong — that has lawyers on staff, which is really an anomaly. You can imagine that having lawyers on staff brings a huge amount of credibility and integrity to our work. We are completely aligned with current practices, and we can speak the important legalese that helps strengthen our work. We want to continue that.

I have a quick anecdote, but I'm running out of time. So I'm just going to say thank you very much for having us. Looking forward to some questions coming up.

D. Routley (Chair): Thank you very much. Much appreciated.

Now we will have our final guest, Tom Whitton of the North Peace Justice Society.

Welcome, Tom.

NORTH PEACE JUSTICE SOCIETY

T. Whitton: Thank you so much, everybody, for allowing me to present today.

I'd like to start off by acknowledging that I live, work and play on the land of the Dane-zaa people.

Thank you to Richard, Mara and Sioned for all of the great information that you just gave out to everybody. I think half of my slides are going to be a little bit redundant at this point. You guys did an amazing job. All the information that came out is very, very relevant.

What I'm going to try to really speak on is the impact not only on our children but also on the community as well. The community is where I'd like to focus my time and talk about how decisions made will impact the lives of everyone around us.

Just so everybody is aware, I am a relatively new board member to the North Peace Restorative Justice Society here locally. We have seen some struggles, especially since COVID started. That's the kind of thing that we're going to talk about today. How do we move ahead? How can you guys, at the government level, support us on our side and really work towards a better resolution not just for our children, not just for those people in bad situations but for the community as a whole?

That's what restorative justice really means to me — a holistic approach to situations that probably nobody planned on being in. But we ended up here. How do we get out in a healthy for everybody involved?

A program like restorative justice is driven by community involvement, but it needs the support and investment of governing bodies to ensure its long-term viability. To put this into perspective, without additional supports, our organization will not be here next year to save the lives of children across the Peace region. Over the past few years, we as an organization have struggled to find long-term sustainable funding. I sincerely hope that after today, we as a province can move in a direction of healing instead of just punishment.

I will jump into my slides here, and we'll go over it. I trust everybody has the copy of that as well. The one thing that you'll notice on my first slide is I that put "working with" on there. I wanted to talk about the organizations across the Peace region that we work with on a regular basis. Provincial government is right up at the top of that, because I think that the provincial government has such a key aspect in working with restorative justice societies to make sure that we have the tools needed to push ahead.

The city of Fort St. John has been a great supporter of the restorative justice society here. Our school district has been a supporter, RCMP services, probation services, court services, Northern Health, small businesses and local colleges. There is so much in there and so much impact across our community, not just in the single case but with everybody that we work with on a day-to-day basis.

[9:40 a.m.]

Jumping on to our next slide, where are we at. We're at a very limited funding point. Right now from the provincial government, we get less than $3,000 a year to run a program. That's to pay directors, to set up an office, to maintain documentation, to help and mitigate all of the issues that we see on a restorative justice basis. It's just not enough. We see more from our local governing bodies than we do, necessarily, from the provincial side, which I would love to see increased.

We have limited volunteers. I don't know if anybody's familiar with the northern side of British Columbia, but we do lack on professionals.

I've got to say, Sioned, you've definitely got a great team there. If you've got lawyers working with you, that is amazing.

We were really working on trying to get our volunteer base up. We've reached out to the local colleges. We're working on a referral program to get people involved and keep those professionals up here. We're currently in the process of pursuing a new executive director and increasing community awareness.

I don't think that the only people who need to know about what restorative justice is doing are necessarily the RCMP. I think the RCMP is the place where we're going to get all of our referrals, or the majority of our referrals, but being able to get out into the community and say what we're doing is very, very important.

Right now our RCMP referrals for this year are sitting around three to five. In comparison, in 2019-2020, there were 33. The year before it was even more. So since COVID has started, we have seen a huge downslide in the amount of cases that we're referring to.

To go back to the financial side, what does that look like in numbers? The average case going through a court proceeding is $10,000 up to unlimited amounts of money that the government has to pay out. So 33 cases — that's $330,000 a year just in our little slice of the province. That's a huge amount.

