POSITIONS ON GLADUE THAT CHALLENGE CONVENTIONAL IDEOLOGICAL DIVIDES
- Featured in Robson Crim
- May 6
- 19 min read
Updated: May 7
Enatt Daudi (law student)
see previous posts:
Skepticism and Hope for Gladue in Twenty-First Century Manitoba Discourse
As discussed in the first Blawg in this series, the 1999 Supreme Court of Canada (SCC) Gladue decision was quickly implemented in Manitoba court cases and discussed in the Manitoba media — and its presence in both forums revealed tensions that would remain present in the twenty-first century so. This second Blawg is an attempt to further trace this history and tensions to today. It will do so first by examining the discussion of Gladue in Manitoba media over the last quarter-century by highlighting articles in Manitoban papers discussing the decision and providing commentary on them. In doing so, it will attempt to establish why some Manitobans — like the man at my gym discussed at the beginning of my first Blawg — are so skeptical and contemptuous of the Gladue decision and sentencing in our criminal justice system more broadly. Second, it will pivot and discuss three counterexamples that humanize offenders and show how Gladue can work positively to explore how those seeking to defend the decision might better respond to its critics.
Part I: Gladue discourse in the twenty-first century
After an initial crop of editorials and op-eds about the Gladue decision itself, discussion of the decision seems to have dropped off in Manitoba in the early 2000s. In fact, the first time it was referenced in a Manitoba newspaper appears to have been in the Swan Valley Star and Times, which published an op-ed headlined “All Canadian citizens should be treated equally” by Tanis Fiss in April 2005.[i] The piece asked, in regard to Gladue’s (Indigenous) common-law husband and victim: “did the victim’s life in this case mean less than a non-native life?” Pivoting entirely away from the Gladue decision, Fiss continued by highlighting a different and unnamed case in Ontario that apparently involved two Black women convicted of trafficking drugs. The trial judge, she wrote, “concluded that the offenders in this case were the real victims.” Fiss herself concluded that:
“In an attempt to right past wrongs, Canadians have created policies that harm the very people they have been designed to benefit. By amending the Criminal Code in 1996, the federal government sent a message to aboriginals that breaking the law is no big deal. The Charter of Rights and Freedoms mandates quality for all Canadians. Consequently, the Criminal Code of Canada must apply to all citizens equally. In other words, if you do the crime, do the time.”
There are a few comments that can be made about this op-ed, which also ran in the Brandon Sun six days later.[ii] First, even though it was attributed to “Tanis Fiss, Director, Centre for Aboriginal Policy Change” and there was no mention of taxation or money at all in the piece, the article’s sub-heading read “let’s talk taxes”. That is likely because Aboriginal Policy Change was a creation of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation (CTF) — a self-described “citizens advocacy group dedicated to lower taxes, less waste and accountable government.”[iii] When Aboriginal Policy Change was founded in 2002, its news release quoted Fiss as stating that, for example, “basic democratic rights like voting have turned into a racial privilege to be granted by native governments at their discretion.”[iv] While the CTF is not technically associated with any political party, they are generally regarded as a small-c conservative organization with strong informal associations to Canadian conservative parties — Fiss herself went on to run in a 2019 United Conservative Party nomination contest in Alberta, for example.[v]
Second, Fiss began the piece by writing:
“In 1996… politicians amended Canada's Criminal Code (cc. ss. 718.2(e)), allowing judges to find alternatives to jail for all offenders when it is reasonable to do so, paying "particular attention to the circumstances of aboriginal offenders" and to consider a criminal's "Indianness". In other words, Justice had her blindfold removed, and she must now consider race in sentencing.”[vi]
While Fiss correctly states that s. 718.2(e) of the Criminal Code directs judges to pay particular attention to the circumstances of Indigenous offenders, there was no reference in the amendment in question to “consider a criminal’s ‘Indianness.’” Fiss’ use of quotation marks around the term implies that it exists in the Criminal Code itself, but it did not. It was also inaccurate to imply that the Code directed the court to consider an offender’s Indigeneity itself, when the legislation only directs the court to consider their background and circumstances of Indigenous offenders, along with offenders of all ethnicities. To put the same differently: there is nothing in s. 718.2(e) of the Criminal Code or the Gladue decision that suggests that an offender who identifies as Indigenous will necessarily have any background circumstances that would lead to a reduced sentence, as a reader of Fiss’ piece would likely conclude.
