Witness/Victim Services

In the area of witness and victim services, the task force made many recommendations, encouraging both general assistance and programs directed specifically at vulnerable groups, including the elderly, children, and victims of domestic and sexual assault.

While the recommendations did not specifically direct provinces to establish witness/victim services programs, they did pave the way for those programs, says Susan Lee, who directed Ontario's Victim/Witness Assistance Program in its early years, beginning as a pilot project in 1986. Quebec also initiated a province-wide program following the task force recommendations. The program helped bring victim issues to the forefront of the consciousness of those working in the justice system, and the general public.

“There have been massive changes,” says Lee. “Overall, the people that work in the system are much more aware now of the needs of various kinds of victims and they are more acutely aware of the vulnerability of certain groups of victims, such as women who are victims of abuse.”

Today, every province and territory has some form of victim and witness assistance program, either operated directly or funded by the province or territory.

Victim and witness assistance programs cannot solve all of the problems that result from the conduct that ends up in criminal court, cautions Blacklock. But it can address, in some way, the impacts on the victim.

“I think the task force played a role in sensitizing the process to that perspective, through the victim/witness services, through an increased awareness of the need to be sensitive to the victim's perspective,” Blacklock says.

“The level of support for victims in the criminal process now, compared to the late 1970s, is night and day.”

Training for Police and Court Officials

One of the main areas that the task force concentrated on involved the issue known then as “wife assault' – now referred to as domestic violence – and the involvement of police and prosecutors. The task force urged the development of written guidelines that acknowledged wife assault as a crime and provided police officers with criteria for laying charges that did not require a victim’s cooperation. The recommendations also called for a training manual for police, courses on family violence at police training and education centres, and prompt response at the scene to any domestic violence calls. In addition, the task force recommended the creation of domestic crisis intervention teams consisting of mental health and social service workers, who would work with police to assist families.

Other recommendations concerned enabling victims to get restraining orders quickly, to have them enforced, and to receive transportation to shelters and transition houses. In addition, the task force recommended that the provinces increase resources to transition houses, sexual assault centres, and services to assaulted women and children, look at housing supports for them and programs that would target vulnerable populations such as immigrant women and women in rural areas. The task force also called for resources directed at counselling for abusive spouses.

The task force also recommended the adoption of a standard sexual assault kit to be used in hospitals and as an evidence-gathering tool, and called for increased training for police in how to deal with victims of sexual assault. That recommendation was accepted, and today, sexual assault kits are a standard component of hospital emergency rooms across the country.

Although these procedures are standard today, they were ground-breaking recommendations 25 years ago. They recognized a shift in society that removed the onus to prove allegations of abuse from the victims themselves – primarily women and children. Once the task force recommendations and the voices of women's groups advocating for assault victims began to be heard, Federal and Provincial and Territorial Ministers Responsible for Justice issued guidelines and the changes in policy were implemented by police forces and Crown attorneys.

“Before that, it was clear – if there was no blood, there was no mark, and if the victim was not going to cooperate, they (police) weren't going to charge,” says Vallée.

Susan Lee, who started Ontario's Victim/Witness Assistance Program, provided some of the training for police officers and Crown attorneys regarding victims of domestic violence and sexual assault. She tried to teach them that the prosecution service was not just about the law – it was about the people who are victims. One of her challenges was to help them understand that there is rarely such as thing as a 'perfect' victim. Regardless of a person’s situation, background or standing in the community, all victims deserve respect, Lee emphasized.

“You still have to pay attention to the person who has been victimized – whether they wear low-cut blouses or smoke crack or not,” she says. “There are a lot of things you can say about people – they may have been in the wrong place at the wrong time, they may have used poor judgment, but they didn't ask to be sexually assaulted, they didn't ask to be murdered.”

Although Lee believes great strides have been made in the way court officials and police treat victims of crime, she believes that as a society, we must continue to deal with prejudices relating to victims' behaviour, cultural background and lifestyle. “The system owes respect to everybody,” she says.

One of the things that Crown attorneys began to discover once they offered more support for victims of domestic violence, says Vallée, is that the support helped women to maintain their resolve to go to court to testify against their abusers.

“A lot of these support services ... I don't think these would have seen the expansion or the growth if it wasn't for the task force,” he adds.

Legislative changes also followed in this area, thanks to the task force recommendations and the work of women's groups, although the changes took time. In 1992, the Criminal Code and the Canada Evidence Act were amended to restore protections to victims of sexual assault, restricting questioning regarding their past sexual activity (the rape shield law). The amendments also enacted a definition of consent, and restricted an offender's defence that there was an “honest belief” in consent.

