COALITION FOR THE SAFETY OF OUR DAUGHTERS
CONTENTS
Tuesday 1 June 1993
Victims of crime
Voices for Children's Rights
Virginia Foster, president
Hon Marion Boyd
Coalition for the Safety of our Daughters
Patricia Herdman, co-founder
STANDING COMMITTEE ON ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE
*Chair / Président: Marchese, Rosario (Fort York ND)
*Vice-Chair / Vice-Président: Harrington, Margaret H. (Niagara Falls ND)
Akande, Zanana L. (St Andrew-St Patrick ND)
Chiarelli, Robert (Ottawa West/-Ouest L)
*Curling, Alvin (Scarborough North/-Nord L)
*Duignan, Noel (Halton North/-Nord ND)
Harnick, Charles (Willowdale PC)
Malkowski, Gary (York East/-Est ND)
Mills, Gordon (Durham East/-Est ND)
Murphy, Tim (St George-St David L)
Tilson, David (Dufferin-Peel PC)
Winninger, David (London South/-Sud ND)
*In attendance / présents
Substitutions present/ Membres remplaçants présents:
Carter, Jenny (Peterborough ND) for Mr Malkowski
Frankford, Robert (Scarborough East/-Est ND) for Mr Winninger
Jackson, Cameron (Burlington South/-Sud PC) for Mr Harnick
Clerk / Greffière: Freedman, Lisa
Staff / Personnel: McNaught, Andrew, research officer, Legislative Research Service
The committee met at 1630 in committee room 2.
VICTIMS OF CRIME
Consideration of the designated matter pursuant to standing order 125, relating to victims of crime.
The Chair (Mr Rosario Marchese): I call the meeting to order. Wendy, I'd like, as the Chair, to thank you for coming and thank you also for allowing us to continue with the others and to reschedule you or somebody else for another time. We apologize for this, but there are things that we can't control.
Ms Wendy Calder: I realize; I just wanted to tell you the good news about some of the --
The Chair: Somebody else will do it then.
VOICES FOR CHILDREN'S RIGHTS
The Chair: Okay, can I invite Virginia Foster then, president of Voices for Children's Rights, to come and make a presentation. Welcome, Virginia. Please feel free to begin at any time. You have half an hour, and if you would like the members to ask you some questions, allow for that, 10 or 15 minutes at the end for that to happen.
Ms Virginia Foster: All right; thank you.
It has become quite obvious for all victim advocacy organizations across the country that a serious imbalance is present in our current justice system regarding the rights of victims of crime. On our numerous travels across the province of Ontario, we have been privy to horror stories regarding this supposedly fair and just system. As Canadians, we have to recognize that victims of crime are unfortunately victimized throughout the course of the justice system over and over again.
How do we correct and deal with this problem? First of all, we have to recognize that victims of crime should be treated with the utmost respect and compassion that they deserve. To repeatedly rape them of all respect and self-esteem is intolerable to us.
For example, for the last four months, I've been dealing with a family from the Kitchener-Waterloo area. Last year, the 11-year-old male child was sexually assaulted in a Kitchener-area respite home. The circumstances regarding the sexual assault are even more serious in nature, as this child is developmentally challenged and also has a severe chemical disorder. The offender was subsequently convicted of the sexual assault.
Months after the trial, a member of the Waterloo Regional Police Service appeared on the family doorstep to question this boy in relation to the sexual assault of a neighbourhood girl. The method that was used was the "fear of God" approach to snap this child out of this pattern of sexual deviancy. There were no criminal charges laid against this child. All of this questioning was against the wishes of his mother. Is it police procedure to tell a victim of a sexual assault that, "If you are a victim, you will repeat this form of victimization on others"?
The end result of this police action is that the mother of this child spends countless nights and days in the local hospital with her child on suicide watch. He fears that this constable is coming to get him and refuses to leave the home unless accompanied by his mother. His only goal at the present time, even while under the supervision of a paediatric psychiatrist and a neurologic paediatrician, is to kill himself.
The Solicitor General's office offers programs in victim empathy. Why are these programs not mandatory for all law enforcement officers and officials? Why should a child fear the police and the justice system? Should not the role of the police be a positive influence in a young child's mind, and not a negative one and a devastating one?
It has been agreed upon that the support of any police service to a victim of crime be paramount to the recovery of the victim. This positive action will then set the tone of future involvement with other facets of the criminal justice system. The role should not be to paralyse them. At the same time, we commend all law enforcement officers and officials who are respectful and understanding to victims of violent crime.
An existing program in the justice system is the victim/witness assistance program currently operating in federal and provincial courthouses. It is our observation that this program is clearly understaffed and is not able to provide for victims to its fullest potential. That is only one example of many programs that are needed for victims and their families which are not properly provided at this time.
Some of the inadequacies in the victim/witness assistance program are: first, a lack of follow-through from start to finish of the court procedure; second, a trained employee or volunteer of this program not adequately walking the victim through the system step by step -- we have to remember that these are children that we're dealing with in this system -- and third, this program does not always assist them while the victim awaits to testify against the accused. The last aspect is paramount, as the victim may be accosted by the accused if the accused is not in custody. These issues may seem minor, but to the victim they are a reality.
We have recommendations for existing programs: (a) quality training for all volunteers and employees; (b) mandatory CPIC for all volunteers and employees; (c) more emphasis on counselling and support for victims of crime; (d) informational packages clearly formatted regarding the justice system, available to all victims of crime in a layman's terminology; (e) a victim support package outlining services provided by the provincial and federal governments; (f) a listing of victim advocacy organizations that relate to the needs of the victim.
Voices For Children's Rights is a child victim advocacy organization which frequently deals with children experiencing post-traumatic stress disorder. We are often exposed to the reality of children having to face their accused assailant in the courts. Recommendations to alleviate court trauma are as follows:
(a) A victim of a sexual assault experiencing any post-traumatic stress disorder give testimony in the judge's chambers in the presence of the judge, crown attorney and defense counsel. Video and audio tapes will be forwarded then to the accused.
(b) In the case of a victim who is experiencing any severe medical conditions, a victim advocate will be appointed to them, to read testimony or a victim impact statement into evidence. The victim advocate would be appointed at the victim's discretion.
(c) That a screen shielding the victim from the accused during the court process be an option for the victim, to alleviate any further trauma at the discretion of the crown attorney and the victim only.
We are asking that these recommendations be taken seriously as they pertain to this next section.
In 1990, a seven-year-old girl from the Pickering area was brutally raped by an ex-member of the Satan's Choice motorcycle gang. When this man was charged, it then went to the court process and 18 months to then proceed to trial.
While under the supervision of her paediatric psychiatrist, the young traumatized girl could not face the accused, as he had threatened her with death if she told anyone of the assault. The crown had no choice but to plea bargain with the accused, resulting in a two-year sentence as opposed to the ten-year sentence they were seeking.
The pain continues even after the court process, and now we welcome you into the special world of Correctional Service Canada and the National Parole Board.
Correctional Service Canada claims to have a document retrieval system in place. Unfortunately, what we have found is that it's often up to the victims and the victim's family to retrieve information on the offender and then present it to the National Parole Board for risk assessment. All this is in the hope of keeping the offender incarcerated just a little bit longer.
A further problem that we have encountered is the lack of information that is given to victims regarding parole and absences of offenders. This is a definite problem with the correctional service of Canada, again. Too many mistakes are being made on the part of this service, with little or no input on the part of the victims.