Right now we had a party program which brings children into the hospital, allows them to see what the impacts are of addiction, of serious trauma, all of that kind of stuff. It has been suspended since COVID started. That was a huge fundraising aspect for us, and it helped pay for people like our executive directors and all of that kind of stuff. With that funding gone, we're struggling.

Our community garden program. In order to offset that loss, we became part of the community garden program, helped manage that. It has been suspended, just because we don't have the staffing at this point.

Home respect agreements are ongoing, and shoplifting prevention programs here in town are ongoing. Now, the beauty of those two programs…. That was an extra that we were able to help out with in our community, based on the funding that we've gotten thus far.

Let's jump into the next slide and talk a little bit about the restorative justice programs. Who are we really working with on these? Restorative justice is the RCMP and the provincial government. Because of the amount of money that we are saving, I felt that it was necessary to put the B.C. provincial government in there. The difference in cost for running one of our systems…. For us, it's about $1,650. That was the amount of cases we had versus the expenses that we had, and there was some organization in order to keep everything up and running.

Party program with school district 60 and Northern Health, home respect agreements, families across the Peace region. The home respect agreements are a very, very powerful aspect. Essentially, what happens is that we will sit down and we will talk about how you work between your family. Is there violence? How do we bring it to a respect level and talk respectfully between every party, whether that's children to parents, parents to children, children to children, whatever it might be? We bring in the people who are best set up to do that, and they take it on from there.

As mentioned, RCMP is the majority of our referrals that come through to our program, and we're able to work with children right now. There's nothing saying we don't have the potential, like the counterparts, to move into a different age range. We're not at that capability right now. With proper funding and with the amount of money that we need, perhaps that's a potential in the future.

Traditional justice. Somebody gets a fine or maybe they get put in jail — anything along those lines — whereas with restorative, we don't do that.

[9:45 a.m.]

We're here to make sure that it's a holistic approach and make sure that there's a win-win. I believe in win-wins in everything that I do in my life. If it's not a win-win, it's not a good decision. If we can make everybody come out on top, that's a good thing.

I'm going to skip on to my eighth slide there. The other impacts that we really don't take into account, when we look at the dollar figures on what this is going to cost us as a province and what this is costing the restorative justice society to get this case from start to finish and put the mediation in, is the personal expense that it takes, not only on the offender but also on the victim.

It's very hard to say that this is the number, but for the offender, now you have no criminal record. There are no long-term standing effects, other than you have learned exactly who the victim was, who you harmed, what the story behind it was. I know that there is value in that. What that value is, is hard to determine, I suppose.

For the victim, in the traditional system, there's no actual resolution. But in restorative justice, we're able to come to a conclusion. We're able to get closure. It hasn't been an easy time on anybody, but that closure is so important for so many people.

In this slide, I talked a little bit about the total savings for us locally. If we say that the average cost is $1,650 and an average cost in the traditional system is $10,000, it's a total of just under $600,000 tax dollars that could potentially go back in to education, services of many other kinds, mental health and addiction supports, building communities. That is of value. That's just in Fort St. John. I don't know if anybody knows. We have a population of 25,000. We're definitely not the biggest city in all of B.C. by any stretch of the imagination. That value, in a larger centre, is even bigger.

Jumping into the next one. When people are able to acknowledge their responsibility and they come to a conclusion on how things can be, a satisfaction and harmony can be achieved by both the victim and offender and the community as well.

For an example, we had a couple of kids that were throwing rocks at a business, not something that was necessarily evil. They weren't trying to destroy the business, but there was a case that came up. Instead of these kids going through court proceedings, spending $20,000 just getting them up to the point where they can get back into the community and start rebuilding everything that they've lost, they were sweeping the parking lot out for this business.

Now the business has restitution, the managers, the person who's there. They feel some sort of responsibility to that business, and it is far, far less likely that they will ever come back and do the same thing, whether it's to that business or to another business. That personal connection to a situation that you created, I find, is huge, and it's absolutely impossible to monetize that or anything along those lines.

One of the other programs that we've done, as well, is a shoplifting prevention program. Recently we've gotten a referral from probation officers to go through a program that's four quick sessions of shoplifting prevention — talking with the people, talking with the stores where situations like this happen, and how we move past this, how we make sure this doesn't happen again in the future. So instead of throwing somebody back into jail or back onto extended probation, whatever it might be, how do we move past this? How do we make sure that this doesn't happen again?