Overall, the article used Gladue in a broader cultural debate about the administration of justice in Manitoba. More specifically, it positioned supporters of s. 718(e) and the Gladue decision as soft on crime and unfair to both to non-Indigenous offenders and to Indigenous victims of crimes committed by Indigenous offenders. And the undisclosed association between the author with the CTF suggests that conservatives saw this use of Gladue as effective in painting the governing federal Liberals as complicit in these failures through their passing of s. 718(e) and ongoing oversight of the criminal justice systems that were using the Gladue decision.
It did not take long for Manitoba media commentators to begin making similar points themselves. A year later, the Brandon Sun published an editorial headlined “Light sentences, little difference” that said much of the same as Fiss about the consequences of the Gladue decision, although it discussed Gladue’s efficacy in addition to fairness:
“This wholesale breakup of the justice system — which in itself raises questions about whether every cultural group should have its own courts and penal system — is not the problem. Softer sentences for aboriginal offenders neither protect aboriginal victims of crime, nor do they appear to do much to stop offenders… no tinkering at the edges of the justice system will make a lick of difference.”[vii]
This skepticism about Gladue’s efficacy in addition to its fairness as a sentencing factor would be reinforced over the coming years by suggestions that Manitoba was failing to improve metrics concerning outcomes for Indigenous peoples within the provincial justice system. In January 2010, retired police officer Robert Marshall wrote an op-ed for the Winnipeg Free Press headlined “Why haven’t aboriginal incarceration rates dropped?” which takes it as a given that Gladue failed to achieve its aim of reducing Indigenous overrepresentation in Canada’s prison system:
“[C]ould the Gladue decision ever hope to improve the lot of aboriginal people… the [answer is,] of course, no. No, because the utopian hopes of the decision are trumped by the real world. The ruling transforms courtroom trials into shows — a virtual blame game — where the availability of century-old injustices are morphed into near-legitimized excuses for 20-year-olds to commit crime. Gladue only adds to the climate where personal responsibility, accountability and consequence are shown the door and trouble follows.”[viii]
Much of Marshall’s evidence of Gladue’s failure is weak or false — he cites, without a source, “[m]embership rolls in aboriginal street gangs” and Statistics Canada’s violent crime severity index in Winnipeg, even though that same index shows in Winnipeg declined by more than ten percent between 1999 and 2009.[ix] But perhaps Marshall didn’t feel the need to vigorously defend his claim that Gladue was a policy failure because it was a claim that skeptics — already convinced of the decision’s inherent unfairness — wanted to believe. A scan of articles in Manitoban newspapers in the years following Fiss’ 2005 piece reveals a steady trend of negative references to the decision that would prime a reader towards such skepticism:
“‘You’re pathetic,’ victim tells attacker: Woman thrilled with 82-month jail sentence” (Ian Hitchen, Brandon Sun, July 26/08)
“A woman who used a frying pan to clobber a lingerie-clad man who broke into her home and threatened to rape her at knifepoint says she could hug the judge that sent her tormentor to prison for 82 months. Donna Bowering said she was worried the offender, William I. Perswain, would end up with a lighter sentence during a Gladue hearing yesterday, a hearing held to consider an offender’s aboriginal background… ‘Yes, you’ve had a terrible life, but the facts of the charge are horrific and traumatizing… There’s no reason to differentiate here from a case where there are no Gladue factors at all,’ [Judge Krysyna] Tarwid said. After court, Bowering raised the decision as she said ethnicity shouldn’t matter and plenty of people have difficult backgrounds but don’t commit crime. ‘It shouldn’t have had any bearing,’ Bowering said. ‘I think it’s cut and dry, black and white. You do the crime, you do the time, it doesn’t matter what colour your skin is.’”[x]