Victims are not being informed on a regular basis of upcoming escorted or unescorted absences, day parole, full parole or work release programs. Furthermore, sufficient conditions are not being placed on their conditional releases to provide safety for the victims.
Recommendations for Correctional Service Canada and the National Parole Board are as follows:
(a) All victims of crime be informed, with notice, of the offender's work release programs, day or full parole and any medical leave if in the victim's area of residence.
(b) If the offender is unlawfully at large, the victim be notified immediately.
(c) The victim or victim's advocate be given immediate access to the decision registry of all parole decisions.
(d) Informational sharing between police services and the National Parole Board and the correctional service of Canada. If there is a publication ban on the court proceedings, the police will given the names and addresses of the victim(s).
I recently attended, just last week, the parole hearing of the offender convicted of raping the seven-year-old girl from the Pickering area with the victim's parents. Needless to say, it was the most devastating experience for both the parents and for myself. One of their main concerns and questions was, "Why were we denied the services of a victim's advocate, paid for by the provincial or federal government?" They felt that the services provided by our organization were truly beneficial to them and should also provide for other victims of crime and their families. Can provincial and federal governments not set aside funding to include the above-mentioned services, or enhance -- please enhance -- the already existing programs?
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On May 16, 1991, Mr Cam Jackson introduced a private member's bill that establishes the rights of victims of crime. In it, Mr Jackson demands that victims be given access to health and social services, medical treatment, counselling and legal services that are responsive to their needs.
This is unfortunately not the case in the province of Ontario due to provincial cutbacks. At present, there is an extensive waiting list for such health care services, especially in the Kingston, Ontario, area in which I reside. For any type of psychiatric counselling, the waiting list for private practice psychiatric help is six months, and for hospital psychiatric counselling the waiting list may be for up to one full year. Unfortunately, victims cannot wait this lengthy amount of time for psychiatric therapy after being a victim of a violent crime.
In closing, Voices for Children's Rights recognizes the immediate needs of all victims, and that their personal wellbeing far outweighs the costs taken on by the provincial and federal governments. We expect that funding never be an issue when it comes to the recovery of crime's helpless victims.
Ms Margaret H. Harrington (Niagara Falls): Thank you, Ms Foster, for coming all the way from Kingston and for your very well prepared brief.
You make some very good and direct recommendations here, certainly on page 6, that the victim be notified immediately if there is that imminent danger and that the decision registry be open to the victim or the victim's advocate. I would like to look into this further. Those seem quite reasonable to me. You also, towards the beginning, are asking for the existing program, the victim/witness assistance program, to be extended, I guess, to further communities.
Ms Foster: Yes.
Ms Harrington: It's only in certain communities now.
Ms Foster: Yes.
Ms Harrington: Okay. I think we're looking at that and seeing what we can do.
Also, on the first and second pages, you have quite a concern here with regard to, it seems, the action of the police. Would you like to explain that a bit further? I didn't see any recommendations in here in that direction.
Ms Foster: The one recommendation I have regarding police service is that they have some type of mandatory empathy training towards victims. If officers cannot personally, for whatever personal reason, go forth and help the victim of a sexual assault, please assign them to some other type of detail. There should only be certain police officers who deal with sexual assault victims or any small children. They definitely have to be trained further.
This is a very serious case in the Kitchener-Waterloo area that I'm dealing with. I'm going to see the mother of this child and the child tomorrow. I've just been notified he's been expelled from school for two days and she's on suicide watch at the hospital again with him. This is a very serious case.
Ms Harrington: So in this particular case and probably in other cases, you would find that the sensitivity of the police is really a problem?
Ms Foster: Yes, it's most definitely a problem. I by no means am branding all the police with the same hand. You have a lot of very reputable police officers who do their job, are very sympathetic and empathetic to the victims of violent crime, but unfortunately, if you have a handful of very good police officers and you have one bad one who can devastate one child's life, that has to be dealt with, and programs should be mandatory.
Ms Harrington: I think and I hope that things are changing in that direction. I know in my own area, which is the Niagara region, I have been speaking with some of our police officers and I think there is a new era coming and that they are going to be much more sensitive, and we have to, of course, as a government encourage that.
Are any of my colleagues wanting to speak?
Ms Jenny Carter (Peterborough): I'd just like some clarification. I think I know what you're saying, but when you say that a month after the trial a member of the Kitchener-Waterloo regional police service appeared on the doorstep and accused this boy, did they do that just simply because this child had been a victim?
Ms Foster: That is rumoured to be the case. There was a small six-year-old girl in the building where the child resided with his mother and with his brother. The police went to question the young girl. This boy was alleged to have kissed her on the neck. The police officer observed that there was something strange going on between the father of the girl -- it seemed there was some type of incestuous relationship -- but because they knew that this boy had been raped in an area respite home, they went right down to him. It is in writing that they use the fear-of-God approach in the Kitchener-Waterloo area to scare children into living a straight life.
This boy is so troubled now -- he suffers from a chemical disorder -- that next week he goes to London, Ontario, for a CAT scan because his chemicals are totally out of whack now and his only goal is to kill himself.
Ms Carter: So this was the combined effect of the original assault and the accusation.
Ms Foster: Yes. He more so has dealt with his original sexual assault. All he thinks about now in every waking moment is the effects of this constable.
Ms Carter: Well, that does seem to have been unforgivable.
Ms Foster: Yes, it's quite sad; it's quite devastating.
Mr Alvin Curling (Scarborough North): Thank you very much for coming before the committee to make your presentation. I apologize for coming in late. I came in in the middle of it.
As I was hearing your drift and I was trying to read this, I got an impression here that you feel the police are inadequately trained in this area. That's one aspect, that more training should be done, and also training funds be available, "training" meaning that you also have to put funds towards the police --
Ms Foster: That's right.
Mr Curling: They're inadequately funded here by this government now anyhow. The volunteer sector of it needs training also.
First, I should maybe ask you this: Are there any funds at all available for training for volunteers?
Ms Foster: For members of the police association?
Mr Curling: No, for the volunteers, not in the police association. I think as I read it in here, it seemed to me that the volunteers who assist in this type of work should be trained properly in assisting victims, so to speak.
Ms Foster: I think for anybody who volunteers in any type of capacity in victim advocacy, as non-profit organizations we have no money. What we have to do is we have to go out and beg and borrow from every location we can find to train our volunteers.
Mr Curling: So no funds are available to organizations in order to train volunteers.
Ms Foster: We've started up numerous types of fund-raising drives, corporate sponsorships and working with the lottery commission and Nevada tickets, but it's constantly an endless job of trying to find funding. We most certainly wouldn't approach the provincial government, as we know there's no money to be given out.
Mr Curling: You would not approach them? Now, don't say no to them until you come forward. I think you should approach them in this regard. It's an important role which they're playing in assisting -- I think somehow you don't like the word "victims" in this. I think you should.
Of course, government can't do it alone, and I understand the scarcity of money, but sometimes some responsible way of administering funds may direct some money into your area where it can be handled in a very responsible way. So there are no funds at all coming to groups like Voices to assist in any training?
Ms Foster: No, none.
Mr Curling: I just want to go back to the police, and I'm sure they must have shared with you. Are they saying there are extremely inadequate funds? Is there a lack of training altogether? Is there any training at all in how police deal with these situations, or are they just doing it from their maybe training or feeling from what they've done through their young days or a compassionate feeling towards the victims? Is there any set training in the police force?
Ms Foster: What I was told last week by Mr Scott Newark, who's general counsel for the Canadian Police Association, is that the Solicitor General has a program on victim empathy. I've never seen it. I had never heard of it before until I was in Toronto a couple of weeks ago.
