Bail reform bill ‘will put more Inuit in jail’: Nunavut lawyer
Nunavut Legal Aid’s Angnakuluk Friesen, Patrick Smith testify before Senate committee
Lawyers Angnakuluk Friesen, left, and Patrick Smith testify before a Senate committee on bail reform legislation Thursday morning in Ottawa. (Screenshots courtesy of SenVu)
Two Nunavut Legal Aid lawyers are warning that a federal bail and sentencing reform law may have negative consequences for Inuit in the territory.
Angnakuluk Friesen and Patrick Smith brought their testimony to the Senate’s Standing Committee on Legal and Constitutional Affairs meeting Thursday morning in Ottawa.
Senators are studying Bill C-14, which aims to tighten bail laws and impose stricter sentences for people convicted of violent crimes.
“When we say that Bill C-14 will put more Inuit in jail, it will,” Smith told senators.
Smith and Friesen, who was a Crown prosecutor before switching to defence, focused on a few areas of the bill, including a provision that aims to prevent people convicted of indictable offences in the past 10 years from acting as sureties.
When someone is charged with a crime and released on bail, they may be placed under the supervision of a surety, who could be a family member, friend or neighbour.
Nunavut courts “highly depend” on sureties, Friesen said. And in a territory where “a lot of individuals” have criminal records, she added, the lack of available sureties means more people will stay in jail.
“The judicial discretion that goes into deciding whether a surety is suitable is quite extensive in Nunavut, and often they are cross-examined in court on their criminal record,” she said.
“Our sureties are already highly scrutinized, along with struggling themselves with food insecurity and home insecurity.”
Both Friesen and Smith spoke of how a general lack of resources is contributing to crime.
“We cannot afford to place more Inuit at risk by relying on a system of detention without addressing first the real issues that plague Canada’s North,” Friesen said.
“Every neighbourhood is severely lacking in rooms, home, food, mental health services, even just space. And we’re in a really dire state right now, and we really can’t afford having more people being put in our jails.”
The “nature of crime” in Nunavut is different from the south, Smith said.
Alcohol addiction is a factor in about 70 per cent of his cases.
Despite that, the territory does not have a rehabilitation facility. The Aqqusariaq Recovery Centre in Iqaluit has yet to open.
Smith described some of his clients as “broken people” in need of support.
“We have violent offenders, we have violent offenders against women, there’s no doubt about that,” he said. “When I talk to my guys, it’s broken guys… You can see the trauma dripping off them.”
Bill C-14 has been approved by the House of Commons. It passed first and second reading at the Senate.
After committee approval, it requires third reading at the Senate and royal assent before it becomes law.
If you do the crime you do the time regardless of who you are and where you are. Remember, courts are supposed yo be their fir the victims, not the criminals.
Most victims are Inuit too. Their safety matters. Tightening bail for serious crime isn’t the problem it’s the bare minimum we owe them
End the Gladue Principle. Stop releasing people over and over and over. People with over 50 separate breaches of court imposed conditions are not good candidates for conditional sentence orders. Wake up court. Some people need to removed from society. Stop considering the needs of the offender over the safety of the victim. Offenders are not victims.
Wrong!
https://nunatsiaq.com/stories/article/man-handed-two-year-sentence-for-january-assault-in-iqaluit/
Broken people in need of support who break more people and cause misery.
More criminal in general need jail time not those who use trauma as their crutch for causing harm to others.
Imagine advocating against keeping sex offenders, PDF files and murderers in jail
If you can’t do the time, don’t do the crime. It’s time our courts give tough sentences to violent and repeat offenders.
In my view, Nunavut’s justice system needs significant improvement. The current approach can feel disorganized, with uneven case management and sentencing that too often seems inconsistent or insufficient to deter repeat offenses. That undermines public confidence and leaves victims and communities feeling unprotected. While Nunavut faces real, unique challenges—remoteness, resource constraints, and the importance of culturally appropriate, restorative practices—those realities should be matched with stronger structure and accountability. Clearer sentencing guidelines, more consistent application of consequences for serious and repeat crimes, and better support for courts, prosecutors, legal aid, and victim services would help. Investments in case management, timely hearings, and transparent public reporting on sentencing outcomes could improve both fairness and deterrence. Rehabilitation and restorative justice remain essential, but they should be paired with meaningful, predictable penalties where warranted. A system that is organized, adequately resourced, and consistent will do more to protect communities while still respecting local context and promoting long-term social stability.
Nunavut’s justice system is failing on the basics: deterrence, consistency, and public safety. Lenient sentencing, weak bail and breach enforcement, and chronic delays have created a climate where repeat and violent offenders expect minimal consequences. Victims absorb the damage while communities lose trust in the courts.
Accountability must be non-negotiable. For serious and repeat crimes, impose clearer, tougher sentences, real time in custody, and strict supervision on release. Breaches should trigger immediate consequences. Eliminate backlogs with more prosecutors, judges, and court time. Expand correctional capacity and probation so orders are actually enforced. Publish sentencing data to ensure consistency and transparency. Restorative approaches have a place, but they cannot substitute for firm, predictable penalties when people continue to offend.
The Justice system is sadly a great big joke in Nunavut.
The Canadian Justice system really does need to be reformed. For far too long it has been focused on reforming and “repairing” some of Canada’s worst. Maybe by keeping some of these behind bars, removed from society it will keep potential victims from becoming victims. There is a reason some have 50 breaches of their probation, and 14 year olds are stealing cars, there is no expectation of accountability from either side.
I can’t stand these rage bait headlines, especially because they are so deceiving. You expect that professional writers would know how language works well enough to avoid intentionally write something misleading, but that’s the rub… they mislead us on purpose to ‘engage’ (rage farm) us.