“Gladue slope remains slippery” (Robert Marshall, Winnipeg Free Press, Jan 14/12)
“Rendered by the best of Canadian legal minds, the [Gladue] decision is not only wrong-headed, its been ineffective… The Gladue slope is slippery and creates a class of second-class victims not entitled to the same brand of justice other Canadian victims might reasonably expect if the offender were non-native. (And it’s worth noting that many victims of aboriginal offenders are also aboriginal.) Over the Christmas holidays, one victim — a white man — was subjected to a cold, callous and brutal attack and became one of those second-class victims in an Ontario courtroom… Sam Gaultiere, 56, a hard-working family man, discovered the break-in [of his property] as it unfolded and was set upon by [Richard] Smoke, who attacked him with pieces of lumber, leaving him on the floor a bloody, broken and brain-damaged mess. The Superior Court judge hearing the case convicted Smoke of aggravated assault, calling it ‘senseless and vicious’ and ‘just a notch below culpable homicide.’ That’s the serious end of the most serious assault charge in the Criminal Code, the kind that carries a potential 14-year federal prison sentence. But in this case, Gladue became a key factor… Smoke’s lawyer said her client had been affected by a culture of racism and had been damaged by the ‘intergenerational impacts’ of residential schools (translation: someone in his family went to a residential school and the fallout continues to fester.)... Taking into account the few months Smoke had spent in pre-trial custody — and the Gladue decision — this straightforward matter came to a very unsatisyfing end, with the assailant being sentenced to just two years in a provincial jail… What has become clear in the last decade is that Gladue was a botched attempt at social engineering by technocrats whose expertise lies in legal technicalities. Equally clear in this case was the devaluation of damage caused to Sam Gualtiere by Richard Smoke. It all leaves questions that beg for answers. Did 13 years of Gladue make Smoke a better man? WIll the few brief weeks that Richard Smoke spends in a provincial jail make him a better person? Has Gladue improved the lot of First Nations people? Is Canada a better place because of Gladue? The smart money says ‘no’ on all counts.”[xi]
“If I were aboriginal, I’d be ticked” (Ken Waddell, Neepawa Banner, March 30/12)
In response to the SCC’s 2012 Ipeelee decision, which clarified how Gladue should apply to Indigenous offenders who were determined to be long-term offenders: “It’s absolute nonsense. Certainly Aboriginal People lived in some awful circumstances. Some unfortunately still do. But so did my grandparents. The difference is [my grandparents] moved… By comparison, Aboriginal People in Canada today have dozens of advantages over my ancestors. The [Ipeelee] court decision is a slap in the face to every aboriginal who looks to improve their lot in life.”[xii]
“The law is flawed: Part 2” (James O’Connor (Managing Editor), Brandon Sun, March 31/12)
“I am not a racist. But I’m sure to be branded as one by some folks by the time they finish reading this… a bad childhood does not excuse anyone now from taking responsibility for their actions — especially if they commit a crime — minor or not…. Justice Louis LeBel [who wrote the Ipeelee decision] was appointed to the Supreme Court by Jean Chretien. The Supreme Court’s lone dissenter in Friday’s ruling, Justice Marshall Rothstein, correctly argued that the protection of the public should take precedence over aboriginal sentencing considerations. Justice Rothstein was appointed to the Supreme Court of Canada by Prime Minister Stephen Harper in 2006. Don’t worry, Canada, slowly this country will start to make sense again.”[xiii]
In short: a reader of much of the commentary of Manitoban media in the years following Gladue would have impressed upon them the claims that:
- Gladue deprives victims of Indigenous offenders the level of justice afforded to victims of non-Indigenous offenders;
- Gladue in particular hurts Indigenous victims of crime, who are disproportionately the victims of Indigenous offenders;
- Gladue is ineffective in addressing racial disparities in the justice system.