I think what it boils down to right now is that you have some police officers who are very compassionate and really care about their victims. But other than that, I don't have any more information on it.
Mr Curling: But it's not really professional. You want something professionally done.
Ms Foster: Yes, something mandatory.
Mr Curling: Where the government itself takes a responsible role in this.
Ms Foster: Yes, that it be mandatory. If the course is six weeks long and it takes one day every weekend for each police officer to go to and have some type of victim empathy training, then I think that's very important.
Mr Cameron Jackson (Burlington South): Wendy, thank you very much for your presentation and for highlighting several areas for reform.
The Chair: Virginia.
Mr Jackson: I'm sorry, Virginia. I'm trying to read a deposition of a three-year-old sexual assault victim and I had my mind on this in preparation for questions, so I apologize.
Ms Foster: That's all right. Thank you.
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Mr Jackson: You have had occasion to have a look at the victims' bill of rights and recognize perhaps that it is not too dissimilar from victims' bills of rights from across Canada, in the nine other provinces that have them. Some have come forward, as Mrs de Villiers did yesterday, to suggest that the coroner's inquest clearly indicated that a victims' bill of rights should be recommended for this province. We heard from a court advocate from London that they're highly symbolic, these victims' bills of rights. We're getting differing opinions.
However, if you were to specifically look at some of your recommendations, do you not feel that a victims' bill of rights that clearly states -- and I just cite the one example that comes to mind -- the mandatory notice of a victim that their assailant has gained early parole and is at large in their community, something as simple as that, isn't really a major expense to the province and to the taxpayers of Ontario?
But to have talked to the number of victims of sexual assault, as you have -- or for one of my constituents who was working at her desk and her boyfriend got out of jail a year early and confronted her with a shotgun at her place of employment in Burlington -- somehow notifying the police in the area where there were threats or violence, even something as simple as that could become a required protocol in this province at not too great an expense and yet it would be enshrined in a bill or in legislation or the requirement of the Attorney General in some other form of regulation.
Can you understand why we're not proceeding in these areas?
Ms Foster: I don't understand why the provincial government is not proceeding in these areas. Most definitely, it's so important that if any offender is going on any type of work release program or early parole, the victim of the violent crime has every right in the world to know exactly where their assailant is at any given time.
Can you imagine being a victim of a brutal rape, or if somebody murdered your child, and you're walking down to the store or you're shopping at the A&P and you run into him, what that does to your life? You fear for your life. All of the victimization that you went through comes back to you. A victim doesn't deserve to go through that again. The victim should be a victim the one time and should be able to get on and deal with their life, not be victimized for the rest of their life.
Mr Jackson: Are you familiar with the requirement, in terms of bail, which says that an assailant must stay 300 yards away or not be in the same community? There are several conditions. Have you ever talked to victims about the true legal effect and how the police interpret those kinds of bail requirements in terms of the onus on the victim to leave the restaurant, the onus on the victim to lay a charge but only under the circumstances that it can be sustained or else she can be sued for harassment? I've talked to several women victims of assault. The process has allowed them to be out in the community and this 300-yard limit is an absolute joke. I mean, they're literally stalking people.
Ms Foster: We haven't been dealing so much with offenders who are being let out on any type of bail. Mostly what we've been dealing with are parole conditions.
I'd like to get back to this case of the seven-year-old girl who was raped. The Satan's Choice motorcycle gang ex-member -- who, by the way, was sergeant at arms; he was the bone breaker for the organization -- last Thursday was granted day parole to the Archibald Centre in Toronto. Conditions of his supervised day parole are that he not go to the Pickering area where this family lives.
How good is that, meaning the young girl who's now 10 years old goes shopping with mom and dad to the Scarborough Town Centre or goes somewhere into Toronto to go and see her psychiatrist every week? So she runs into him. That's fine. Where are the conditions right there? That's our concern. They have to flee because he's allowed to be there. There are no conditions that he cannot be within 300 metres of them. There are no conditions whatsoever.
Mr Jackson: I guess the fine point I was putting on to it is, even the way the current law is interpreted by the police, the onus is on the victim to leave, not on the assailant to leave. That's the law.
Ms Foster: That's right. And why should the onus be on the victim? It should be a case of the offenders get away as fast as they can. If they can't, then they be rearrested and put into custody. The onus should not be on the victim. The onus no longer should be put on the victim of any violent crime. It should be in the hands of the provincial and federal governments and in the hands of any police service to take care of an offender.
Mr Jackson: I guess if I can use your example of the seven-year-old, you're familiar that not every province has a parole system. Ontario happens to have one. I don't know why Ontario's one of the few provinces to have a parole system for two-years-less-a-day offences, but it does.
Recently in a committee hearing we asked the question about victims' rights as they relate to the parole system. We uncovered that although victims could have impact statements, that was only at the board's pleasure. But they were proud that recently they had improved conditions for parolees because they were guaranteed legal access. No one was allowed to do a victim's impact statement. The victim who did the statement had to be videotaped for the records, for the lawyer. The intimidation was just unbelievable.
That this was somehow seen as a reform -- a reform for the parolees -- fair ball, but if this was seen as some sort of effort to assist victims who wanted to express to a parole board what pain and suffering was occurring in the community -- perhaps the healing and acceptance process wasn't advanced enough for them to face the issues you were just raising. Those are the kinds of reforms that are occurring, but not the kinds of reforms that you're requesting.
Ms Foster: Most definitely. To go to a parole hearing with the observer status that you obtain from the National Parole Board and sit with the victims of violent crime is a pretty unbelievable thing to witness. I sat there last Thursday next to the parents of this 10-year-old child, holding the mother on one side and holding the father on the other, while tears ran down their faces, while this man said: "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to do what I did. It was only in four inches. What was the big deal?" And he was granted his day parole.
Those people handed their impact statements in, but they could not speak to any member of the National Parole Board. Not once did both of the members of the National Parole Board look at them to see their grief-stricken faces, and that's not quite sufficient enough. It is also up to the members of the National Parole Board whether or not they decide to read the victim impact statement into evidence.
Mr Jackson: And that's the case in the Ontario process?
Ms Foster: Yes.
The Chair: Ms Foster, we'd like to thank you and acknowledge the time, effort and dedication that you put into advocacy for children's rights.
HONOURABLE MARION BOYD
The Chair: I'd like to invite the Attorney General, Marion Boyd. Ms Boyd, as you know, we have half an hour. If you'd like to leave time for members to ask questions, it would be useful.
Hon Marion Boyd (Attorney General and Minister Responsible for Women's Issues): Thank you. I'm pleased to be here today to talk about the current status of the relationship between victims of crime and the province's justice system and how we're working to improve that relationship.
Let me begin by saying that the treatment of victims of crime is a subject that has been of great interest to me for many years, most recently as Attorney General and minister responsible for women's issues, but of course in my previous life as a community advocate for battered women.
It certainly is true that victims have traditionally felt left out or forgotten by the criminal justice system. In recent years, however, many things have been done to try to make that system more responsive to the needs of victims, and our government is determined to continue to build on that process.
The federal and provincial initiatives over the last five years have only begun to address the problems faced by victims. Legislative, administrative and policy changes, as well as new services, have been initiated to provide assistance to victims of crime. Victims are receiving a greater number of high-quality services, but we recognize that services for victims must be more consistent, more equitably distributed and more adequately staffed. I'll have more to say about that in a few minutes.
