February 04, 2013

TORONTO, FEBRUARY 4, 2013 – The Honourable Rob Nicholson, P.C., Q.C., M.P. for Niagara Falls, Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada, today met with stakeholders to set out and discuss the next phase of the Government of Canada’s plan for safe streets and communities.

“Restoring Canadians' confidence in their justice system has been an important priority for our Government,” said Minister Nicholson. “As we move forward to ensure that Canadians have safe streets and communities to live in, our Government will build on our successes of the last seven years to make additional progress to hold criminals accountable, put victims first, protect our children, and make Canada's justice system more efficient.”

The Government will take further action in the following areas:

Tackling crime by holding violent criminals accountable for their crimes

• The Government intends to bring forward legislation to further toughen penalties for child sexual offences, as well as to better address the risks posed by known child sex offenders.
• The Government will soon introduce legislation to better protect the public from accused persons who have been found Not Criminally Responsible on account of mental disorder. Such legislation would ensure that public safety is the paramount consideration in these cases.

Enhancing the rights of victims

• The Government will bring forward legislation to implement a Victims Bill of Rights. This will further enhance the Government’s commitment to victims of crime by entrenching their rights into a single law at the federal level.
• The Government will also address the important issue of restitution by facilitating victims’ ability to obtain restitution where they incur losses.

Increasing the efficiency of our justice system

• The Government will continue to look at measures to make our justice system more efficient, including:
  • making the bail regime more effective and efficient;
  • using new technologies in the justice system; and
  • making the extradition regime more effective and efficient.

“Crime has devastated the lives of far too many people in this country,” added Minister Nicholson. “We must continue and expand on our many successful efforts to date to restore public faith in our criminal justice system for the benefit of all Canadians.”