The reform bill will NOT put more Inuit in jail, it will keep the ones already incarcerated in jail longer. Of course we can debate whether that is desirable or not.
Shame on you Nunatsiaq, once again playing stupid just so you please your corporate masters by showing off your readership numbers.
Bluffy, what’s deceiving?
I didn’t listen to the testimony but the quote in the headline is in the article:
“When we say that Bill C-14 will put more Inuit in jail, it will,” Smith told senators.
Perhaps your issue is more with how Smith presented it, not how Nunatsiaq reported it.
You’re right Stewart, my contempt for Nunatsiaq News creates a blind spot for me sometimes. Thanks for pointing that out.
The lawyer used evocative language to get attention and ellicit an emotional response, pure politics. It’s still disingenuous to say the bill will put more Inuit in jail. This is an optical illusion built for traction.
Also when people that are not original from Nunavut and get busted or done a crime they get let go on bail and can’t ever find the person anymore because they left Nunavut to evade the consequences
People are beyond done with crime in our small communities. Its constant, constant hurt, constant violence, reoffender after reoffender. No one cares if the “nature” of the crime is different because of alcohol, its crime, and people are sick of it. Not only that these people committing crimes continue to make poor decisions when not incarcerated, more uncared for kids are born, the cycle just keeps going indefinitely.
If people cant carry themselves reasonably well within a society, they should be removed from such society as to not cause harm to those that can.
Any while I understand we do not have all the rehabilitation programs in the world, I don’t think that’s an excuse to let violent, harm causing individuals back into the public because oh its not fair to them to go to jail. No, its not fair that everyone else has to deal with them back in the community.
People are just done with it.
I have seen Iceland’s only prison, and watched documentaries on corrections facilities in Scandinavian countries.
Physically, they do not look like jails in Canada. They look like tiny villages. The infrastructure and programming in these facilities are geared towards rehabilitation. Prison life is designed to mirror what offenders will experience when they get out. They are taught how to act better when they are released and skills so they can be productive citizens.
It is no surprise then that places like Norway, Denmark, Sweden, and Iceland have among the lowest recidivism rates in the world.
Nunavut may not have a bail problem. We may not even have a bias against Inuit accused within the justice system. What we definitely have is a huge problem with our approach to corrections.
If you were not fully broken as a peaceful human being going into our jails, chances are, you will be by the time you come out.
I am not for advocating for special or favorable treatment of criminals. However, it is self-evidently true that if you treat a person like an animal in a cage, they will act more and more like an animal.
If our remand conditions were not so medieval, perhaps we would not have our Legal Aid lawyers down at the Senate complaining about common sense public safety bail reform.
Time to switch the Kool-Aid to something based in reality. Not sure which documentaries you watch, but crime in Iceland is horrible and I can’t believe that you would use that as an example. 1 in 4 women has been sensually assaulted and the rate of domestic violence has increased more than 40% in the last decade. If you are going to compare our dysfunctional system to another, you should maybe use Google prior to your comments
Incorrect.
Scandinavian countries have been changing their definition of sexual assault so it centres around consent, not force. AS a result, their conviction rates have gone way up.
It would be a good idea if you should maybe use Google prior to your comments
Passing the bill wont put them nehind bars, doing the crime would, or it should!
I have a bit of a different take on this story. While I support tightening the bail laws, I’m not prepared to just dismiss those who have concerns about doing so. These people have fair arguments to make even though I don’t agree with them.
What bothers me is that this unelected and unaccountable senate is able to get involved in this issue. This senate could even conceivably override and frustrate the will of the elected House of Commons and keep the bail laws as they are. That is unacceptable to me in a democracy that we like to think we have in Canada. Our democratically elected government has made a policy choice to tighten the bail laws, and that decision should be respected whether you like it or not. These unelected senators have no business revisiting it. Time to get rid of that useless body.
Whatever happened to justice for MMIWG? Can’t go both ways.
The justice system in Nunavut cannot realistically be compared to those in many European countries, and under the current structure, it is unlikely to reach that standard. There are deep-rooted challenges that need to be addressed before meaningful progress can occur.
Too often, there is a misconception that being lenient or overly accommodating with incarcerated individuals equates to accountability. In reality, true restorative justice begins with clear responsibility for one’s actions. It is not about treating offenders as if they are incapable of understanding consequences, but rather about holding them to a standard that encourages genuine change and personal growth.
There is also a concerning gap between policy and practice. While the system may present itself as effective on paper, the reality on the ground can be very different. At times, it feels as though there is more focus on maintaining appearances and saying what is expected, rather than confronting the hard truths necessary to create a system that truly serves communities and promotes accountability.
If meaningful reform is to take place, it will require honesty, consistency, and a willingness to move beyond surface-level solutions toward real, measurable change.
Nunavut Justice system is sadly a great big joke.
Many comments reflect the outdated revenge approach or if you prefer, an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, and believe punishing people will resolve the problems. We’ve been doing that for centuries and it doesn’t work. Worst is pre-trial incarceration and these good people would be all up in arms if they were accused of a crime and incarcerated for months without trial. In Canada, pre-trial detention should be the exception, especially when it takes over a year to get a trial but unfortunately, there are more people in provincial jails that aren’t yet convicted than people serving their sentence.
You want tough on crime approaches? Well, move to the US and you’ll get it. Yet, the US is known for one of the highest crime rates in democratic countries… The more people are jailed, the more violence you ultimately get when they are released. Studies have also confirmed that if someone is dealt with by a restorative approach, there are half the likelihood of reoffending than people who are convicted by the courts and sentenced. The problem here is that we suck and blow at the same time and both the court system approach and restorative approaches aren’t well equipped and it’s like sitting between 2 chairs, without any one approach being sufficiently supported.