The government provides considerable financial support to services for victims of crime. In 1992-93, approximately $107 million was spent on services for victims, including $72 million of it on wife assault prevention initiatives, $21 million on sexual assault prevention initiatives and $14 million on criminal injuries compensation.
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The funding for the wife assault and sexual assault prevention initiatives is an interministerial initiative which has representation from 16 ministries with a commitment to addressing the issues of victims of crime. This funding supports a broad range of services including emergency shelters for assaulted women and their children, community counselling programs, cultural interpreter programs, sexual assault centres and any number of others.
In addition, $2.7 million of the initiatives funding is allocated specifically to the Ministry of the Attorney General to operate a number of programs which are designed in our ministry to assist victims of crime. One of these, and probably the most important, is the victim/witness assistance program, and I know you've heard something of that in testimony before. This program is designed to provide a very necessary service to vulnerable victims and witnesses to enhance their understanding of and participation in the criminal justice process.
The program currently operates in 12 crown attorney offices across Ontario, providing crisis intervention, referral services, court preparation and support, community coordination and public education, recruitment and training of volunteers. In addition, a new site was opened in Kitchener on December 1, 1992. This site will provide victim/witness assistance to the former residents of Grandview Training School for Girls. It will become a permanent program site at the conclusion of the Grandview training school prosecutions. Similar services were provided to the St Joseph's and St John's training schools and the Prescott child abuse prosecutions.
Experience with these prosecutions will help us in establishing guidelines for assistance in multiple-victim/perpetrator cases for use in all crown offices. As we know, the more we delve into these issues, the more we find that multiple-victim/perpetrator cases actually exist and need this kind of assistance.
Some of the other initiatives to assist victims which have been undertaken in crown attorney offices include designation of coordinators for sexual assault, wife assault or child abuse prosecutions; training for crowns in the social, psychological and legal issues associated with these prosecutions; funding for part-time crowns to allow the crowns prosecuting wife assault cases to have time out of court to interview these victims; the use of screens and closed-circuit television for presenting evidence by child victims and witnesses of abuse; and the creation of a special courtroom for prosecution of child abuse cases at old city hall.
There's also an emergency legal advice project which strives to increase the accessibility of legal advice to victims of wife assault. It does so by increasing the pool of private lawyers with training in the dynamics of wife assault and simplifying the procedures needed to gain access to legal information. A victim is entitled to two hours of free legal aid advice under that program, at which point she can have made some initial determinations of what legal assistance she needs.
The Ministry of Housing has designated assaulted women as a special priority for housing programs. This gives women who have been victims of assault first access to local housing authority units, and a portion of the units in new non-profit buildings is also allocated to this group. That really deals with some of the problems of revictimization that happen when people are forced to live in the same home.
As a result of the implementation of legislative changes to Bill C-15, limited federal seed funding for demonstrations projects associated with the legislation was made available. Two child victim/witness projects were initiated with this money in Ontario, the Metropolitan Toronto Special Committee on Child Abuse child witness support project and the London Family Court Clinic London child witness project. They've been funded by the province since 1991. They are state-of-the-art projects to prepare child victims of criminal abuse to testify in court.
They have been very successful in helping children to deal with what is often stressful and traumatic, and a review of both programs confirmed their value. Our government has extended the funding for 1993-94 and is seeking approval to permanently fund these programs, and it's important for you to know that these programs have offered training and assistance to other jurisdictions. For example, the London Family Court Clinic was very active with the Prescott child abuse prosecutions.
In addition, for many years, local coordinating committees have been formed in communities all over Ontario with all of the resources in the community that are dedicated to looking at issues of intimate abuse. These committees are there to ensure that we have an integrated and community-based response to woman abuse. My own community of London has had a coordinating committee since 1981 and has produced valuable research, evaluation of programs and initiatives training to other groups and support to other groups that are trying to do the similar sorts of things.
It is important for us to understand that unless there's a community base and a community commitment to integrate the effect of these services, we can't attain a continuum of service for victims, because very often the services, as they have tended to be offered, are offered under different auspices. So it's important for us to develop ways to have a continuum of service for victims, and that's a real issue for many, many people.
A more recent development in this area is the Metro women abuse protocol project, which is an initiative which operates under the municipality of Metropolitan Toronto through the chairman's office. Again, it's an effort to try and integrate a vast number of services to ensure that victims don't fall between the service guidelines of various services.
Last fall we introduced legislation which will be of significant benefit to victims of assault and sexual assault. The new Limitations Act will remove limitation periods for civil lawsuits in many sexual assault cases. Many of these victims have been rendered psychologically incapable of taking action within the present limitation period of four years, and we will move to enact this legislation as soon as possible.
The government has also established a process for assisting victims of abuse in provincial institutions. This is a non-court-based process which may involve the appointment of an independent fact-finder. It emphasises counselling, healing and reconciliation in addition to compensation. The reconciliation model agreement reached last year with the former residents of St Joseph's and St John's is an example of how this process has worked effectively.
In addition to addressing the needs of victims of past abuse, my ministry is working with the ministries of Health, Education, Community and Social Services, the Solicitor General and Correctional Services and the Ontario women's directorate to develop safeguards to prevent future abuse in provincial institutions and to continue with the investigations and prosecutions of past abuse.
The system can be improved. There are a number of innovative and highly acclaimed programs and policies that are already in place, but there's much more that needs to be done to enhance these services, to provide additional funding to support assistance to victims, and to reform both legislation and regulations and procedures to make them more responsive to the needs of victims.
We have identified vulnerable victims such as women, children, the elderly, the disabled and immigrant and visible minority women as a priority for resources. A wider and more consistent distribution of resources is urgently needed, if only to address the problems faced by the most vulnerable groups. The government is currently working on a comprehensive package of victims' services and policy improvements which will help address many of the needs of these groups, many of the needs you've heard mentioned by victims during the course of these hearings.
The components of this package will enhance services for victims, provide additional funding to support victim/witness assistance programs, reform legislative procedures and improve coordination and assistance to victims of abuse in provincial institutions, and I will have a further announcement to make on that in the near future.
I would like to say a few words about criminal injuries compensation. The Criminal Injuries Compensation Board is obviously one of the most important programs for victims in the province, providing compensation in the event of death or injury as a result of criminal violence.
I'm delighted to be able to tell you that despite the severe budgetary constraints and a cut of more than $2.5 million in federal funding, we have not only been able to maintain the funding for the Criminal Injuries Compensation Board, but we have been able to increase it. The board has also undertaken some of the changes suggested by the advisory board on victims' issues to improve the board's responsiveness to victims' needs.
Let me turn finally to the subject of the victims' bill of rights. A true test of a government's commitment to the needs and concerns of victims is the tangible programs and services it offers them. I've already described some of the concrete policies, programs and legislation this government has committed itself to on behalf of victims of crime. We will continue seeking ways of improving the circumstances of victims. That is where we intend to devote our energy. Such initiatives demonstrate the government's concern for victims' needs and interests more meaningfully and more effectively than would a victims' bills of rights.
A victims' bill of rights typically sets out the kinds of services or remedies a victim may ask for and contains no government commitment to make those remedies and services available. Victims' bills of rights such as those that exist in many other provinces may often mask an absence of resources for victims. A close look behind such bills may reveal they're little more than a cover for failure to provide adequate programs and services.
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Ontario does not lag behind other provinces in providing programs and services to victims because it has chosen not to enact a victims' bill of rights. Only one province, Quebec, has an enforceable bill of rights, and we will continue to monitor its operations.