More implicitly, Gladue continued to be discussed in the frame of Fiss’ April 2005 article: as both a soft on crime and a (both lowercase and uppercase) L/liberal measure, in contrast to a (lowercase but probably also uppercase) C/conservative approach to sentencing — as the last few lines of O’Connor’s editorial in particular made clear.
It is also worth noting that non-negative references to Gladue in Manitoba media during this timeframe are both few and far between and generally discuss the decision and its impact as insufficient or unclear rather than specifically positive. One Winnipeg Free Press article asked of Gladue: “Does it work?” and answered its own question that: “[i]t’s hard to say. It is very costly and time-consuming to study whether Gladue offenders go on to commit other crimes, and such studies haven’t really been done in Canada.”[xiv] Ambivalent comments like that were, needless to say, hardly effective counterbalances to the plethora of convicted articles railing against Gladue.
To be clear — my aim in highlighting Manitoba media coverage of Gladue in the years following the decision is not to suggest that any one position is right or wrong. But the lopsidedness of the coverage is striking, if perhaps for understandable reasons:
- Judges who made use of Gladue reports were, obviously, not in the habit of waxing eloquent about their personal views on Canadian legislation or SCC decisions through letters to the editor.
- Journalists could easily write a story like that quoted from the Brandon Sun in July 2006 about a courtroom scene in which a victim of a sensational and heinous crime railed against the prospect of Gladue, but it would have been vastly more difficult to somehow “report” on a case in which Gladue was employed successfully — not least because a journalist attempting to do so is essentially trying to prove a counterfactual. If an Indigenous offender is sentenced to three months house arrest rather than a month in jail due to a Gladue report, that could plausibly lead to a far more positive outcome than incarceration, where they might have disturbing experiences that make them more anti-social and adversarial to the state, or, as Premier Kinew has alluded to, get a crash course at “gangster university” and become primed for involvement in organized crime upon their release. But it is impossible for a journalist to establish that a Gladue-informed house arrest sentence is the better option to the hypothetical of incarceration for any individual offender.
- Finally, political circumstances in the 2000s led to a deficiency of elected officials in a position to, and willing to, defend s. 718.2(e) and Gladue. When Bill C-41, which introduced the s. 718.2(e) amendment, was passed in 1995, twelve of Manitoba’s 14 MPs were Liberals — all of whom either voted in favour of the bill, were absent from the House, or whose vote was paired with an opposition MP voting against the legislation.[xv] By 2005, when Fiss wrote one of the first articles criticizing Gladue after the initial coverage of the decision, eleven of these MPs were out of office, and the twelfth would lose his seat the following year. By that point the Harper Conservatives were on the verge of taking office and the remaining Liberals were unlikely to labour to remind voters of their association with legislation and subsequent SCC decision that was already beginning to be seen as soft on crime — even to defend its merits.
As a result, there were — and remain — few voices willing or able to defend Gladue in the same media forums where the decision is routinely criticized. And this dynamic remains to the present. Progressive voices that support Gladue’s efforts to address racial disparities might be hesitant to vocally support a decision that ultimately leaves sentencing choices to state-appointed judges (the organization Winnipeg Police Cause Harm, for example, has never mentioned Gladue in any of its social media or blog posts) — and even elected politicians who might support its instincts are unlikely to publicly associate themselves with a decision already perceived by many as soft on crime. In their absence, opponents are left free to treat Gladue as something of a punching bag and uncontested example of (in their frame) weak justice policy that begs for harsher corrective action. The current Conservative Party of Canada leader so committed to rightwing criminal justice reform that he has already indicated that he will use the notwithstanding clause to address constitutional barriers to its implementation.[xvi] It is, then, perhaps high time for advocates of Gladue and s. 718.2(e) to find their voice on the issue.