There is a lot of value that is brought out outside of just through restorative justice. There's also that value of education, working with the community and working with people, not saying that this is the last decision that you're going to make for a long time because now you're behind bars. Now it's about you as a person and how we move past this and how we make sure everybody gets a win-win.

I think I'll wrap it up with just a quick…. The thing that we as an organization would love to see, as mentioned by Sioned and Richard, is education. It's huge. Our RCMP's education on sending referrals to the restorative justice societies across the province is absolutely pivotal to our success, but also education within the community as well.

[9:50 a.m.]

There are other organizations, and there are conversations that can be had. If the community knows that we are here, they're more willing to say, when their son or nephew or family friend has an issue: "Hey, have you looked into this? Have you started having these discussions?"

Funding is struggling, to say the least — not just on a grant basis, but, as well, on a case-by-case basis. I personally would love to see, on a case-by-case basis, that if this makes it from start to finish all the way through and it avoids court altogether, you get X amount of dollars.

You know what? It doesn't have to be ten grand. Ten grand is what we would have spent on a small case. But if it was $15, $100 or $2,000, that just covered all of our costs, and now our executive directors and the people who make this happen can focus on what their actual job is, and that's helping get past everything.

School and youth programs, I think, are very, very important as well. If we can get more support on that, that would be great as well.

I will wrap it up. Thank you again, everybody, for your time.

D. Routley (Chair): Thanks to all the presenters — very much.

Now we have time for questions. Members, if you have questions, please raise your digital hands.

I see MLA Kirkpatrick.

K. Kirkpatrick: Thank you to all of the presenters.

A couple of questions. Maybe, Sioned, I'll ask you — because I know you — a couple of things. I know that you have the benefit of being located within the RCMP detachment, which makes you more visible to the force there, whereas many are not. I think, actually, you may be the only one that is. Is restorative justice available to all policing across British Columbia? I don't think it is. Is it potential…? With what Tom has said, it got me thinking. Can restorative justice be delivered virtually, or does it all really have to be more tactile, in person?

I wish you could have told your story about Maya.

S. Dyer: Thank you, MLA Kirkpatrick. Yes, not all agencies are located in detachments. We're very unique as being a non-profit that is, so we get the best of both worlds. We get to build those relationships and then also have these separate confidential processes, which really build relationships with participants in our diversion program.

Your other query around: do all agencies have access? No.

K. Kirkpatrick: And virtual, yeah.

S. Dyer: Around virtual, yes. COVID has quickly forced us to move to a virtual format. So I would say, still, 90 percent of our cases are done virtually and with great success. We've adapted really well. In many ways, it's more comfortable for folks to meet virtually, in a place that they're comfortable with, rather than coming into either the detachment or the community centre where we also meet.

Of course, we can adapt to the needs. If folks don't have access to computers, for example, or have different experiences or needs that make an in-person one needed, we can do that as well. There hasn't been an issue.

K. Kirkpatrick: That's great. Just one comment. It's interesting to note that performance metrics for officers are based on reports to Crown. Having to think about how you actually change that in order to support the work that you're doing…. It had never occurred to me. Thank you very much.

G. Lore: Thank you for all these presentations. I'm struck by the benefits and the need in your line of work, both in the community and in resources for you to do that work. Like MLA Kirkpatrick, I'm very struck by the framing of what incentives are there for officers. I think that that filters out into a few other areas, but I think it's quite profound in terms of thinking about the incentive structure as well as the resource cost.

[9:55 a.m.]

Maybe I'll phrase this as one question to start. In all your presentations, you talked quite a bit about the cost savings and the benefit in comparison to the traditional justice system. I wonder if you — any of you that feel compelled to speak to this point — can maybe say what you see the role of restorative justice is in cases that may not have gone down that route. As Parliamentary Secretary for Gender Equity, I'm thinking particularly around some gender-based violence issues that don't get filed to Crown or charges don't get approved. We know the drop in incident reporting to, etc.

