In theory, Canadians have equal rights. In practice, they do not.

Today, Team Dimitri releases the Justice Reform chapter of our campaign platform. 

Indigenous and racialized communities are over-incarcerated, and are treated unequally within the prison system.

In January 2020, Canada’s correctional commissioner revealed that over 30% of inmates in Canadian prisons are Indigenous – even though aboriginal people make up just 5% of the population. Between 2005 and 2015, the number of Black inmates in Canada’s federal prisons ballooned by 69%.

Experts have been sounding the alarm for years. For example, in 2017, the John Howard Society reported the following:

"The extent to which Blacks and Aboriginals are over represented in Canadian correctional institutions is similar to that of African Americans in the United States.  Blacks are over represented in federal prisons by more than 300% vs their population, while for Aboriginals the over representation is nearly 500%. The same disparities exist in provincial jails.  In Nova Scotia Blacks are 2% of the population but 14% of the jail population.  In Manitoba Aboriginals are 16% of the population but 70% of the jail population.  In Alberta the numbers for Aboriginals are 6% and 39%.  Moreover, these imbalances are getting worse, not better."

...

"Once in jail, these minorities are more likely to be subject to disciplinary procedures and less likely to be paroled.   Aboriginal people make up more than 21% of federal prisoners but less than 14% of parolees, a 50% under-representation."

Rather than solve the problem of bias within the criminal justice system, the current government has allowed it to get worse by failing to regulate the development and use of so called “predictive” software across the criminal justice system and other areas of law, without understanding how these systems perpetuate unfairness and bias. (Predictive software is software that purports to “predict” who is at most risk of (re) offending. These technologies hide and perpetuate biases.) As the Law Commission of Ontario has emphasized:

“Critically, there is no legal framework in Canada to guide the use of these technologies or their intersection with foundational rights related to due process, administrative fairness, human rights, and justice system transparency.” (See [1])

To address inequities in the prison system, Canada should:

• Institute a requirement that, at the outset of incarceration, correctional authorities develop a personal rehabilitation plan (PRP) that is tailored to the needs and circumstances of each incoming inmate. PRP’s will be subject to periodic audits by an independent auditor to ensure that they are effective and are implemented.
• Ban the use of predictive software until it can be demonstrated that it does not adopt and perpetuate existing racial and other biases. (See [2])
• Develop a legal framework for predictive software to guide the use of these technologies to ensure that they do not automate the violation of human rights and freedoms.
• Give effect to The Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s Calls to Action as they relate to the justice system, including calls for funding to ensure community-based sanctions and realistic alternatives to imprisonment. (See [3])

Our justice system also relies too heavily on punishment, at the cost of rehabilitation. Ultimately, rehabilitation is what reduces future offences and secures the public's safety. Therefore, Canada should:

• Institute a requirement that the criminal justice system be guided by the principle that prison is a last resort, and that prolonged prison sentences should be reserved for only the most extreme and intractable offenders.
• Eliminate mandatory minimum sentences.
• Make rehabilitation the primary guideline for sentencing and prison management, not punishment.
• Institute a prohibition on solitary confinement, which constitutes torture and remains in use in our system. (See [4])

Back to Platform

[1] Automated Decision Making in the Criminal Justice System at p. 4, https://www.lco-cdo.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/LCO-Crim-AI-Background-Package.pdf
[2] Again see https://www.lco-cdo.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/LCO-Crim-AI-Background-Package.pdf
[3] See paragraphs 25-42 of the Calls to Action: http://trc.ca/assets/pdf/Calls_to_Action_English2.pdf
[4] For an update on developments, including critiques of legislation that purportedly ended solitary confinement, see this overview dated Dec. 1, 2019: https://theconversation.com/the-end-of-solitary-confinement-in-canada-not-exactly-124679#:~:text=As%20of%20Dec.,Sort%20of.&text=The%20act%20eliminates%20administrative%20and,also%20known%20as%20solitary%20confinement.

Too often, international law takes a back seat to political interests. To create a fair international order based on the rule of law, we must remove loopholes and exceptions that prevent international law from being properly applied across borders.

Canada should:

• Adopt legislation conferring on Canadian Courts universal jurisdiction for prosecuting war crimes and crimes against humanity.
• Eliminate any requirement of cabinet-level approval for prosecution of war crimes or crimes against humanity.
• Amend Canada's human rights and environmental laws, so that the victims of human rights abuses by foreign subsidiaries of Canadian companies are guaranteed the right to sue the Canadian parent companies in Canadian courts.

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Large corporations in Canada are held to a much more lax standard of justice than private citizens. Because large corporations co-ordinate so much of the productive activity in Canada, especially resource extraction, failing to hold them accountable means that regular violations are inevitable. And when those violations occur, it's regular Canadians who suffer.