But even aside from the prospect of a Poilievre administration repealing the legislation or otherwise chipping away at the sentencing procedures that have followed Gladue, the same advocates should be honest with themselves that decades of comparative silence on the issue has contributed to the undermining of public confidence in the criminal justice system. Recall the man at my gym I discussed in my first Blawg post in this series, who told me with utter conviction that Gladue was a 50% race-based discount in every single case: that contempt he holds for our criminal justice system is a failure of those who seek to administer it. As is often said: justice must not only be done but must be seen to be done. Even if the concerns are unfounded, no one in the legal profession should be content with a public lack of confidence in our justice system due in part to Gladue.
Part II: Discussing Gladue as a positive aspect of our criminal justice system
If supporters of progressive sentencing policies want to truly protect the Gladue decision and its underlying principles, they need to convince the public that Gladue can lead to real, positive outcomes. But such attempts are surprisingly hard to come by. Try it yourself: search for “Gladue positive examples” or “Gladue public service announcements” on Google and scroll until you find the first result you would show to someone to challenge their skepticism towards the decision. It took me several minutes. But to save you the same amount of time, I’ll highlight three examples in three mediums: a media article, a study, and a book chapter.
Example I – Media article: “A Gladue report changed his life. Like many other marginalized offenders, he didn't know it was his right” (Bryan Eneas, CBC Saskatchewan, February 6, 2022)[xvii]
In 2021 Blaine Hotomanie – a member of Carry the Kettle Nakoda Nation in Saskatchewan – was charged with impaired driving and faced incarceration of up to eighteen months as a result. Because he had fetal alcohol syndrome, however, he was able to have a Gladue report prepared over the course of three days by the federally-funded Integrated Justice Program. As a result of his report, he was sentenced to just six months rather than eighteen, and the judge allowed him more time with his family prior to beginning his sentence. But the report writing process didn’t just lead to a reduced and more flexible sentence – it also allowed Hotomanie to work through the trauma that contributed to him driving impaired in the first place. The article reads:
“Over the course of three days of three-hour interviews for his Gladue report, Hotomanie shared the pains he faced growing up. He experienced a lot of violence as a child in a home where both his parents drank. He lost loved ones — particularly his parents — and was in the residential school system.
It wasn't until his interviews with the IJP that Hotomanie learned how these traumas impacted him.
Now, with a large support network consisting of his wife, his six children, 25 grandchildren, friends and leaders in Carry the Kettle, he's more worried about his future than his sentence.
"I've got all that stuff out and I'm doing better. I've got a job. I've never had a job for a long time," he said.
"I'm kinda hoping that I can save my job, but time will tell."…
Hotomanie said he felt comfortable during the interview process. When things got tough and he became emotional, the group pressed pause and agreed to continue the next day when he felt better…
"I wasn't just a person who was getting caught for impaired [driving], I felt good about myself," Hotomanie said.
"It made a difference in me and my life."
It is difficult for me to read the chapter and not want Hotomanie out as soon as possible – both so he can work and so that he can see his family. If anything, the six-month incarceration feels like an expensive delay into his reintegration to society: “I’m kinda hoping that I can save my job, but time will tell.” And his story was also a good reminder that at their best Gladue reports don’t just help sentencing judges see the offender’s background – it also helps the offender work through the same trauma. But if Hotomanie’s story doesn’t quite convince you, take a look at a picture of him on his home First Nation shortly before he was incarcerated:
Prior to finding this article, the only faces I had ever seen in regard to discourse on Gladue reports had been of the journalists writing the op-eds above. The actual people who they were discussing remained faceless. But Hotomanie and his smile go a long way to remind me that the discourse is not just an academic discussion about a legal principle: it’s about an aspect of our legal system that means that this man gets to spend a year more with his grandchildren than he otherwise would.