That's different than being able to outline the benefits of diversion from the justice system, but I imagine you might also have thoughts on the benefits there.

S. Dyer: I'm happy to speak to that and hear from my colleagues next, if that's okay.

A great question, MLA Lore. I appreciate that.

In terms of the benefits…. We do take some intimate-partner violence cases and some sexual assaults. Oftentimes the reality with those files…. We know that it's…. Yeah. Less than 5 percent actually are reported. Every time you go up, you know, leading to a charge, even less, leading to a conviction, even less.

Oftentimes you have either charging or nothing. So with restorative justice, we see there's an opportunity. An example would be an historic sex assault where there's not enough evidence but there is an acknowledgment from the offender that they did what they did — or some youth victims who did not want to go through the court system. There's either nothing happening or a restorative justice process.

I'm speaking very vaguely about that, obviously, because of confidentiality. But I can say, from the specific one, where there was a prolific youth offender in terms of sexual assault…. Two of the victims came forward, and we were able to get the offender to self-refer to MCFD and to start participating in biweekly counselling sessions. Very quickly you can see what would have happened had nothing happened versus a restorative justice process.

I think there's huge potential. We are very clear about boundaries. There are no face-to-face meetings, things of that nature. We do shuttle mediation. We're victim-centred. So whatever the needs of the victims are, we can be responsive to.

You may have heard a recent interview on The Current around the backlogs in the justice system. It's really interesting. I encourage you to listen to it. They talked about this…. It's not the Jordan's principle but the Jordan's law, where after 18 months, a file gets stayed. The charges get stayed. These are serious, serious charges, like sexual assault. So if they don't get their time in court, the charge is stayed.

I'm not saying that restorative justice is the only option, because I think it should be used regardless. But I also think that it's an incredibly viable alternative to meet some of the challenges in the courts — in particular, around gender-based violence.

I'm curious to hear from my other colleagues.

I hope that answered your question.

T. Whitton: Richard, do you want to go ahead?

R. Tarnoff: Yeah, thanks.

It's an interesting area, cases where the RCMP might not feel they have enough evidence to refer a charge, or Crown might not feel they have enough evidence to achieve a conviction. There could be an interest, on their part, in referring it to restorative justice to see that something happens, to see that there's some accountability.

I'm not a lawyer, but I think that technically, within the policy, they're not supposed to do that. If they don't feel that there is enough evidence to refer a charge, they're technically not supposed to refer it to restorative justice, possibly because there could be an element of coercion involved.

Restorative justice is also…. One of the principles is that it's voluntary on everybody's part. And so I think there could be an area — again, maybe it's something that needs to be discussed and worked on — where it could be offered. As Sioned said, the offender or the victim could request it.

[10:00 a.m.]

There may be a way of having those conferences and dealing with those situations where, technically, there isn't enough evidence for a referral.

T. Whitton: They just both went over it, but I'll touch on that as well. It's not necessarily about the end game — where do we get to at the end of restorative justice. It's the process of getting there and having those discussions and working between both the offended and the offender and making sure that there's open discussion.

That could be something that might be lacking, whether it's in the courtroom or not able to get to that courtroom — that open conversation about how do we get past, how do we address the way that one party is feeling against the other, and how do we find some form of restitution, for lack of a better word.

D. Routley (Chair): Thank you, all.

A. Olsen: Thank you, all four of you, for your really informative presentations. Thank you, Richard, for looking after the part of this beautiful province that I have the honour of representing.

I think that your presentations and what you've presented to us is an indication of how much further we have to travel, even as a municipal councillor who supported restorative justice programs through funding and things. The understanding of what you do — I'm being reminded of it, but it hasn't been top-of-mind, so I really appreciate the presentations that you've given us today, especially some of the things that I've caught through your presentations for us to think about in our recommendations.

A quick question. There was reference to two federal acts that are outside of our purview, obviously, but I think there were some specific recommendations to, maybe, changes that would assist with this. I think it would be good for those specific changes to be noted to our staff, so that we can consider these as recommendations to provide the minister.

Obviously, they're not things that we can do directly, but they're certainly things that, if the minister agrees, can advocate on our behalf as a province to the federal minister. I do want to provide those, or if you have provided those, that's great.

