Need To Re-define The Definition Of Victim

I don't think that relatives of the perpetrators should be considered "victims" and awarded money from the fund and we have to re-define the whole thing. Victims of crime are eligible for medical treatment under our system but if the "attack" results in injuries that require long term funding I can go along with this but what I can't go along with is this crap about pain and suffering.

Ont. crime compensation system a 'failure': ombud
CTV.ca News Staff

Ontario's Criminal Injuries Compensation Board is a "colossal failure" that needlessly revictimizes people, said the province's ombudsman in a scathing report.

In his report titled "Adding Insult to Injury," Ombudsman Andre Marin says the board has been underfunded for years.

Morin blames successive governments for allowing the board to "embrace lethargy and delay as a survival tactic."

Marin also accused the board of having "an official document fetish," because of what he calls its obsession with having its lengthy application forms filled out perfectly.

"People are having to deal with an avalanche of forms, sometimes up to 51 forms," Marin said in an interview on CTV Newsnet. "Forty per cent of the forms are returned as incomplete, for technical reasons such as 'you put too much information, so redo the form.'"

Marin said he found one instance where an injury victim with the name Wilkins got his form returned to him by the board because he failed to dot the second 'i' on the form.

"It's really a system that's lost it's mission, that's lost its raison d'etre and we're hoping to set it straight today," said Marin.

The ombudsman also details in his report cases of several victims who got what he calls a "lengthy run around." One blind retiree, for instance, had to choose between food and burying her murdered daughter.

He says the government made pious pledges to help victims, but did nothing to fix well-known problems at the board, "pretending to act by studying the thing to death."

Marin launched an investigation after an increasing number of complaints to his office from people who felt they were revictimized by the board's actions.

It takes an average of three years to process a crime victims' compensation claim in Ontario, compared with two months in Quebec and up to six months in British Columbia.

Marin said part of the reason why such an "underground culture of delay" was able to evolve at the board is because of improper funding.

"It had no money. It was starved and forced into this situation and so the first thing we need to do is fund it properly," he told Newsnet.

Morin says while the board is starved for cash, a Victims of Justice Fund, which gives money for programs and services, has an $80 million surplus that the government refuses to use to compensate victims.

"What we need to do is use money from that fund right away. ... Secondly, if we find out we're running a champagne program on a beer budget, make sure you retune it, make sure it's something the government can live with and not hold out a promise to victims of crime that we can't fulfill."