Financing Criminal Compensation Programs

When the task force began deliberating, every jurisdiction except Prince Edward Island had a criminal compensation program – but they were under-used and under-resourced, according to the task force. One of its recommendations was that the federal government, which helped to finance the programs, and the provinces increase the money available for compensation and advertise their availability. Another recommendation urged the provinces to consider financing them through a fine surtax that offenders would pay.

At the time, the surtax was an innovative idea, says Yvon Dandurand. It was also controversial, as various governments debated accepting the task force recommendation, he remembers.

“People thought it was good because it gets the offender to pay ... although in practice it doesn't work so well,” he added.

In 1987, New Brunswick's Victim Services Act established a Victim Services Fund and enacted up to a 20 per cent surcharge on all provincial fines. If no fine is imposed, offenders pay a surcharge ranging from $50 to $100. The Fund also includes the revenue generated by the surcharge imposed on Criminal Code offences.

Over the next decade, other jurisdictions passed similar legislation authorizing surcharges on provincial offences. Quebec, Nunavut and the Northwest Territories all passed legislation including the use of surcharges to finance victim assistance programs around this time.

In 1988, the Criminal Code was amended to provide for a victim surcharge to be added to the sentence imposed on offenders convicted of Code offences. Further amendments in 2000 clarified the amounts of the surcharge.

Return of Property

The prompt return of property that police recover after a theft or during the investigation of a crime is an area the task force spent time considering. Among the task force's seven recommendations in this area were changes to the Criminal Code to place the duty on police officers to return property as soon as possible, and to allow evidence to be photographed for admission during trials, and then returned. In 1988, amendments to the Criminal Code were passed to reflect these changes.

Though they might not appear critical, these recommendations had a big effect on victims, says Dandurand.

“We knew there were all kinds of situations where victims should have had prompt access to their property, and simply because the system was passive and unconcerned about their needs, the property was held for months, years – for no valid reason, simply because of the system's own inertia,” he says.

The task force report cited the example of an elderly victim whose television had been stolen, and who could not afford to replace it, as the kind of case where the return of that property could be crucial to a victim's need for information and entertainment that reduced their isolation.

Services for Children

Many of the task force's recommendations concerning services for children reached beyond the court system directly. The recommendations called on child welfare, education and system officials to promote positive parenting courses and support systems; to develop public education materials addressing violence, abuse, and pornography; and to create intervention protocols providing information to workers about child sexual abuse. One critical recommendation directed all jurisdictions to ensure that all children who are either victims or witnesses be represented in cases where the court's decisions affected them.

Today, James Blacklock sees that recommendation enacted through supports the victim/witness assistance programs provide to children who appear in his courtroom.

“They will interview the kid before court, give them a program about what the courtroom is like – without saying a word about the facts or the kid's evidence,” Blacklock says. “They do an orientation with the kids, and often the victim witness worker will sit with the kid when they give their evidence – by video hookup or in court.”

None of that assistance existed in the early 1980s, the judge recalls.

In 1988, Parliament amended the Criminal Code and the Canada Evidence Act to revise evidentiary provisions and to create specific sexual offences against children. Further amendments in 2005 strengthened the provisions to facilitate the testimony of young victims and witnesses. For example, young victims and witnesses under 18 can now testify via closed-circuit television or behind a screen, or on videotape, so they do not see the accused or do not have to be present in court. They may have a support person with them to make them more comfortable. Members of the public may be asked to leave the courtroom while they testify. Publication bans can be ordered to protect the identity of young victims and witnesses and in some cases, adult victims.  Either the victim or witness or the Crown attorney can ask a presiding judge for these protections. For young victims and witnesses, these are almost always provided.

Information to Victims

Finally, one of the major areas about which the task force made recommendations concerned providing victims of crime with timely information about the progress of the investigation and prosecution of the cases in which they were involved. The recommendations included informing people about trial dates, adjournments and postponements, about plea bargaining and the outcome of trials, as well as to provide information about how the criminal justice system works, and their role in it.

That information is critical to victims, who often do not understand that in fact, the justice system does not work directly for them, Lesley Parrott points out.

“There really is no role for them, unless they have to bear witness,” she says. “Whereas the perpetrator or the criminal, for that person there is a complete system that completely tracks and follows that person all along.”

Although Parrott believes the state has correctly and wisely appointed itself in the role of prosecuting and correcting the injustice, it leaves a “terrible void” for the victims, she says.

