The courts' backlog of cases will only continue to rise if the provincial government remains on its current path, NDP justice critic Leonard Krog warned while spending Thursday in Prince George.
Although more judges and support staff have been taken on, Krog said there is still a shortage of 13 judges.
"We are the only province in Canada that has fewer provincial court judges today than we did in 2005," said Krog, the MLA for Nanaimo who had been a practicing lawyer
before entering politics.
While the crime rate is down, the complexity of cases is growing and the workload will increase now that the federal Conservatives have passed legislation that increases sentences for drug and sex offences and reduces the use of conditional sentences such as house arrest, Krog said.
"The significant cuts the B.C. Liberals made to legal aid back in 2002 still has significant ramifications," Krog said. "Realistically, and I'm not trying to be unkind because I am a strong supporter of the Legal Services Society, they simply can't deliver family law justice to British Columbians the way they could once."
Krog dismissed the recent appointment of lawyer Geoffrey Cowper to head a review of the B.C. justice system, predicting it will just tell what the problems are without
providing significant solutions.
"We have an immediate crisis," Krog said and added there has been a 25-per-cent
increase since 2010 in the number of cases in danger of being stayed because they won't be heard on time.
Cases must generally be concluded within 18 months of charges being laid to meet Charter of Rights and Freedoms provisions.
Justice minister and attorney general Shirley Bond disputed Krog's numbers, saying B.C.'s crime rate has fallen 33 per cent in the last six years while thousands fewer cases are going to courtrooms.
"When you look at those numbers you really have to ask some tough questions about why we're seeing some extended lengths for trials and the number of stays that we're seeing," said Bond, the MLA for
Prince George-Valemount.
The province already spends $1 billion on the justice system and resources are being added where necessary, Bond added, from sheriffs, to administrators to more money for legal aid.
"The NDP's answer is always the same, let's just throw more money at it, and we're not prepared to do that," Bond said.
On the federal government's crime legislation, Bond said the Liberal government supported and asked for many of the provisions. As for broadening the range of crimes subject to mandatory minimum sentences, Bond said she's made the government's
concerns known to Ottawa.
"But British Columbia is also better positioned than many provinces because right now we're in the midst of the largest investment in corrections infrastructure in the history of the province," Bond said, and added inmate numbers are dropping.
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