Example II – Study: “Evaluation of the Gladue Court Old City Hall, Toronto” (Scott Clark, Aboriginal Legal Services, 2016)[xviii]
In 2016 former federal Deputy Minister of Finance Scott Clark published a study in which he studied a court set up to handle legal matters that involved accused persons with significant Gladue factors over a seven-month period between 2015-16.[xix] The report provides helpful statistical analysis, but for me the main value it provides is by walking through how Gladue-informed decisions look in for minor and common offenses, because it made me realize how I had come to picture the decision only in the context of serious violent crimes like some of the ones discussed in media above. More powerfully, however, where questions he asked participants and their answers given throughout the report. For example:
Q: “Do you think it’s important for the court to know you’re Aboriginal?”
A: “Oh, yeah, for sure. I was in other courts and it’s like they really don’t care but
I think I’m the way I am because of all the stuff I went through as a Native
person. They should know about that. In this court they take you seriously. The
judge talks to you and the Native courtworker helps a lot. They try to make a
plan for you. Not in other courts, though” – a man in cells who had appeared in
Gladue Court previously.[xx]
Reading this response, I was struck by the man’s account of how he felt respected in the process. Candidly, it made me feel a little ashamed that I myself had never considered whether an offender felt respected by the system, and I was sincerely moved by his comment and other excerpts that followed. More perspectives from participants like him, I believe, would go far longer to foster public sympathy for the decision and its implementation than I could ever hope to through even the cleverest of theoretical arguments in its favour.
Example III – Book chapter: “Careful Images: Unsettling Testimony in the Gladue Video Project”
Visual anthropologist Eugenia Kisin and Anishinaabe filmmaker Lisa Jackson recently published a chapter titled “Careful Images: Unsettling Testimony in the Gladue Video Project” in which they document and discuss creating a Gladue report through a video essay of the convicted person. They write that they were inspired to do so by Cree legal scholars like Val Napoleon who discuss how Indigenous legal practices center on the idea of care in legal practice, which they define as “principles of loving accountability of reciprocity” following Métis anthropologist Zoe Todd.[xxi] Their Gladue Video Project, they write, was “an attempt to humanize offenders through the representational medium of film, situating their actions within a broader frame of marginalization, ongoing settler-colonial oppression, and potential for support and repair.”[xxii] Part of the description of the Report reads as follows:
“Billy is sitting in his living room, facing a video camera. Behind him, a rack displays neatly stacked pairs of shoes, and three works of art—a print, a Northwest Coast–style carving, and a weaving—decorate his wall. Billy’s expression is amicable, softly illuminated as he speaks about his childhood in rural Newfoundland, and his complex Native identity. He tells the story of his adoption by poor, evangelical white Christian parents who could not read. They taught him how to hunt, fish, and grow potatoes. Working with rabbit skins, he learned how to make moccasins from instructions in a book. Billy also describes the fear he felt as a child when his adoptive parents spoke in tongues, and notes his lifelong struggle with depression.”[xxiii]
Ironically in a written chapter, Kisin and Jackson convinced me how powerful video can be to articulate the perspective of an accused or convicted person, like Billy. It made me wonder whether something like this could be tried in Manitoba – for example by connecting a U of M videography class to a Robson Hall legal aid externship. But overall, their work made me think of Gladue not as a losing issue for progressives in the court of public opinion but as a potential focal point for new ways to advance reconciliation in the criminal justice system. It made me feel excited.
I hope this Blawg has impressed two points on you. First, in Part I, that many voices and political dynamics in Manitoba over the past few decades have led to a media landscape at present in which Gladue is often discussed unfavourably. This, in turn, leads to many people – like the man at my gym – to develop a critical view of the decision that probably also leads to a negative view of Indigenous people and the justice system more broadly. But second, in Part II, that there are resources – even if they are few and far between – that can be used to respond to criticism of Gladue if we so choose. It’s too bad that there do not seem to be many Manitoban examples of Gladue working positively at present – but Eneas, Clark, Kisin and Jackson all show us ways in which success stories could be written, and Gladue report participants better humanized, if we so choose.
