International Centre for Criminal Law Reform and Criminal Justice Policy Production and Delivery of Gladue Pre-sentence Reports A Review of Selected Canadian Programs Patricia Barkaskas Vivienne Chin Yvon Dandurand Dallas Tooshkenig Report submitted to the Law Foundation of British Columbia Vancouver, October 9, 2019 The International Centre for Criminal Law Reform and Criminal Justice Policy (ICCLR) is a member of the United Nations Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice Programme Network Institute; an independent UN-affiliated international research institute based in Vancouver, Canada. Founded in 1991, ICCLR is a joint initiative of the Government of Canada, University of British Columbia, Simon Fraser University, the International Society for the Reform of Criminal Law, and the Province of British Columbia. It is officially affiliated with the United Nations pursuant to a formal agreement between the Government of Canada and the UN.1 This study was funded by the Law Foundation of British Columbia and conducted in collaboration with the Ministry of the Attorney General of British Columbia and Legal Services Society of British Columbia. 1 See: https://icclr.org/about/ I Acknowledgments We wish to acknowledge the Members of the Advisory Groups and thank them for the time they gave to assisting with the production of this report at various stages: Rhaea Bailey Rachelle Dallaire John Nsabimana Boyd Peters Jonathan Rudin Timothy Scolnick Darlene Shackelly The Honourable Garth Smith Carly Teillet Daleen Thomas Anisa White Doug White Mitch Walker We also wish to offer special thanks to others who have facilitated the production of this report in various ways: Jeannet Apps, Rhaea Bailey, Dr. Jane Dickson, Annie Fletcher, Elaine Hunt, Madeleine Northcote, Ben Ralston, Jonathan Rudin, Rhonda Schooner- Sandoval, Iris Siwallace, Bethany Knox, Sean Malone, Lori St-Onge, Annick Laterreur, as well as the Elders, community members, Chief and Council and Hereditary Chiefs of the Naxulk Nation, and Nuxulk Radio. We wish to offer apologies to anyone we have neglected to include in the above. II Note In the course of conducting research for this report the research team heard that the family of Jamie Tanis Gladue, the woman whose case resulted in the landmark Supreme Court of Canada ruling in R. v. Gladue in 1999, has expressed concerns about the legal terms associated with the Gladue decision being referenced always prefaced by “Gladue” (i.e.: Gladue factors, Gladue reports, Gladue rights, Gladue submissions, etc.). While we were unable to locate any information about this or confirm it, the research team does wish to acknowledge these sentiments and include them here if only to hold space for the possibility of this being the case. We acknowledge that we continue to reference these terms in this way throughout this report. We do not wish to further inflict harm on Ms. Gladue or her family by referring to the concepts coming out of the Supreme Court of Canada’s decision and the development of the law since then in a manner that may seem to freeze Ms. Gladue in time or only connects her to encounters with the Canadian criminal justice system. Rather, recognizing the power of words and the importance of associating a person’s name with specific experiences or life events, we wish to express that from our perspective, Ms. Gladue’s name as associated with the Gladue decision and legal impacts it has for all Indigenous peoples in Canada is for us a harbinger of hope that invokes a call to justice and meaningful access to justice for all Indigenous peoples. The Criminal Code of Canada refers specifically to “Aboriginal offenders” in s.718.2(e), as does the Supreme Court of Canada (SCC) in R. v. Gladue, [1999] 1 S.C.R. 688. Throughout this report we use the terms “Aboriginal offenders” or “Indigenous offenders”. In using these terms we refer to Aboriginal/ Indigenous individuals who have been convicted of committing a criminal offence and who have been sentenced in a Canadian court of law, and who are entitled to specialized pre-sentence reports, also called Gladue reports. This is in no way meant to represent these Indigenous peoples as defined by their encounters with the criminal justice system, but rather to describe the position they find themselves in within the criminal justice system when being sentenced. We do not suggest this is the only circumstance when an Indigenous person’s Gladue rights may be engaged or when they may benefit from a Gladue report. We are inspired by the resilience, strength, and survivance of Indigenous people who have challenged the fairness of the Canadian justice system for Indigenous peoples and who have survived and continue to thrive despite the individual and collective impacts of colonialism. All Our Relations III Table of Contents Acknowledgments ................................................................................................................................. ii Note ....................................................................................................................................................... iii Terms and Definitions .......................................................................................................................... 7 Introduction ........................................................................................................................................ 11 Method ................................................................................................................................................. 13 1. General description of the issue(s) ............................................................................................... 16 2. Discussions in British Columbia .................................................................................................. 20 2.1 Tenth and Eleventh BC Justice Summits ................................................................................ 21 2.2 Gladue Knowledge Sharing Gathering .................................................................................... 22 2.1 BC First Nations Justice Council and the Métis Nation of British Columbia Consultations .. 23 2.2 Legal Services Society’s Gladue programs ............................................................................. 24 2.3 Law Foundation of British Columbia ...................................................................................... 26 3. Court decisions and Gladue reports ............................................................................................ 26 4. Focus of this comparative analysis and the issues considered in this report ........................... 29 4.1 Who is Responsible for the Production and Delivery of Gladue Reports? ............................. 30 4.2 Who can request a Gladue report?........................................................................................... 31 4.3 Are Gladue reports produced for bail hearings? ...................................................................... 34 4.4 Access to Gladue reports and eligibility criteria ..................................................................... 36 4.5 Are other forms of reports produced (PSR with Gladue component)? ................................... 38 4.6 Is there a prescribed format for Gladue reports? ..................................................................... 40 4.7 Who are the writers and what are the connections to Indigenous communities? ................... 41 4.8 Selection, recruitment, training, remuneration of writers ........................................................ 41 4.9 Support for writers................................................................................................................... 42 4.10 Perceived usefulness of the reports ......................................................................................... 42 4.11 Advantages and disadvantages of different models of service delivery .................................. 43 4.12 Who is responsible for funding for the production of Gladue reports ..................................... 43 4.13 Access to Gladue reports, protection of privacy ..................................................................... 43 5. Description of Provincial Programs ............................................................................................ 45 5.1. British Columbia ..................................................................................................................... 45 IV 5.2. Yukon ...................................................................................................................................... 48 5.3. Alberta ..................................................................................................................................... 50 5.4. Ontario ..................................................................................................................................... 51 5.5. Québec ........................................................................................ Error! Bookmark not defined. 5.6. Nova Scotia ............................................................................................................................. 55 5.7. Prince Edward Island ............................................................................................................... 57 6. ........................................................................................................................... Comparison Between Programs