I also, in line with some thoughts that we've had come our way around community policing…. I think it crystalized for me, in this, that community restitution needs to be a part of that as well. That's the other side of community policing. It's putting in place a well-funded restitution process that can allow the community to work through a certain amount of the caseload that is generated on a day-to-day basis, so I appreciate that.

I believe it was Richard that noted police as gatekeepers. Someone noted this. One of the presentations noted police as gatekeepers. I think it became a little bit clearer throughout all three presentations, but I'm just wondering if maybe you can talk a little bit more about this. Is this just, basically, the police determine whether or not they refer this to a restorative justice program, or whether they just keep it going through the more traditional criminal justice program? Is that right? I see nodding.

T. Whitton: Yes, that is correct.

A. Olsen: Thomas, you mentioned that $3,000 a year comes to the province for the North Peace restorative justice program. I can't imagine $3,000 being able to fund very much. How much does it cost? I don't need the specific numbers, but in general terms, what percentage of that is what your total needs are?

T. Whitton: Our annual budget, and this is on a non-for-profit budget — $56,000. That was 2019-2020. That was our entire annual budget. There was, I think, six or seven line items. It was probably the easiest financial statement I've ever prepared.

A. Olsen: That's good. Thank you for that. I really love the idea of restitution, not punishment, just in terms of the perspective that we want to be putting forward. I think that's it. I think that that's it for now. Hold on a sec, I just want to scan through here.

I, also, along with my colleague Karin, saw the opportunity, perhaps, for virtual volunteers, as we've moved to the virtual world. We're meeting here virtually. Are there volunteers around the province that could assist the more remote neighbourhoods in our province? I would like to investigate that further.

[10:05 a.m.]

Thank you for your presentations. I'll leave it at that for now, Chair.

D. Routley (Chair): Go ahead, Trevor. You're next.

Oh, I'm sorry. I think Mara has something to say. Go ahead.

M. Veneman: Oh, yeah. I was just going to respond to the question about changes to the statute and the Criminal Code. Currently the Criminal Code of Canada, subsection 717(1), lays out the alternative measures. That's where the restorative justice programs fall under. When you compare that to the Youth Criminal Justice Act, the Youth Criminal Justice Act imposes an affirmative duty on the police — like, they shall consider alternative measures in every case, sort of what Richard was suggesting.

I think that there's room for some amendments there to strengthen that duty. I think it would be a great change to see that mirrored in the criminal justice code for adult cases too — that police officers do need to, in fact, investigate restorative justice or other options before proceeding forward with a case.

D. Routley (Chair): Thank you.

Go ahead, Trevor.

T. Halford: I just wanted to say thank you. This has been a very informative presentation and one that I actually don't have a lot of familiarity with, so I wanted to say thank you for that.

Adam kind of alluded to it. But just in terms of what the outcomes are when you look at…. It's more, I guess, the outcomes for the offender but also the outcomes for the offended and how you look at restitution versus sentencing or punishment. I won't ask for any specific examples, but I'm assuming the outcomes are much more productive for, especially, the offender in that way, in terms of them being able to get on with their lives right away and trying, but also the offended, if they feel a sense of justice and self-worth and that they were a part of the process.

D. Routley (Chair): Does anybody want to…? Go ahead.

S. Dyer: Yes. I'm happy to speak to that. I mean, the benefits are incredibly significant. By successfully completing a restorative justice process, the offender does not get a criminal record. Right there you can see how that can shift the trajectory of someone's life — not just a youth but also an adult.

We have a lawyer on our board. They're not all lawyers involved in NSRJ, by the way. She's a defence lawyer, and she said: "Any sentence is really a life sentence." You can't volunteer. You can't get a job.

We've had situations…. There's a shoplifting file where, over COVID, a father lost his job, because he was shoplifting food to feed his family. If he had received a criminal record, you can just imagine the impact not only to himself but to his family. We talk about a ripple effect. I just wanted to highlight that.

The benefits to the victim can't be underscored, for sure — having choice and voice in the process, being an active participant, being empowered to identify what their unique, specific needs are in terms of healing and moving through this, and actually getting whatever damage has been done, be it property damage or otherwise, responded to.