A victims' bill of rights that cannot deliver on its promises is little more than empty rhetoric. I am much more comfortable with assessing what the government can and should provide and making those services and remedies directly available as soon as resources can be reallocated through improved systems and processes elsewhere.
Ultimately, the best way to stop violence, pain and loss that victims experience is to ensure that there are as few new victims as possible. Perhaps the best service we can provide for victims is to address the causes of their victimization and not just the symptoms.
It is time that, as a society, we start to focus our attention on crime prevention, community safety and education. Education programs for young people, the general community and professionals are integral to, first of all, identifying victimization; second, encouraging full community commitment to ending abuse; and, third, providing professionals with the tools they need to really assist victims.
I'd like to close by reiterating the government's commitment to assisting victims of crime in Ontario. This commitment has been and will continue to be translated into concrete action through the initiatives, programs and policies I have outlined today and those I will announce in the near future.
The Chair: Thank you very much. Mr Jackson are you ready for some questions?
Mr Jackson: Is it my rotation?
The Chair: The government members before. It's up to you. Mr Curling, are you ready for questions?
Mr Curling: I'll just ask a few questions of the minister. Thank you very much for coming, Minister. You put a lot of light and maybe some facts and information on this. There's a lot to digest in a short time, and your work in that area is quite well known.
The previous presenter -- my questions are pretty short -- complained or observed that within the police and the Solicitor General area the police were not properly trained in regard to dealing with victims. She targeted the fact and identified that money seemed to be the problem of proper training and also that the volunteers who support this cause, who support the situation of assisting victims, also need some training, and their lack of funds. There are no funds directed towards those areas. Any comments you could make on that. I know it's not in your area, but any comment on that?
Hon Mrs Boyd: I think the observation that in the past this was not an area that had a lot of concentration in terms of the training of police officers is absolutely right. It's really only in the last 5 to 10 years that there's been any recognition that in fact the sensitivity, the understanding, the empathy with the feelings of the victim, in fact the victim as being central to the administration of justice, has really begun to take hold, frankly.
I know when I first started in this work, when we talked about a consumer-based system of justice, we were looked at as though we were crazy, and really that's what we're talking about. We're talking about looking at things from a consumer point of view or a client point of view.
Since the initiatives first began in 1985 under the previous Liberal government, we have done a much more thorough and effective job in training police officers, not only in their initial training at the Aylmer police college but also in terms of what the police officers tend to call their retreading on occasion.
Some municipal police forces have done an excellent job. Again, I'm most familiar with London, where I participated in the training over many years. They literally have put every officer through three or four different sessions of victim-oriented training around sexual assault, child abuse, wife assault and increasingly around racial and language issues, because that is a very important part of it. I know from talking to crown attorneys and from talking to lawyers and police officers around the province that a similar kind of thing is happening in many municipal police forces. We're beginning to make that change, but there is still a need for us to constantly reward police officers who are effective in their relationships with victims, effective in assisting victims to become good witnesses, and ensure that they get commended when they do that work.
One of the most important things we can do, when we hear of a case where a police officer has been appropriately sensitive, is to ensure that he gets a commendation for that behaviour, rather than sanctioning always those who may not be appropriate. One of the things I've always encouraged my colleagues to do in the field is to be sure the police officers are recognized, because there are many fine police officers who have developed great skills with victims but they aren't recognized as having the excellence they have. Often it takes them a longer time to do their work when they're sensitive.
Mr Curling: This is my last point. Ms Foster from Voices for Children's Rights spoke about that, that from the goodness of their hearts that's how the police respond. What I was saying was that there seems to be a lack of funds to direct the kind of training that's needed by police if we will only depend -- and of course it's a very important factor -- on the goodness of the heart of the police officer. But the professional training, there seems to be a lack of funds there. And yes, as you said, there's much more training being done by the police which started some time ago but is not yet up to the level where we could be very happy. There seems to be a lack of training in that area, and I'm just repeating what she said. I haven't investigated it.
Hon Mrs Boyd: We haven't been able to add to the dollars that we wanted to this year, but in spite of the fact that the Ministry of the Solicitor General had to make economies out of the wife assault initiative parts as well, it restored all the training money in terms of police training because it considers it that important and all of its colleagues on the interministerial committee consider it that important.
I think we could certainly use more dollars and use them well. I don't think they're wasted at all in that area and I certainly think it would be helpful if we could infuse even more resources into that. I guess it's the same issue as it is with many of these services, because they are new services and we were just beginning the incremental build of these services. Having the kinds of budgetary restrictions that we all face right now makes it particularly difficult to increase the services to the extent we would like to.
But I can assure you, from our point of view, we would like to do that as soon as we are able and to reallocate moneys that may now be being used in some areas of prosecuting crime for that end of the system, because we really think we spend far too much at the crisis end of the line instead of the prevention end of the line. We have to be looking at ways to change that behaviour.
Mr Jackson: Minister, I'm glad you cited the Quebec example, its bill of rights. They finance their victims' services in a variety of ways and they generate considerable revenue. One of them of course is restitution orders, which are very highly the norm in Quebec courts. The second is the victim surcharge which is applied in every province, guided by federal legislation and picked up by provinces. Their rates of recovery and capture are some of the highest in the country. Why is it that they're succeeding so well in getting criminals to help pay victims' services and we're not?
Hon Mrs Boyd: I think the simple answer to that is that this has never been an emphasis prior to this point of view. I should tell you that in our victims' package it's very much our emphasis and very much our intention to look at what has worked well in other provinces in terms of the collection, use and dedication of victim surcharge.
Mr Jackson: You can't emphasize an intention. Either it's good intended or you are emphasizing. Your victims' program is not built on that; you've indicated it was prevention. But I'm trying to understand why -- and I would like to get into the whole area of police, but in fairness to you, Minister, that's a Solicitor General's responsibility and I have a couple of very quick ones in there. But I would wonder, why then are judges in Ontario -- and several have said, "I'm not charging a fine because it's going into general revenues."
Several provinces dedicate these revenues. That's an expression that auditors use because dedicated revenues are earmarked for the purpose to which they're charged. In Ontario we don't do that. They go into general revenues, of which -- it's hard to really cause the linkage in the minds for victims and quite frankly for criminals, for that matter. Is it your emphasis or is it your intention to work in this area?
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Hon Mrs Boyd: It's certainly my intention and it will be part of the package that we bring forward, how we work with this whole issue, because I think you're absolutely right. Judges have said so directly to me, that if they could be sure that these funds were indeed being dedicated to victim services, they would feel much more comfortable about levying them.
Mr Jackson: If I could ask you a quick question about the Criminal Injuries Compensation Board, I asked an order paper question five years ago and I was given the specific compensation rates for Ontarians, accessed by age and by gender and by various crimes, and through those questions determined that women and victims of rape and sexual assault had some of the lowest access rates in national statistics. When I tried to get an update on that, how are they doing, the researcher to this committee was informed that they no longer keep stats in that capacity. Do you not think it's helpful, in order to advocate on behalf of women, that we can monitor in this important area to ensure that women in Ontario are not being shortchanged? Because the purpose of these stats in other jurisdictions is to ensure that they have improved access.
Hon Mrs Boyd: I wasn't aware that the statistics were not being kept in that way until you --
Mr Jackson: Neither was I; I found out this morning.
Hon Mrs Boyd: -- asked your order paper question. I would simply have to say to you that we would have to look at the reason why statistics that were once collected in that way are no longer. It may have to do with the freedom of information kinds of issues. I know they are collected in terms of the percentage of the settlements, the number of cases that are certain crimes. For example, if the crime is sexual assault or wife assault, we might be able to make some inferences about who the victims are, but I would like to ask the same question.
