Mennonite
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"I Don't Have a Problem with Restorative Justice," says Canada's New Justice Minister

Gladys Terichow
June 12, 2006

Canada’s new justice minister, Vic Toews, expects to leave a legacy of cracking down on crime.

"If you don’t crack down on crime none of your other programs will be successful," said Toews in a telephone interview, explaining health, education, economic and social programs can only be successful when safety and security concerns have been addressed.

In May he introduced two bills—one bill proposes to strengthen mandatory minimum sentencing for crimes involving firearms and the other one to end the use of house arrests for serious offences.

Toews described the two bills as "two components of a successful crime strategy" but he emphasized the government also supports alternative approaches to crime prevention and support for victims and offenders.

"How do we ensure that society is best served? It is best served through various mechanisms," he said.

Toews, the Member of Parliament for Provencher in Southern Manitoba, said he is "very familiar" with restorative justice models of dealing with crime and MCC programs based on this model.

Principles and values of restorative justice, he said, are generally seen in provincial and community based programs, and not in federal legislation.

"The criminal justice system is a very narrow system—it is a mechanism that identifies criminal wrong doing and determines how best to deal with the crime," said Toews.

"These two bills deal with two specific issues—they deal with two narrow aspects of the justice system and don’t address victims and restorative justice. I don’t have a problem with restorative justice. It can be very helpful but it needs proper criteria and it needs to be a structured system."

Dealing with the aftermath of a crime

Restorative justice, he explained, can take place within the context of traditional sentencing. Toews cited MCC’s Victims’ Voice as an example of a restorative justice program that works well within the current justice system.

Victims’ Voice, in partnership with the John Howard Society of Manitoba and Mediation Services, has developed a Safe Justice Encounters program to help victims deal with the aftermath of the crime through communicating with their offenders. These visits are generally with offenders serving a prison sentence.

Toews noted participants in this program might feel the prison sentence did not address their needs for justice but incarceration makes it possible for victims to communicate with their offenders.

He also supports appropriate support and programs for offenders—this includes offenders in prisons and those who did not get a prison sentence. Offenders who are not incarcerated must also have access to appropriate support and programs, said Toews.

Holding offenders accountable

His Christian faith, he added, influences his contributions to the justice system. "What you try to do is make the system work better. The ultimate hope is that those who come into contact with the system will be better off. The goal is to ensure that both victims and criminals are better off."

James Loewen-Malloy, restorative justice coordinator for MCC Canada, in a separate interview said that he would like to see fundamental reforms to the Canadian criminal justice system that would make the victim the “client” and central focus of the justice system. In the current system the police serve the state, the crown attorney is responsible to the state and the crime is committed against the state.

"It is hard to envision a victim-focused system because it would look so different," said Loewen-Malloy, explaining a victim-focused system "would understand that justice begins when a victim reports a crime, not when an offender is caught." Restorative justice provides opportunity for victims to heal and find justice in their communities.

Restorative justice, he explained, is based on the premise that crime inflicts harm to individuals and offenders must accept responsibility for that harm.

Instead of emphasizing punishment and retribution, restorative justice holds offenders directly accountable to the people they have violated and provides opportunity for making amends. It is a process that involves strengthening the role of victims and the community to hold offenders accountable for their actions.

Fundamental reforms, he said, are needed to restore public confidence in the Canadian justice system. He pointed to a Statistics Canada survey that states only one-third of crime is reported.

"If 66 per cent of people who get sick in Canada don’t want to be part of the health system or are worse off because they were part of it, would we be happy? I would say, no, we wouldn’t be."

 

Gladys Terichow is a writer for MCC Canada Communications