I want to note that we can facilitate. We're not anti-court at all. We have a very close relationship with the judiciary on the North Shore. But we can facilitate the same kinds of outcomes that you would see at the provincial court for the same crime — be it financial restitution, letters of apology, community service — and obviously in a much reduced time. We're having our first meetings within two weeks of receiving a file versus months and months in the traditional court process, holding up people's lives and livelihoods.

And about 99 percent of our files complete, i.e., they complete the restitution required of them, because we work so closely with each file that we have. That's not the same as in the traditional justice system. So the benefits to both offenders and victims in our processes are tremendous.

M. Veneman: Can I add that we actually do collect data on that too. For every file that completes, we do provide a confidential survey. We have some numbers that back that up as well.

D. Routley (Chair): Richard, you have…?

[10:10 a.m.]

R. Tarnoff: Thanks, Doug. I'd like to also say that, as far as benefits to victims, a lot of times a person…. Even if there's a conviction, even if the offender goes to jail, the victim might still be experiencing anger, might still be experiencing fear: "That person is going to come out. What's going to happen?"

Quite often just the process of sitting down with the offender, telling them how you were affected, telling them how you feel, seeing that they're not the monster that you had built up in your mind but seeing that they're a person that made a bad choice and may be remorseful about it can change that dynamic. That can really reduce that fear and anger that could go on for years otherwise.

S. Dyer: Just to add to that, Richard. In turn, for the offender to take accountability and to be able to move out from this idea that "I'm a bad person" or "I'm a criminal, and I will always be," it's for them to say: "Okay, I've made a mistake. I've taken accountability, and I've moved through this process, so now I can make different choices in my life."

As has been shared, we look at a crime in conflict, at least from our perspective, as a breakdown in relationship. We're trying to repair those relationships, not necessarily back to where they were but to a place where both parties feel like they've participated meaningfully and have had that relational experience.

T. Whitton: Absolutely. It's all about community and the future of both parties. I've seen the detriment that trauma can have, increasing mental health and addictions issues, which we all here know are completely intertwined. So if we're able to handle that right at the start when the trauma starts and address these issues and work with these people through it…. I've seen people who are afraid of having people behind them because of the trauma that they've been through in the past.

If in some way, shape or form we can get past that, or at least start them on the path to getting past that, the value there, on the victim side, is huge. And then the stigma around having that case on you when you were a child or 19, whatever it might be…. It's about moving forward. How do we move forward, both as offended and offender?

G. Begg: Thanks, everyone, for your presentation. I too am interested in recidivism rates. Do you take clients who have previously appeared before you?

S. Dyer: I always joke that the courts take repeat clients; why wouldn't we? Absolutely, we do. But that goes back to the conversation about police being our gatekeepers. They're the ones that get to decide. If John Smith went through restorative justice last year, maybe I'm not going to give him another chance.

We work really hard to…. There's still a culture in policing, I'll be frank, where folks come in to get the bad guy and have justice served. Sometimes in restorative justice, we push back a lot on this idea that it's soft on crime. I adamantly refute that. So they get to decide if they want to send a participant through again. I think, of course, we should be taking folks.

In restorative justice, we see crime as a symptom of something bigger, be it addictions, mental health, housing insecurity, all these social ills that we're challenged by and that you folks are having to deal with on a daily basis or consider on a daily basis. For us, we really try to get underneath what's going on for that individual. Sometimes there are different crises at different times of their lives. We're willing to support, for sure. I'll leave it at that.

G. Begg: Just a point of clarification. Crown counsel see themselves as gatekeepers to the criminal justice system. The police, of course, don't lay charges in British Columbia. That's an important distinction.

S. Dyer: Okay, yeah. But….

G. Begg: It's important that that distinction be made. Police don't charge everyone. Indeed, police will, I assume, still today divert people away from the criminal justice system and away from the restorative justice system.

T. Whitton: The one thing that I would say about that is…. I don't think anybody here was saying that RCMP are responsible for this. It was more of a training aspect of just saying: "Hey, this is a great opportunity for them to take a restorative avenue, as opposed to go through the court system and go that direction."