Mr Jackson: One very quick final question, if I may: You've had a chance to maybe peruse the bill that I've tabled for the third time. There is a section in this bill, Madam Minister, which refers to you and your ministry. Again, I'm coming back to my first emphasis, which is on the issue of opportunities for society to recapture this money from criminals instead of going to taxpayers always as almost the sole source.
One of the recommendations is, "If a person convicted of an offence derives any profit from the sale of his or her recollections..." -- I'm quoting from the bill, Mr Chairman -- "or from their interviews or public appearances during which the person's recollection of the offence is discussed, the Attorney General may apply to the Ontario Court (General Division) for an order that the proceeds derived by the person be forfeited to Her Majesty in right of Ontario and the judge may so order."
Now, when I found this concept it was only in one other jurisdiction. I believe one of the deputants is going to come forward to talk about this in more detail. Increasingly, governments are now looking at this, that people in this period of plea bargaining and opportunities for criminals to slip underneath the full force and effect of our laws, that there is opportunity to gain from many horrendous and celebrated crimes. Ontario has not escaped this.
Would you be willing to pursue this vigorously in our province as an example of an opportunity perhaps for us to recapture some of these moneys to put into the victim services that you are developing but are not proceeding with at the rate that you'd like them to proceed at? I'm merely trying to contribute to this discussion in terms of areas in which other jurisdictions are succeeding at a faster rate because of their intent and their interest in pursuing these matters. I just would hope that you would consider looking at these rather vigorously.
Hon Mrs Boyd: Quite frankly, Mr Jackson, I think it's the most interesting part of your entire bill in many ways, and one which I have already asked the ministry to look at quite closely.
Mr Jackson: The one I thought you'd like would be the one about the gender preference of a victim of assault to be interviewed by the police officer. To my understanding, only three jurisdictions in Ontario have it. It started in Halton --
The Chair: It's getting longer and longer.
Mr Jackson: I appreciate that, but we have a very special guest.
The Chair: And we only have a few more minutes. Two speakers: Ms Harrington and then Mr Duignan.
Ms Harrington: Minister, I do have three questions, actually, posed on behalf of the previous participant here, Ms Foster, but first I wanted to say that I liked the last thing that you said, that you would try to focus on causes.
I just want to mention that there was a wife killing-suicide in Niagara Falls this past Sunday, and I noted in the newspaper today that there is adequate coverage that this is a societal problem. I just want to say to you that I think there has been some step forward, since I remember December 6, 1989, going to actually our city council following that and it was not accepted as a societal problem. I think now that recognition is out there, and hopefully the people will believe, as I believe, that the more equality we have for women and everyone in society, the less violence we will have against women and anyone else in society.
The three questions -- I think you've answered some of them. She was concerned with regard to the victim/witness assistance program and she quotes here, "It is our observation that this program is understaffed," so I'd like to bring that to your attention. Secondly, from recommendations in this report that she gave us, she asked for the following: that the victim be notified immediately when an offender is unlawfully at large; also on page 6: that the decision registry of all parole decisions be open to the victim or the victim's advocate. I wanted your opinion on that. Thirdly, she was asking about victim empathy training for police. I know you dealt with that, but is that adequately being done? Also, what about the crown attorneys?
Hon Mrs Boyd: The first question you asked, "Are they understaffed?" is a hard question to answer. I'm going to try to equivocate on it. First of all, we have too few of them and, yes, in terms of paid staff within particular locations, they are not very numerous and in many cases depend very heavily on volunteers whom they train to do a lot of the court accompaniment with them and a lot of the support work.
Some are more able to attract and to maintain those volunteers. For example, up in Renfrew county and Pembroke I visited with the group that's in Renfrew county, and many of those people have been participants in that program for four and a half years and are very active in it. Others come into the program and find it too heart-rending, can't manage and leave, so there's a lot of training aspect involved in that.
In terms of the kinds of informational exchanges, as long as we plan ways to do this that are within the freedom of information, there are ways in which we need to do it. But we need to be very clear about freedom of information restrictions and very clear about what public officials are required to do in terms of that confidentiality.
Ms Harrington: There is a problem.
Hon Mrs Boyd: It is a problem. And the last issue that you raised was?
Ms Harrington: About training for crown attorneys.
Hon Mrs Boyd: We do crown training. As a matter of fact, we've maintained our funding for that as well. It's been a very important part of the program and you can tell the difference. Those who have been through the training have been designated in terms of their ability to deal with some of the issues the victims have, and our goal is to try to train as many of the crown attorneys as we can.
Mr Noel Duignan (Halton North): I'd like to briefly touch on a couple of the points that Margaret brought up, I think, to deal with recommendations for Correctional Service Canada and the National Parole Board, which we don't really have very much control over. Even if we put everything in place ourselves there'd be a large gap there.
I was wondering what types of representations you've made either to the federal Solicitor General or the federal Attorney General to try to work more profitably together to get the provinces to deal with some of the large gaps -- we have some real concerns in the large gaps -- of information-sharing that goes on between the police forces and the correctional services and your ministry and the Solicitor General. Is there any progress being made in that area?
Hon Mrs Boyd: I think there is. I just came back, actually, from Quebec City, where the federal-provincial territorial meetings were on Friday. It was an extremely interesting meeting because they had not met since the fall, I believe, maybe even the summer of 1991, and yet the community of interest was absolutely very striking. No matter what government was in power in which province, we all do experience these problems and all have the same concerns about the growing lack of confidence the people have in the efficacy of the criminal justice system, and how we can do that, how we can better protect victims.
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We spend a lot of our time talking about the proposals that Mr Lewis has brought forward in terms of violent crime and sex offenders. We spend a lot of our time talking about the stalker law and how to ensure that it is an effective tool in dealing with this. We agreed that we would meet again in November or December and we have quite an agenda of items which are dedicated at a better sharing of information.
The concerns about the federal corrections system are very, very deep. The lack of effective treatment is felt as a real problem by all provinces, and we certainly made very strong representations to the federal government of our willingness to cooperate to the greatest extent possible in terms of finding a much more effective way of dealing with that.
One of the things that's disturbing is that we're seeing some judges make choices about sentences that are under two years because they can get treatment for those offenders in provincial institutions which they can't get at the federal level. So some of the sentencing practices are confusing for victims. They may indeed be, in the long run, in the best interests of society as a whole and of the offender, but it certainly is a strange kind of appearance of justice.
Mr Duignan: I just have a quick follow-up on that. Is it possible, at your meeting in November -- we're talking about disentanglement with the municipalities; how about disentanglement with the federal government? -- to have one parole board for the provinces instead of two, to have one parole board deal with both provincial and federal offences?
Mr Jackson: Hear, hear. I agree with you.
Hon Mrs Boyd: It sounds like a very interesting idea. I don't know how much work has been done on it, but I'd be very happy to make some inquiries and to share any information with you about what kind of study has been done on that, because it is the sort of thing we have to do. We have to look at much better streamlining of what we're doing and much better cooperation, because right now we certainly know, from what you've been hearing here and from what I hear every day in my office, that people are not happy with the way the system is operating now.
Mr Duignan: That's the problem. We could do everything right here, but we still have a large gap with the federal government.
Hon Mrs Boyd: That's right.
The Chair: We don't have any more time. Madam Minister, thank you for coming and making this presentation.
Hon Mrs Boyd: Thank you. I appreciate it.
