For Nishnawbe-Aski Legal Services (NALSC), radio has become an effective tool for sharing information with the 49 First Nations communities who live within the Nishnawbe Aski Nation (NAN) territory of northern Ontario.

It has been over a year since various staff members began covering legal topics through a half-hour biweekly program on Wawatay Radio that airs at 2 p.m. EST.  Shows have covered a range of topics including human rights and elder abuse, bullying and the community, and the over-incarceration of Aboriginal people.

“A lot of the time, it’s just me and the microphone, so I try to structure the show as if I’m sitting down and talking to someone,” explains Martha Loon, Public Legal Education & Communications Officer. “A lot of the topics covered are about the legal issues affecting the people in the NAN communities. Some of the topics selected are determined from presentations I do in the communities, from co-workers, or from our NAN Legal Board of Directors.”

One show focused on educating youth about some of the laws and by-laws they would encounter once they moved to urban settings.

“There are some city by-laws that young people simply aren’t aware of when they’ve been living on reserves — by-laws about smoking, for example, and provincial offences such as curfews and trespass to property,” Martha says.

In the year since the radio broadcasts started, shows have also helped to raise awareness of the various programs that Nishnawbe-Aski Legal Services offers, including community-based justice initiatives such as their Talking Together Program and Restorative Justice Program.

Given the vastness of the NAN territory — which covers approximately two-thirds of Ontario — radio has proven to be an easily accessible way for people to better understand their rights and learn about these restorative justice initiatives from the comfort of their own homes.

For more information about NALSC’s radio program, please visit their website.

By Dorina Simeonov

When Ontarians call police for help during a mental health crisis, chances are they’ll end-up with a non-conviction police record as a result. Police contact – whether related to criminal activity, a conviction, or a simple by-law complaint or mental health issue – generates information stored in police files and databases.  This type of information can be disclosed on police record checks or “background checks” commonly used as a pre-condition to employment or volunteer opportunities, educational programs and placements, access to housing, or the right to travel.

Non-conviction records can be created as a result of a wide variety of scenarios including:

• occurrence reports and police contact information, including 911 and crisis calls, allegations that did not result in charges, suicide attempts, and mental health–related apprehensions;
• mental health dispositions including absolute and conditional discharges, verdicts of not criminally responsible, and withdrawn or dismissed charges;
• outstanding charges, warrants, judicial orders;
• peace bonds, and probation and prohibition orders; and
• family court restraining orders.

Many are unaware of this disclosure practice and its harmful and discriminatory effects where for example, employers make judgments about potential applicants based on this information. Indeed, most discover that they have a non-conviction police record when they are rejected for a job position or turned away at the U.S. border.  Often these individuals are already highly marginalized and are disproportionally impacted by this issue.

Five years ago, health law and human rights legal experts came together to form the Police Records Check Coalition (PRCC) in order to raise awareness and call for change around this issue. Over 40 members joined the PRCC, which is  led by representatives from the Canadian Civil Liberties Association, the Canadian Mental Health Association, Ontario, the John Howard Society of Ontario, the Ontario Association of Patient Councils, Psychiatric Patient Advocate Office, and the Schizophrenia Society of Ontario.

Recognizing Legal Rights and Protections

The mission of the PRCC is to end the discriminatory and stigmatizing practice of requesting, releasing and making decisions based on non-conviction information, in particular mental health and addictions-related information.  The PRCC does this by educating individuals, families, stakeholders, agencies and police services regarding the impact of the release of non-conviction information as well as being allies, supporters and informants to those who have been impacted by this issue.

PRCC advocacy has increased awareness and helped to change provincial policy.  In 2011, Ontario’s first province-wide Guideline for Police Record Checks was developed by the Ontario Association of Chiefs of Polices (OACP) Law Enforcement and Records (Management) Network (LEARN) with input from the PRCC and other community organizations. This Guideline sets limitations on the use and disclosure of mental health information which police officers collect by narrowing the conditions under which such information can be disclosed. While local and provincial police services across Ontario have the option to endorse or adopt the LEARN Guideline, over 80% report partial or full compliance.

