NIQAB FIRST UP IN LIBERAL DO-OVER
Tough-on-crime laws also on radar in justice review
A sweeping review of the criminal justice system, including tough-on-crime laws enacted by the previous government, will be launched by the Department of Justice under the new Liberal minister, Jody Wilson-Raybould.
It will examine a decade worth of criminal laws reforms introduced under the Conservatives, including the controversial practice of mandatory-minimum sentencing and the contentious two-year-old prostitution law. It also could extend to victim surcharges and restrictions on early parole for first-time, non-violent offenders.
“I am definitely committed to undertaking a comprehensive review,” Wilson-Raybould, a former Crown prosecutor, said during a Friday interview. The assessment will, among other things, examine the costs and whether the changes have made Canadians safer.
The criminal justice review is in addition to a raft of other priorities on Wilson-Ray- bould’s desk, spelled out in a letter of mandate from Prime Minister Justin Trudeau made public Friday.
She is instructed to implement more than 100 recommendations from the 2013 Ontario coroner’s inquest into the high-profile prison death of Ashley Smith.
The troubled 19-year-old from Moncton, N.B., choked to death in October 2007 after tying a piece of cloth around her neck in a segregation cell at Grand Valley Institution in Kitchener, Ont., in plain view of prison guards.
The most immediate will come Monday, when Wilson Raybould announces whether the government will withdraw the Conservative government’s leave-to-appeal application to the Supreme Court of Canada to overturn a lower-court ruling that found it illegal to ban Muslim women from wearing the niqab at citizenship ceremonies.
Another looming decision will be over whether to ask the Supreme Court for an extension of its Feb. 6, 2016, deadline to craft a new law on doctor-assisted death. It struck down a century-old law against assisted suicide as unconstitutional last February.
Should the deadline pass without a new law, the Crim- inal Code prohibition on physician-assisted death will be lifted, giving it the same status as abortion since a court ruling 27 years ago: it won’t be legalized, but won’t be illegal, either.
If an extension is requested and granted, Wilson-Raybould suggested the issue will be placed before an all-party parliamentary committee, “to proceed on this extremely sensitive issue with openness and transparency. Thinking about the circumstance around ending a human life is pretty substantive to say the least and the social and moral policy around that needs to be extremely considered.”
She also has to deal with the contentious prostitution file. In December 2013, in a case known as Bedford, the Supreme Court struck down Canada’s prostitution laws and gave the government a year to enact a new law.
Under Bill C-36, buying sex remains a crime, which sex workers say drives prostitutes into isolated areas where they are at risk.
“I’m going sit down with officials to review the (high court’s) Bedford decision and its reflection, or not, in C-36. I am committed to sitting down (with sex-trade workers) to ensure that I understand the issue from all sides in the coming months,” she said.
Decisions are needed, too, on whether the federal government should defend at least eight pending constitutional challenges of laws enacted by the Tory government.
Justice also will be involved in the planned inquiry into murdered and missing aboriginal women and girls.
“We need to get it right,” said Wilson-Raybould, a former Assembly of First Nations’ regional chief. The inquiry must “get at as many of the roots causes of why this situation has been enabled in the first place, issues that are reflective of the colonial relationship that exists, root causes like poverty and marginalization and inequality.”
Her comments suggest the Liberals’ promise to legalize marijuana is far from imminent. “We haven’t put a timeline around it, there are many (other) priorities,” she said. But, “we are certainly committed to following through with our commitment.”
The backbone of the Tories’ tough-on-crime agenda was mandatory-minimum sentencing for various crimes, including guns, narcotics and sex offences.
But Wilson-Raybould appears to support critics who argue the strict regimes take away judicial discretion.