“When you lose somebody, or when you've been victimized, what has happened is that you've lost power and you've lost control, and then at the very core of it, that power and control is taken away further and further,” she says.

One of the services a victim/witness support program can provide, as it did for the Parrotts, was to keep victims' expectations about the court process realistic, says Susan Lee. Workers explain to victims the limits of a judge's options, for example, tell them about the participants in the system, and educate them about what to expect.

“In order not to have them disappointed yet again, you would tell them what the criminal prosecution or the trial process would or would not do,” she says. “It was made clear that it wasn't going to heal them. It was another nasty part of the process, and we were there to support them.”

Lee will never forget Lesley Parrott telling her that she did not want to have to be a witness at the 1999 trial of Carl Francis Roy, who was eventually convicted of raping and murdering Alison Parrott. Her mother did not want to have to continue to relive her daughter's murder 10 years earlier. She did not want to revisit the guilt she'd felt because she had given Alison permission to meet a man at a nearby subway station because he said he was photographing Alison and all the members of her track team. That man – Roy – lured Alison to her death.

“She said, 'The only thing I want is I want my daughter back',” Lee remembers. “I said 'Yes, I know. We can’t do that for you. But we're going to help you get through this.'”

The Victim/Witness Assistance Program did help the Parrotts get through Roy's trial, including six days of jury deliberations. Susan Physick, who worked with Lesley, showed her the courtroom, helped prepare her to testify, and sat with the family and other distraught witnesses during the trial, keeping them at bay.

“She was very skilled at giving us education and support,” says Parrott. “The people who do it are absolute angels. And the people who are doing the front-line stuff need a lot of support for themselves.”

Support for counselling services for victims, and for the establishment of a national victims resource centre, were among the other important recommendations that the task force made. The task force also recommended that the Canadian Centre for Justice Statistics carry out a national victimization study every five years.

Services Today

Thanks to the Canadian Centre for Justice Statistics at Statistics Canada, which has been carrying out those studies, we know that as of 2005/2006 there were at least 830 victim service agencies in Canada– a vast increase over the scattered programs that existed in 1983, when the task force issued its report. Those agencies serve about 400,000 victims of crime in a year. Most of the services remain police-based - the services are provided after contact with the police who make a referral to services. Victim Services are also found in community agencies, sexual assault centres, court-based agencies, and system-based agencies. The services provide general information, emotional support, liaisons with other service agencies, immediate safety planning, information about how the criminal justice process works, and public education and prevention information.

In 2000, the Department of Justice created the Policy Centre for Victim Issues. The Policy Centre for Victim Issues develops policy and laws and works to ensure victim perspectives are reflected in policies and legislation, raises awareness among victims of their role in the criminal justice system and increases awareness about the needs of victims of crime in Canada.

As part of its mandate, the Centre administers the Victims Fund — an initiative that seeks to bolster victim services and provide limited funding directly to victims of crime.  The Victims Fund provides money to provinces and territories to assist in the implementation of legislation focused on victims, to victim services projects and activities of governments and non-governmental organizations, and individual victims of crime or surviving family members in limited situations.

Through the Victim’s Fund, the Department of Justice provides funding directly to victims in four situations: funding for Canadians victimized abroad, or their family members, to return to Canada or to travel to attend court proceedings in the country where the crime occurred; funding for the victim or family of a victim to attend a National Parole Board hearing and; to family members of victims of homicide to attend Criminal Code section 745.6 early parole eligibility hearings; and to individual victims of crime or family members in exceptional circumstances for emergency situations of undue hardship where no other source of financial assistance is available

A National Office for Victims within the Department of Public Safety, set up in November 2005, acts as a central resource providing information and support to victims and the public on federal correctional issues.   

In 2007, the federal government created the Office of the Federal Ombudsman for Victims of Crime. The Office relates exclusively to matters of federal responsibility and includes:

• facilitating access of victims to existing federal programs and services through information and referrals
• addressing complaints of victims regarding those provisions of the Corrections and Conditional Release Act that apply to victims of offenders under federal supervision
• enhancing awareness among criminal justice personnel and policy makers of the needs and concerns of victims and existing laws designed to assist victims
• promoting the principles set out in the Canadian Statement of Basic Principles of Justice for Victims of Crime
• identifying emerging issues and explore systemic issues that impact negatively on victims of crime.

Gaps in the System

According to the Canadian Centre for Justice Statistics survey an average of 400,000 people are victimized each year for whom support services are critical. Despite the growth in victim services there remain gaps in the system, several former task force members identified a shortage of financial resources as one problem that continues to exist.