Endnotes
[i] Tanis Fiss, “All Canadian citizens should be treated equally”, Swan Valley Star and Times (12 April 2005), p. 7.
[ii] Tanis Fiss, “Righting past wrongs creates new problems”, The Brandon Sun (18 April 2005), p. 4.
[iii] “Who we are” (accessed 3 January 2025), online: Canadian Taxpayers Federation <taxpayer.com/about>.
[iv] Canadian Taxpayers Federation, news release, “CTF Launches Centre for Aboriginal Policy Change” (18 March 2002), online: <taxpayer.com/news-room-archive/CTF%20Launches%20Centre%20for%20Aboriginal%20Policy%20Change>.
[v] Tanis Fiss, “Thank you Gord Elliott for your endorsement! The time to put patient needs ahead of bureaucrats is long overdue. It's UCP Calgary North Nomination Day! Vote Fiss. #YYCNorth” (9 February 2019 at 7:14 AM), online: X <https://x.com/TanisFiss/status/1094223123107344384>.
[vi] Fiss, supra note 1.
[vii] “Light sentences, little difference”, editorial, Brandon Sun (11 June 2006), p. 6 (emphasis added).
[viii] Robert Marshall, “Why haven’t aboriginal incarceration rates dropped?”, Winnipeg Free Press (30 January 2010), p. H11.
[ix] Statistics Canada, Crime severity index and weighted clearance rates, Canada, provinces, territories and Census Metropolitan Areas (geography: Winnipeg, Manitoba [46602]; Reference period: from 1999 to 2009), online: <https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/t1/tbl1/en/tv.action?pid=3510002601&pickMembers%5B0%5D=1.29&cubeTimeFrame.startYear=1999&cubeTimeFrame.endYear=2009&referencePeriods=19990101%2C20090101>.
[x] Ian Hitchen, “‘You’re pathetic,’ victim tells attacker”, Brandon Sun (26 July 2008), p. 1.
[xi] Robert Marshall, “Gladue slope remains slippery”, Winnipeg Free Press (14 January 2012), p. J11.
[xii] Ken Waddell, “If I were aboriginal, I’d be ticked”, Neepawa Banner (30 March 2019), p. 4.
[xiii] James O’Connor, “The law is flawed: Part 2”, Brandon Sun (31 March 2012), p. A13.
[xiv] Mary Agnes Welch, “Justice for All?” Winnipeg Free Press (25 May 2013), p. A6.
[xv] House of Commons Debates, 35-1, No 219 (15 June 1995) at 13978, online: <https://www.ourcommons.ca/Content/House/351/Debates/219/han219-e.pdf>.
[xvi] Darren Major and Tom Parry, “Poilievre hints to police he would use notwithstanding clause to change laws”, CBC News (29 April 2024), online: <cbc.ca/news/politics/poilievre-notwithstanding-clause-1.7188964>.
[xvii] Bryan Eneas, “A Gladue report changed his life. Like many other marginalized offenders, he didn't know it was his right” (6 Feb 2022), online: CBC Saskatchewan, <cbc.ca/news/canada/saskatchewan/gladue-writing-team-reconciliation-justice-system-1.6325968>.
[xviii] Scott Clark, “Evaluation of the Gladue Court – Old City Hall, Toronto” (2016) online: Aboriginal Legal Services, <aboriginallegal.ca/uploads/1/4/1/7/141757576/gladue-court-old-city-hall-toronto.pdf>.
[xix] Ibid, 1.
[xx] Ibid, 26.
[xxi] Eugenia Kisin & Lisa Jackson, “Careful Images: Unsettling Testimony in the Gladue Video Project” in Indigenous Media Arts in Canada: Making, Caring, Sharing ed by Dana Claxton & Ezra Winton (Waterloo: Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 2023), 352.
[xxii] Ibid, 351.
[xxiii] Ibid, 350.
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