Mr Jackson: Mr Chairman, before you invite the next deputant, could I suggest to the clerk or to our researcher to pull up the recent -- I referred to a committee hearing of the finance committee which, with the auditor, reviewed the activities of the Ontario parole board. We're talking about multimillions of dollars in savings if we were to blend them.
I was shocked -- I just learned this recently -- that only three or four provinces have provincial parole boards. Why do all the other provinces not? So I want to support Mr Duignan's question, and maybe we can get a copy of that for any of the committee members who are interested.
The Chair: If members are interested, we'll do that. Very well.
Interjection: I think you meant government agencies.
Mr Jackson: I thought it was the auditor's --
The Chair: No, government agencies. That's where we dealt with it.
Mr Jackson: Okay. Well, we'll find the report. It was done in the last year.
The Chair: Okay. Research will find it.
COALITION FOR THE SAFETY OF OUR DAUGHTERS
The Chair: Patricia Herdman, welcome. We have approximately half an hour.
Ms Patricia Herdman: Thank you. Hopefully, I've timed myself well.
The Chair: Very well.
Ms Herdman: I'd first like to thank the standing committee on administration of justice for inviting me to speak today. When I first examined the terms of reference of this committee, I thought, "I don't know if I quite fit the witness category that you're looking for." But anyway, here goes.
It turns out that as I looked at the matters more seriously, I realized that what I'm really focused on and what I have now dedicated my life to is preventing the creation of victims. Those of you who know me -- some on the committee do know me; they don't happen to be sitting here, most of them, at the time -- know that I've been involved in justice issues for my entire adult life. I've worked to create more fair and equitable laws, and for the past five years -- I've only recently completed my term -- I was involved with the Elizabeth Fry Society, particularly as president of the Council of Elizabeth Fry Societies of Ontario. So I know about criminal justice issues.
As a community person, I've worked solidly to prevent the conditions in which women are placed, which create victims and create people who end up in jail. As you may know, eight out of 10 women in jail have experienced physical or sexual assault as children, and the cycle continues from that perspective.
What I'm representing today is an organization called the Coalition for the Safety of Our Daughters. I helped to co-found it in the fall of last year. The Coalition for the Safety of Our Daughters is a media action and information group dedicated to informing the public about the known links between violent entertainment and assaults against women and children.
I believe our society should be hell-bent on preventing the creation of victims, but we're not. As a society, we're concerned about money, being entertained and not rocking the boat.
The previous speaker, the Honourable Marion Boyd, highlighted the fact that we should be addressing the causes of violence, that we should be educating our young people. I now highlight this point particularly, because we are in fact, as a society, educating our young people. We're educating with powerful tools called television, called videos, called entertainment, called virtual reality. We're educating them that violence is cool and winning and fun.
Anyone who has studied the Statistics Canada reports can tell you that through good financial times and bad, the number of violent assaults committed by young people has increased astronomically in the past 10 years. Particularly, I'd like to highlight that these children are the very first wave of human beings who have been through the video entertainment industry, who have been allowed to watch material and who have grown up in a psychic environment of violence. These children act this out.
My colleague Valerie Smith and I were extremely pleased at the response from Queen's Park regarding Dianne Poole's private member's resolution regarding slasher movies on April 22, 1993. Ms Smith and I worked for months -- and I'd like to emphasize months -- gathering evidence, writing letters, issuing press releases, begging politicians and contacting community leaders to garner support for the restriction of slasher movies in this province.
We presented a viewing of Reel Hatred at the National Film Board in February of this year. I'd like to remind you that slasher movies which celebrate the brutal, graphic depiction of the killing of women and girls were not always widely available at neighbourhood video stores throughout Ontario. They became widely available only as the technology shifted and as the Ontario Film Review Board chose to allow greater levels of violence to be passed off as entertainment.
If there were an entire genre of films devoted to the gruesome slaughter of any other group of people, based on race, religion, country of origin or ethnicity, we all know that it would be considered hate material. But hate material in Canada is legal and it's entertaining.
What is most alarming is that this form of entertainment has moved into children's games. I'm quoting here from a Globe and Mail article, "Night Traps is a cinematic, CD-based adventure in which the player must protect a house full of scantily clad young women from a gang of zombies armed with big hooks"; in other words, a slasher movie the kids can play over and over again in the family rec room. Britain has taken the time out to at least restrict it to children over 15; Ontario's done nothing.
As we watch the spread of hate material against women in this province, are we surprised when we discover that female children disappear off our streets and out of our backyards? Are we surprised when boys become conditioned to take what they want even if "what" includes another human being? Sexual assaults by children against children are becoming more widespread, creating more and younger victims of violence.
Gratuitous, graphic violence is celebrated in our movies, computer video games and television shows, and women are often the central victims, although seldom the central characters. In this way the audience, young and old, is asked to identify with the killer. A mainstream example of this is The Silence of the Lambs. I'd like to present this question: How many people here can name one of the victims in that movie? You can't, because the victims weren't named. They were nameless and simply provided the forum through which the audiences could be entertained. But we all remember the brilliant character who bit out women's tongues and ate human flesh.
By providing abduction and killing techniques, movies are training some people to act out what they see. Experts in Canada and the United States are concerned and have been concerned for years. Not everyone who watches this is a mature adult. There are more than 3,000 studies that show that children who watch television are more prone to use physical aggression than those who don't.
As well, Dr William Marshall and Sylvia Barrett, in their book, Criminal Neglect: Why Sex Offenders Go Free, document very clearly how the widespread distribution of pornography has created more victims of sexual assault. Attached to this presentation is a summary of some of the studies to which they refer. I'd like to encourage each member on this committee to read the book, especially the chapter "The Link to Pornography," and then ask yourself these questions:
(1) When did our country democratically decide to allow the marketing of violent entertainment to our children?
(2) When did our country democratically decide that it was permissible to depict women as "prime candidates for murder"? That's from a video jacket marketing entertainment.
(3) When did our country democratically decide that pornographic images of women could be sold along with milk and bread and chocolate bars?
(4) When did our country democratically decide that Hustler could sell pornographic trading cards to our teenage boys so that these images can be bartered during school recess?
(5) When did our country democratically decide that shopping malls can put up virtual reality centres where players can point a gun and "kill," making it seem real and available to the youngsters in exciting 3-D images?
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We must begin by recognizing that the entertainment industry is just that, an industry. Its products, some of which are particularly harmful to children, must be regulated so that the greater good of society is served. While some people, and especially those in the industry itself, are concerned about censorship issues, I'd like to remind you that the technological change in the communications industry should not render us helpless to take action to protect the wellbeing of our young people.
The Ontario Theatres Act, by providing a rating system which includes a category restricted from children and a hefty fine for theatres caught disregarding this category, already acknowledges that certain images are not appropriate for children.
The technology has changed since the act was passed. VCRs allow parents to make uninformed decisions about what they let their children watch. Indeed, as Sandra Campbell of VIVA Associates has reported in her studies, as long as the video product is in the house, the children will find a way of watching it, even if the parents didn't mean for them to see the movie. So we have young children watching The Silence of the Lambs, Basic Instinct and a wealth of pornographic films despite the commonsense wisdom built into the Ontario Theatres Act which says that children should be able to grow up without watching this stuff. But VCRs are everywhere. What are we going to do? If we throw up our hands and do nothing, we're allowing ourselves to be technologically oppressed.
The Coalition for the Safety of Our Daughters, an organization with 50 individual members and three organizations which represent a total of 200 people, has two fundamental issues which drive our lobbying efforts:
-- We do not believe in censorship except for hate material and child pornography, and we believe that hate material includes violent pornography and the vicious, gender-based violence of slasher movies.
