Canada’s justice minister says justice reforms necessary for reconciliation
- Angela Hill | September 17, 2018
Canada’s Minister of Justice Jody Wilson-Raybould spoke about the importance of Indigenous nation rebuilding and rights recognition in criminal justice reform and reconciliation at the University of Saskatchewan last week.
“Reforms to the criminal justice system represent an important, even vital, step in the path towards reconciliation,” she said to the audience of about 300 at the Johnson Shoyama Graduate School of Public Policy’s Houston Lecture.
Her message struck a positive note with Kathy Byl, who was in Saskatoon from the Battlefords.
“The marrying of these two topics is so relevant,” she said. “At this point in time we must move forward.”
Wilson-Raybould talked about the need for new policy to create true recognition of rights for Indigenous people.
“The current circumstances faced by people in the criminal justice system are inseparable from the historic and contemporary impacts of colonialism and denial of indigenous rights,” she said.
Often when Indigenous people, usually young men, come in contact with the justice system, they never get free, Wilson- Raybould said.
“We need to find more ways to prevent that first contact with the criminal justice system,” she said, pointing to housing, employment and education opportunities as areas to be strengthened.
The government wants to facilitate working to rebuild the systems of justice, Wilson-Raybould said.
People who go through restorative justice have shown less risk to reoffend, she said. She added that she is committed to expanding this resource so “it is more widely used and more widely accepted across the country.”
Bill C-75 has measures to address overincarceration of Indigenous people due to administration of justice offenses, such as bail breaches, Wilson-Raybould said. It also includes measures on jury selection.
“While Indigenous peoples are overrepresented as victims and offenders, they are underrepresented on juries,” Wilson-Raybould said, adding a transparent process for appointing federal judges and more diverse judges is another key piece.
Wilson-Raybould said she is challenged in this work, but she also continues to challenge others to make change.
“My focus on reconciliation in supporting the work involved in building indigenous nations … is both personal, obviously, and professional,” she said.
Dallas Pelly took the lecture as an opportunity to meet the minister; he tweeted a photo of it.
“When I heard the conversation on nationhood that really sparked something in me,” he said. “There is no greater time to be advancing the conversation about reconciliation especially in regards to reforming our criminal justice system.”