[10:15 a.m.]

We have this opportunity, so the RCMP can recommend that the file be transferred over to restorative justice, and then we handle the case.

G. Begg: I wonder if you know the rate of charge approval for Crown. In other words, what is the ratio of charge approvals for specific offences?

T. Whitton: I'm sure I could find the information. I don't have it all, no.

G. Begg: All right. What about…? Perhaps you could give me an example of a family violence situation that would be suitable for diversion from the courts.

T. Whitton: I'll let somebody else take that one on. We don't handle violent crimes at our restorative justice society.

D. Routley (Chair): Anybody else?

S. Dyer: I can speak to it, but happy to give you a….

Go ahead, Richard.

R. Tarnoff: No, you go ahead. I'll go after you, Sioned.

S. Dyer: Okay, well, I'll give an example where we had…. It's actually unique. It was a really impactful one where there was a teenage son in a drug-induced psychosis who severely assaulted his mother. It actually did go through the traditional justice system, but afterwards, there was so much trauma and, as someone said, so many questions unanswered that they self-referred to restorative justice, our agency.

One of the benefits of our work is that we're individualized to each court process. For the first meeting, the son was so traumatized by what he had done, he wasn't able to speak. It actually took three initial meetings for the son to be able to actually speak about his situation. We were able to move them through, over a series of months, a conversation around the impacts.

What I can share is that it was the opportunity for the mom, who obviously loved her son but was scared for his future and also her sense of safety in the house…. We were able to really move through a really meaningful process where parties were able to share meaningfully. We came up with outcomes where folks felt safe.

That would be a sort of unique example. I can think of some others if there's a need.

M. Veneman: It might be helpful to add here too…. I'm not sure that this is clear to everybody. In order for us to accept a file, both parties have to voluntarily agree to participate, and the offending party has to take responsibility for the action. Their version can be slightly different from the other party's version of the facts, but they can't say: "No, I didn't do it." That really does weed out a certain number of cases, too, in terms of what we can handle.

Basically, they're the elements of that same Criminal Code statute that lays out when a case can go to alternate measures. Same things: everybody has to voluntarily participate, it can't be against the protection of society, and the offender has to take responsibility and ownership for his or her behaviours.

S. Dyer: Another example we had was where two individuals…. They were fairly new to Canada, and they got into a fight — a couple — and they actually called police because they felt that police could maybe help them in terms of talking them through. It wasn't a physical altercation. It was just sort of an argument that escalated.

It was turned into a domestic. They were horrified that this was going to happen and that the husband was going to have charges forwarded to Crown, so it was agreed upon that it would be deferred to restorative justice. We were able to move through a really positive outcome. That would be another example.

R. Tarnoff: There's also, with sexual assault, that there are a lot of victims that are aware that if they report it to the police and if a charge goes forward, they are going to be really traumatized, because that court process is so traumatic for victims. But at the same time, they would like to see some accountability, and they would like to tell the person what happened. They would also like to see that person change. So in a lot of cases, they are willing to go through a restorative process.

[10:20 a.m.]

D. Routley (Chair): Thank you. I don't see any other questions.

There was an anecdote that Sioned said she might want to share. You have time now, if you'd like.

S. Dyer: If that would be of interest to folks, I'd be happy to share.

We had a case…. We take over 100 cases a year. This was a situation…. We had a young man who was skateboarding down in Ambleside, one of our beautiful areas on the North Shore. He was skateboarding one afternoon, and someone told him to "get out of here. Go back to where you're from." This individual — we'll call him Jake — was very visibly Indigenous. He had two long braids. The individual felt that he didn't belong there. You can imagine the impact of that.

Anyways, Jake went back to his reserve, where he continued to skateboard, and someone came out of their home and told him he didn't belong here and to go back to where he's from. Jake is half-Indigenous and half of Irish ancestry. In that moment, he felt completely alone, completely isolated and completely excluded from any community that he felt like he had some connection to.

It was a really, you can imagine, traumatizing experience for this young man who has also experienced — who is a survivor of — intergenerational violence due to residential schools and colonization. What did Jake do? Jake started drinking. He started drinking to a point where he blacked out. He doesn't remember what happened.