-- When dealing with televisual material which would not be classified as hate material or child pornography, we are working towards a more violence-sensitive rating and distribution system and for more public education about the known effects between televisual violence and behaviourial changes in the public, particularly children.
We are also working towards broadening public awareness by speaking at engagements such as this and promoting public discussion about the known links between televisual violence and violence against real people.
We are informing the public about the known effects of televisual violence on the emotional wellbeing of children. This is well documented.
We are working to have women included as an identifiable group in Canada's hate laws so that slasher movies would not be legal entertainment.
We are working to have the Ontario Film Review Board rate films according to their level of violence and therefore not permit violent fare as acceptable for children. However, we're losing our battle with this. The Ontario Film Review Board is expanding the amount of violence permitted in adult sex films.
We want to disallow the marketing of violence to children through our school systems and department stores.
We want to provide for stricter labels, and not labels that say: "Gosh, gee, this has a lot of violence against women." We want to see labels that say, "It is illegal to show this to children."
We want to force the entertainment industry to post warnings on all violent fare on ads and prior to each screening which warn the viewer about the known effects of televisual violence on the emotional health of viewers.
There are other solutions we can find, but to discover them, we must look.
I'd like to close the formal part of my presentation with a bit of news regarding the private member's resolution which Queen's Park passed unanimously this past April 22. Remember, Valerie Smith and I have been writing press releases, holding public information evenings and discussing the matter with whomever would listen: on the TTC, at the school bus, anywhere we could get someone to listen, including down at Queen's Park, especially on a weekly basis dropping a press release off with Premier Bob Rae. Finally, Queen's Park passed this private member's resolution, and we were at least pleased that someone was listening.
Did CBC Radio's Ontario Report cover the unanimous vote on April 22? No. Perhaps CBC Radio, Canada's public broadcaster, the voice of the people, didn't find the story newsworthy. That is their prerogative, I suppose, but I found it rather enlightening that CBC Radio did manage to find the time both on April 22 and April 23 to report on Metro Toronto's proposed cat bylaws.
In truth, I believe that the Ontario media particularly has gone out of its way to avoid reporting on our various activities over the past several months because they are deeply concerned about censorship and know that the mood of the public is getting short-tempered when it comes to increasing levels of violent entertainment in our popular culture.
We're getting short-tempered when we read that some writers in certain newspapers are opposed to censoring depictions of children engaged in explicit sexual activity. We are getting short-tempered when we read about serial killer trading cards and serial killer board games where the objective is to kill as many innocents as possible. We are getting short-tempered when we discover that secretly and without input from the community at large, the Ontario Film Review Board has decided to broaden the acceptable levels of violence in adult sex films. We are getting short-tempered when our film review board states that first and foremost it serves the entertainment industry and only secondarily the public at large. This was communicated to us in their response to our human rights complaint this past fall.
Let me assure you, ladies and gentlemen, that I too am concerned about censorship, but I don't think that the founding fathers of the United States, when they put forth the idea of freedom of expression as a right, had in mind the right of the movie and computer industries to sell images of pornographic violence to our children. Instead, I suspect they were putting forth the idea that a community of citizens has a right to speak about the direction in which they believe their culture, their society, their laws, should take them.
I'm here before you to say that as a citizen I believe that one important way we can reduce the number of victims is by reducing the celebration of violence in our popular culture. I thank you today.
Mr Jackson: Patricia, thank you for a very articulate brief and one that comes with a great deal of conviction. I don't know where to begin with this. I mean, I agree with your presentation. You took me aback with your thesis at the very end about the correlation between media coverage and fears of censorship. I want to think about that. That's an interesting concept and I hadn't really thought of it before.
Ms Herdman: I've got several examples that don't even include mine.
Mr Jackson: My experience has been mostly at the floor of the Legislature raising issues of triple X video stores in my community or the painful and completely offensive celebration of murder, the trading cards that have been brought in from the United States and things of this nature.
I've been rather dismayed that the Attorney General's office has not backed up the police in terms of their desire to cause convictions to occur. In other words, the police do their investigations as they see the law, then, once they impound a video store's materials, they turn to the Attorney General's office, through the crown, to determine if in fact they can proceed for conviction. Then the government determines that this should or should not occur, and what we've seen is a disturbing trend away from moving for convictions.
Ms Herdman: I'm aware.
Mr Jackson: So at that sort of justice/political level, we're seeing more of that, and we certainly had that experience in Burlington as it relates to the triple X video store.
I guess really, to stay focused with your actual presentation, where do you get your statistics on the increased number of violent crimes by young people? I'm aware of it, but I just --
Ms Herdman: Statscan. I was there two weeks ago -- spent a lot of money too, copying things. It cost 25 cents a page, but I got several years' worth.
Mr Jackson: I wonder if it is possible if we might gain the benefit of some of that information, and even, Mr Chairman, if you'd examine what the cost was associated with gaining that information, if it was readily available to us; if it was not, that we might consider acquiring it.
But at that, I just wish to thank you for your presentation. I know there are many who support a lot of the concerns you've raised, not all of them but a lot of them. Thank you.
Ms Harrington: I'll be very brief, because I think most of us certainly empathize and agree with a lot of what you are saying, especially those of us who have raised children. I know my husband and I have taught school. You see the influence of television and now video and all of these very modern things on children's behaviour.
I would like to also thank you for your focus on causes and connecting up how women are treated with what is happening in our society. It reminded me, as you were speaking, of a few years ago, just about three or four years ago, when I was with the social justice committee of our local YWCA in Niagara Falls. Every year we held a public forum to deal with women's issues, and it was I believe four years ago that we had a public forum looking at the influence of pornography on how women are treated. Even this year that same committee is now making a video about women living in Niagara Falls and the kinds of influences on their lives.
Ms Herdman: I think I'm previewing that video on Friday. I'm not sure, though.
Ms Harrington: Oh, good. I was just talking to the group this past week when I was at home, so I hope to see it very soon too. I'd just like to assure you that we would like to keep in touch with you and that I see my role as dealing closely with the minister of consumer and corporate relations with regard to the issue of videos. So please keep in touch.
I believe Ms Carter has a comment.
Ms Carter: I really just want to say how much I agree with you. I spoke in favour of Dianne Poole's resolution and I was very happy to do so. We do seem to be in a strange situation where in a lot of ways we're making progress on equality between men and women and so on, yet we hear these things from teachers and other people involved with young children, that problems seem to be occurring at younger and younger age groups, that boys don't know how to treat girls and so on. It looks as though we're winning the battle on one hand and losing it on another in a very frightening and insidious way, because if our very youngest children are being affected by this, then that is not a very good outlook for the future.
I certainly take your point and I agree with it that we don't want censorship as such, that things that are genuine expressions of somebody's feelings, works of art or whatever are one thing, but these things are just produced for the sake of marketing violence and pornography and really do come into a different category that just shouldn't be permitted. I'd just like to thank you and say that I think you have our support.
Ms Herdman: Thank you.
The Chair: Mrs Herdman, we would like to thank you for all of your work that is directed towards the prevention of violence against women. Thank you for coming today.
Ms Herdman: I just have one closing line, to get the last word. This is from Criminal Neglect: Why Sex Offenders Go Free. It was in his closing paragraph. I quote from Dr Marshall and Sylvia Barrett. "A society that permits public expressions of contempt for women can only expect that women will be victimized."
The Chair: Thank you.
The committee adjourned at 1753.