Canada should:

• Ban deferred prosecution agreements for corporate entities and for their directors and officers.
• Ensure that corporations are held accountable for environmental degradation. (For example, see [1])
• Regulate the sale of spy software by Canadian companies to regimes that violate human rights, and regulate against the increasing use of spyware technologies in Canada, especially against human rights defenders and journalists. (See [2] and [3])
• Regulate the increasing use of spy software in Canada, especially against human rights defenders and journalists. (See [2] and [3])
• Limit public-health tracking projects, such as coronavirus tracking, by excluding spy software companies that participate in human rights abuses, as they have proven themselves to be untrustworthy. (See [4])
• Suspend Canadian arms sales to Saudi Arabia. (See [5])

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[1] https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/environment-commissioner-julie-gelfand-disturbing-climate-change-1.5081027
[2] https://citizenlab.ca/2018/09/hide-and-seek-tracking-nso-groups-pegasus-spyware-to-operations-in-45-countries/
[3] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jan/16/israeli-spyware-firm-nso-hacking-case
[4] https://www.bbc.com/news/health-52134452
[5] https://takeaction.amnesty.ca/page/35358/action/1?gclid=EAIaIQobChMI3YS7pOeV6gIVirbICh2POwKOEAMYASAAEgIsR_D_BwE

The privacy relationship between government and people has been turned upside-down. People have a right to their privacy, but are increasingly subject to surveillance and intrusion. Governments should be transparent, but are becoming steadily less transparent as they adopt the use of surveillance technologies and data surveillance, including in the response to the coronavirus pandemic. (See [1]).

Canada should:

• Guarantee and effectively implement digital and data surveillance privacy rights. (See [2])
• Prohibit the routine surveillance of protestors. Canadians who protest against the government should not be seen as a security threat simply by way of protesting.
• Prohibit the sharing of protesters' and NGO staff information with the National Energy Board and with other bodies who have no business receiving that information.
• Amend the legislation governing CSIS to make CSIS subject to due process requirements that are the same as police forces.
• Like the RCMP, subject CSIS to internal human rights and equality audits. If CSIS is biased and unable to respect human rights within its own ranks, it will not be able to respect diversity and human rights when fulfilling its duties. (See [3])

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[1] https://ccla.org/coronavirus-update-data-surveillance/
[2] https://iclmg.ca/digital-surveillance-covid-19/
[3] https://theconversation.com/why-charging-incels-with-terrorism-may-make-matters-worse-139457

Indigenous and racialized communities in Canada are over-policed. Moreover, police resort to force far too often, and frequently employ excessive force.

Racialized communities and those living at a lower socio-economic status are disproportionately “randomly” stopped and carded. Not only are these stops arbitrary, the information collected from them is not well-regulated. Police forces are sharing this information without proper respect for the privacy interests of people who are stopped, and without the necessary caution to ensure the information is not improperly used. (See [1]).

Our policing system deals with the symptoms of criminal behaviour and not the root causes. By refocusing our resources and efforts on addressing the root causes of crime, we can ultimately create a society in which the police are unnecessary and can be abolished.

Because policing in Canada is managed at both the federal and provincial level, the federal government must act in the areas where it has power to effect change. Primarily, this means the RCMP.

Canada should:

• Over five years, defund the RCMP by 50% and reallocate those funds to initiatives and systems that empower communities to promote their wellbeing and prevent violence before it escalates. This reallocation of funding is particularly important in marginalized communities where policing disproportionately occurs.
• Institute a national ban on carding, and prohibit the RCMP and CSIS from receiving or using information obtained from carding.
• Strengthen civilian oversight of the RCMP by requiring the Civilian Review and Complaints Commission (CRCC) to disclose its reports in any case where the complainant and witnesses to the alleged RCMP misconduct consent to disclosure.
• Require the CRCC to track and disclose annual data on the racial background of complainants.
• Make the CRCC’s recommendations enforceable, so that the RCMP no longer has the authority to disregard the recommendations of the CRCC.
• Conduct an external human rights audit of the RCMP annually to ensure progress against human rights indicators. The goal of this audit would be to support cultural change within the force and prevent further harassment and discrimination by the RCMP as detailed in the Merlo Davidson class action settlement.  The RCMP sought over $50 million dollars in extra funding to pay for this class action alone.  This money would have been better spent serving communities than paying for decades of harassment and human rights abuses.  (On the budget request, see [2]. On the settlement, see [3])
• Require police forces to recruit equitably, so that forces reflect the racial, sexual orientation, and gender composition of the population they serve, and ensure that trainers are experts in equality, diversity and inclusion principles and practices.
• Monitor prosecutorial decision-making for biases and tunnel vision in deciding which offenses to prosecute. This can be done, in part, by introducing a “contrarian thinking advocate” within Crown Prosecutors offices as recognized by the Public Prosecution Services of Canada. (see [4])

To ensure Canadian policing is de-militarized and shifts to non-violent policing approaches, Canada should:

• Institute a major programme of training in non-violent policing, aimed at enhancing the trustworthiness of police forces within the communities they serve.
• Review RCMP training methods and manuals to ensure these do not encourage the use of force, especially potentially lethal force.
• Review hiring practices to ensure that recruits have the necessary skills to problem-solve without resorting to use of force.
• Ban counter-productive training exercises between Canadian police and foreign police forces that have a record of infringing civil liberties or human rights.

Back to Platform

[1] https://www.mcscs.jus.gov.on.ca/english/Policing/StreetChecks/ReportIndependentStreetChecksReview2018.html#part_I
[2] https://www.canada.ca/en/department-national-defence/corporate/reports-publications/proactive-disclosure/vac-estimates-budget/rcmp-estimates-budget.html
[3] https://merlodavidson.ca/en/rcmp-settlement/the-agreement/
[4] https://www.ppsc-sppc.gc.ca/eng/pub/is-ip/ch2.html#ch2_4