Then, here we have Maya. Maya was an individual who had borrowed her friend's car to pick up a large package. She had parked it in an area to go run an errand, and when she came back, she had a rock smashed through her car window, and it's not her car, it's her friend's car. Maya felt so distraught, not only because she had borrowed her friend's car, which now has a huge hole or a huge broken mirror, but she also wasn't sure if this was a targeted incident, where someone was after her. She was completely bereft in terms of her concern over the incident.

We received the file. We met with each party. We were able to understand some of the nuances of what was going for Jake. We were really able to understand from Maya and her friend, who also participated, some of the trauma that they experienced from this situation. What was agreed upon, in terms of the outcome, was that Jake would pay the $300 deductible to repair the car.

This was a case where we did have face-to-face meetings. Not all meetings go face-to-face, but Jake really wanted to acknowledge in person, and Maya and her friend were willing to do so. They met together, and Jake brought the $300 for the deductible. We facilitated the conversations for that sharing and understanding of what was going on for not only Jake, but also the impact beyond just the broken car window for Maya and her friend.

One of the pieces that Jake did beyond the $300, in order to make amends…. Jake, over the years, to celebrate his Irish ancestry, collected four-leaf clovers. I think any of us remember our childhood. Those are hard to come by. He had collected a few over the years. He provided each of Maya and her friend one of the four-leaf clovers. He had taken hours of his time, in celebration of his Indigenous culture, and had braided a leather necklace and had woven, with copper wire, a beautiful stone necklace for each of Maya and her friend, to just acknowledge the harm.

I don't think I need to express the impact and transformative experience that that had for both parties involved. It just highlights the benefit of what can happen, not only for individuals, but how that impacts our communities when we can come face to face with people and really see the humanity of what's going on.

[10:25 a.m.]

We have lots of stories like that. I'm happy to be able to share that one with you today.

D. Routley (Chair): I don't see any other questions, Members.

I did have one other thought myself. What about the implications for a victim's opportunity for a civil claim? Is that reduced, or is the person who's participating as an offender exposed, then? How do you deal with that?

R. Tarnoff: My understanding is that, generally, anything that's said in a restorative justice process cannot be used as evidence in a criminal or civil case.

S. Dyer: Yeah. There's the Apology Act, I think, that standardizes what Richard shared in terms of that piece.

I would also say that we've implemented tools in our intro meetings where we ensure that folks aren't interested in maybe going civilly and they're just using this as an opportunity to see if that's a possibility. We know that that's a possibility, and we ensure that any file that we take doesn't have that possible outcome — or that that's not the motivation for why someone is participating.

T. Whitton: Can I comment on that really quickly?

D. Routley (Chair): Yeah. Please go ahead.

T. Whitton: I should note, as well, that if there are any monetary things — like the broken windshield, as an example, the $300 windshield that was broken — we try to address that before we come to a conclusion with all parties.

D. Routley (Chair): Okay. Members, any other questions?

In that case, I'll thank our presenters. It has been a long road for our committee. We've heard so much from so many different perspectives. It's all contributing to the really important work, which we take very seriously. We see an opportunity to improve the lives of the people that we all represent. You're helping us get there, and we really appreciate your contribution. Thank you very much.

S. Dyer: Thanks for this opportunity.

T. Whitton: Thank you very much.

D. Routley (Chair): Members, we have time for deliberation. I'm going to take a ten minute recess now. If we could come back together at 10:40. We'll have a short time for discussion. Thank you.

The committee recessed from 10:28 a.m. to 10:43 a.m.

[D. Routley in the chair.]

Deliberations

D. Routley (Chair): I'd ask members for a motion to move the meeting in camera for deliberation. From MLA Kirkpatrick, seconded by MLA Halford.

Motion approved.

The committee continued in camera from 10:44 a.m. to 11:01 a.m.

[D. Routley in the chair.]

D. Routley (Chair): Members, thanks very much again for this meeting and meaningful discussions and information.

I'd like a motion to adjourn the meeting, please. From MLA Kirkpatrick, seconded by MLA Begg.

Motion approved.

The committee adjourned at 11:02 a.m.