Michel Vallée, now a professor at Ottawa's Carleton University, also believes more support is required to families in need or families at risk who are putting children at risk – especially the pre-adolescents.

“In the last 20 years, we focused on the teenage/adolescent years and delinquency to early years intervention,” he says. “We forgot that a large number of pre-adolescent kids get in trouble and become future criminals, because we're not putting much attention on them.”

A quarter of Canadian children are at or below the poverty level, Vallée points out. Statistically, those children are therefore more likely to be a victim of crime. Part of any successful strategy to reduce victimization must therefore include tackling poverty, he believes. “We need much more direct community intervention,” says Vallée.”

Yvon Dandurand believes that funding methods for victims services need another look, as well as whether the programs that do exist actually meet victims' needs.

“The work that the task force did is something the people in the system need to look at constantly,” he says. “A lot of what the task force did was done for the first time, but it should be done on an on-going basis.”

He also cites the need to continue to find ways to protect witnesses from intimidation, in particular by gangs or organized crime, as under-serviced areas.

For Susan Lee, who spent much of her career working in victim services, the programs that exist in Ontario need more support on the ground to provide individual attention to victims.

“The system has become overly bureaucratized,” she says. “There's a frustration that there's not enough resources in the offices around the province to provide the kind of service they'd like to provide.”

Lesley Parrott, who has helped to provide support to many bereaved families, believes the fundamental gap in the system of victim services is its lack of integration. Once offenders are apprehended, a system exists to track them from the time they are charged to the time they are convicted and ultimately paroled or freed. The system provides them with lawyers, monitors them in prison, provides education or rehabilitation programs and post-jail support.

“For the victims, there's no such system,” Parrott says. “There should be a (societal) system that tracks and supports the families. There's enormous hardship there.”

Parrott would like to see a central co-ordination of victims' files, with someone to help them navigate compensation programs, deal with the media, direct them to bereavement support if they need it, help them deal with their ability to return to work and to rebuild their lives, and also keep them informed about offenders' parole board hearings or discharge dates.

“To some extent there's a much greater focus on victims now generally,” Parrott acknowledges. “But I still don't think people get this sense of integration, and that there are people actually there for them.” She would like a system of true victim advocates and supports, a victim's office that is integrated into the entire judicial system.

From the bench, James Blacklock also agrees that there are sometimes problems in the system with occasional miscommunication to victims and witnesses. But he's not sure systemic changes are the answer. He believes that awareness of and sensitivity to victims exists throughout the process.

“We're not perfect. We still make mistakes. But we're way better than we used to be,” Blacklock says.

Steve Sullivan, Federal Ombudsman for Victims of Crime, has worked in the victim advocacy movement for much of his career and is intimately familiar with the Task Force’s recommendations. It's hard to explain to victims who are living through trauma today how much progress has been made, Sullivan says.

“The people on that task force – they've had a real impact on policy, not just on the federal realm,” Sullivan says. “The awareness raised within Crown Attorneys and police services has been pretty recognizable to people who have been around a long time.”

“There's still a lot of work to be done and unfortunately not everyone sees the value of involving victims in the process, but we've come a long way and a lot of it was due to that task force.”

The task force's greatest impact was on attitudes about victims, says Yvon Dandurand.

“It just put the whole question on the policy agenda for the country,” he says. “It was an expression of a social change at the time, and it also contributed to that social change.”

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Task Force Members

Don Sinclair
Visiting Processor, University of Toronto
Chairman

Ruth Pitman
Provincial Secretariat for Justice, Ontario
Secretary

Robert Adamson
Ministry of the Attorney General, British Columbia

James Blacklock
Ministry of the Attorney General, Ontario

Richard Chaloner
Ministry of the Attorney General, Ontario

Yvon Dandurand
Department of Justice, Canada

Arthur Daniels
Ministry of Community and Social Services, Ontario

Bonnie Foster
Ministry of Correctional Services, Ontario

Gil Goodman
Department of the Attorney General, Manitoba

Serge Kujawa
Department of the Attorney General, Saskatchewan

Shaun MacGrath
Ontario Police Commission

Christopher Nuttall
Ministry of the Solicitor General, Canada

Padraig ODonoghue
Yukon Department of Justice

Gerard Phillips
Department of Justice and Public Services, Northwest Territories

Daniel C. Préfontaine
Department of Justice, Canada
Yaroslaw Roslak
Department of the Attorney General, Alberta

Michel Vallée
Ministry of the Solicitor General, Canada

Robert Wilson
Department of Justice, Canada

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