Judical System Failure.......

It is bad enough that victims are not getting help but to make matters worse I have heard of cases where the families of the perpetrators have been award $$$ from the victim's compensation fund. McGinty needs to kick some butt and in all fairness Harper needs to look into the matter and ensure provinces are complying with the legislation.

In Canada, crime victims don't count

by SUN MEDIA

To understand the contempt in which crime victims are held by our justice system, one need only look at the ill-fated history of the Federal Victim Surcharge.

Passed in 1988 and toughened in 1999 when the surcharge was, in theory, made mandatory in order to compel criminals to compensate victims, the surcharge has been ignored by judges and poorly implemented by the provinces.

Meanwhile, federal politicians appear to have forgotten about the law as soon as they passed it.

As a result, tens of millions of dollars in restitution that could have gone to crime victims over the past 20 years, paid for by the criminals who harmed them, have been forfeited, an outrage which continues today.

The surcharge is hardly onerous -- 15% of any fine imposed by the court, or, if there is no fine, $100 for an indictable offence, $50 for crimes punishable by summary conviction.

Judges can impose higher surcharges if they wish and the surcharge is supposed to be automatic, unless the criminal can prove financial hardship.

And even in those cases, the court is supposed to keep a record of why the surcharge was waived.

However, a recent report by federal justice department researchers shows the implementation of the surcharge has been a farce.

In New Brunswick, it was waived in two-thirds of all applicable cases between 2000 and 2005 and in 99% of those cases, no record was kept of the reasons for the waiver.

Ontario, recently blasted by its ombudsman for its miserly treatment of crime victims, failed to collect $5.4 million of a potential $6.6 million in 2001 alone.

Alberta was better in collecting $1.1 million of a potential $1.8 million, but across Canada, lax enforcement has been the rule, not the exception.

Surely, making criminals pay at least minimal restitution to their victims is an issue beyond partisan politics, especially since this law was originally passed by a Conservative government and later toughened (in theory) by a Liberal one.

Ottawa must fix this fiasco.

Fast.