Justice committee  Absolutely, and I think you've heard the best kind of evidence on that point from people like Robin Parker and Megan Stephens. I urge you to listen to that, based on their decades of experience representing survivors and also their experiences with Crown and criminal defence lawyers as well.

Justice committee  Legal aid is also drastically underfunded and something I would like to see governments at the provincial and the federal level increase investments in. We saw in Ontario recently the announcement of the first tariff increase—I believe I'm getting this right—in maybe over 10 years, and it's just 15%.

Justice committee  I've seen this a bit, not just with my LEAF hat on but also with the experience of having advised complainants with section 276 and 278.1 applications before the court. You don't want complainants and survivors having in-depth conversations with the Crown that are unnecessary to the process, because that triggers, as you've heard from multiple people here, disclosure obligations.

Justice committee  I would actually defer to my co-panellist on that.

Justice committee  I would like to see a plain language explanation of exactly what the law is, once and if Bill S-12 is passed by the House of Commons back to the Senate, with any amendments of course. If the Parliament approves that, I'd like to see plain language resources for survivors to explain exactly what the legislation requires.

Justice committee  If I can piggyback onto that point within 30 seconds, it also calls for looking at ways, other than the criminal system, to provide that kind of justice to survivors, to look at restorative justice or transformative justice options, to look at centring survivors' healing in the process and to giving them choice in how they go about that healing path.

Justice committee  I think the courts are under-resourced, as a blanket statement.

Justice committee  I think that Bill S-12 right now centres that issue in ensuring that survivors can exercise choice and agency in determining what choice is best for them in the circumstances. Bill S-12 allows for publication bans to be put in place right off the bat, which, as acknowledged and heard at this committee, can feel like a suffocating or retraumatizing experience for some survivors.

Justice committee  I'd say perhaps a case where there is a very narrow scope of individuals who are covered by the publication ban, such as a single individual, a single victim or complainant, where nobody else's interests are impacted. It juxtaposes, of course, with cases where there are multiple complainants, where there are different privacy interests that may be competing or where you have different desires among those individuals to have the privacy protections of a publication ban and those who do not want those privacy protections.

Justice committee  I'd have to give you a blanket answer, and I think the legislation provides for a process that allows those voices to be heard and for courts to consider whether a tailoring of a publication ban could address those various privacy interests. I think it would be a case-by-case determination, and Bill S-12 does give tools to the court to be able to make that kind of decision, one that hopefully, to the greatest extent possible, allows for every victim's or complainant's wishes to be taken into consideration and to ultimately be respected.

Justice committee  Thank you, Madam Chair. Good afternoon. As has been mentioned, my name is Pam Hrick. I'm the executive director and general counsel of the Women's Legal Education and Action Fund, or LEAF. We use litigation, law reform and public legal education to advance the equality of women, girls, trans and non-binary people.

Justice committee  I do think that we need to ensure that survivors—and in the context of the criminal system, they're legally called “complainants”—do have access to that independent legal advice and are given proper information throughout from the Crown prosecution service, and from the victim/witness assistance program and equivalents outside the province of Ontario as well, to ensure they have a working knowledge of exactly what they're going into and exactly what this process is going to look like so that they can make informed decisions and informed preparations along the way.

Justice committee  I'd say that we do need to have better education and information sharing about this. I know that the Supreme Court, in cases like this, of course gives a bit of a heads-up that the decision is coming so the implications of it can be thought through and plans can be made in advance where there are enough resources to do so.

Justice committee  I envision fully funding, as Ms. Khan already said, restorative justice, transformative justice processes and community-based accountability mechanisms. As somebody who has been on the front lines of some of that, Ms. Khan may be well placed to actually share some of those experiences and expertise on that specific question.

Justice committee  I appreciate the opportunity to be able to speak to this. My concern with any sort of reverse onus at this point is the large risk that the Supreme Court would find that to be unconstitutional. What I do appreciate about how this particular bill was tailored and implemented is the nuance that it allows to be brought to consideration of the defence.