Since then, the Canadian Civil Liberties Association has been working with the OACP to institute broader changes to the way non-conviction records are dealt with.  Earlier this year the OACP Executive approved a motion to change the way it shares non-conviction records in order to “institute a presumption against the release of non-conviction records on all levels of police checks.” This means police services will be encouraged to limit the release of non-conviction records regardless of the level of police check. The updated LEARN Guideline will be released in June 2014. The presumptive non-disclosure of all non-conviction records from all levels of police checks will have a narrow public safety exception to allow for the release of records where there is a risk to the safety of vulnerable members of the public.  The PRCC was actively engaged in raising awareness about this issue, and making submissions to the OACP LEARN subcommittee. The PRCC will continue to monitor the changes and subsequent adoption of the revised guidelines.

Shining the spotlight on the cross-border disclosure of mental health information

Most recently, the PRCC has taken an active role in challenging the concerning practice of cross-border discrimination. As a result of the Ellen Richardson case, a woman who was denied entry into the United States by U.S. border officials because of a past suicide attempt, Ontario’s Privacy Commissioner launched an investigation into this issue and released a report titled “Crossing the Line: The Indiscriminate Disclosure of Attempted Suicide Information to U.S. Border Officials via CPIC” in April 2014. This report is an important first step in looking at the variations between police services in Ontario and how they upload and share information. However, more work is needed to address the full range of police scenarios in which they come into contact with individuals in order to ensure Ontarians’ privacy is respected and that unproven allegations and mental health issues are not treated as crimes.

B.C.’s Information and Privacy Commissioner also released a report on the “Use of Police Information Checks in British Columbia” calling for police forces to stop disclosing non-conviction information as part of employment-related records checks outside the vulnerable sector.  This includes mental health information which the Commissioner says “should never be included in an employment-related record check… [as it] threatens to further stigmatize the one in five of us who are affected by a mental health issue.”

Looking Ahead

Overall, there has been increased provincial and national attention to this issue in the last several years.  Still,  more work is needed to ensure that all non-conviction records are removed from police record checks and that Canadians do not face unjustifiable barriers when trying to obtain employment, volunteer positions, housing, travel, or education. The PRCC will continue to address this important issue with support and input from our stakeholders.

New members to the PRCC are always welcome. If you are interested in this important issue and would like to join the PRCC or subscribe to our mailing list, please email us at prcc@mentalhealthpolicerecords.ca.

To read the PRCC’s Advocacy Guide to Cross-Border Mental Health Records, click here.

For more information, please contact one of the co-chairs of the PRCC:

Abby Deshman
Canadian Civil Liberties Association
adeshman@ccla.org

Theresa Claxton
Ontario Association of Patient Councils
theresa.claxton@sympatico.ca

Dorina Simeonov
Canadian Mental Health Association, Ontario
dsimeonov@ontario.cmha.ca

Irina Sytcheva
Schizophrenia Society of Ontario
isytcheva@schizophrenia.on.ca

Jacqueline Tasca
John Howard Society of Ontario
jtasca@johnhoward.on.ca

www.mentalhealthpolicerecords.ca

Twitter: @PRCC_Ontario

Dorina Simeonov is Policy Analyst for Justice at Canadian Mental Health Association, Ontario.

by Jack de Klerk

The GTA Clinic Transformation Project didn’t start out as a grandiose plan on the part of a few dreamers. Rather, there were some relatively small problems that a couple of clinic directors thought they could fix if they worked together.

Before very long, two clinics working together became six.

Critically though, we kept all the options on the table until our researcher was finished pulling together the strands of what was important to us, what frustrated us and what we were hoping to accomplish. We were told that we needed to have larger organizations and that the boundaries that defined our respective catchment areas had little rational foundation. Things have changed since our clinics were established.

We asked ourselves, “What would our Toronto clinic system look like if we were setting it up for the first time today?”

Developing a consensus

Given that we all have a stake in the present system, it was critical that we find a vantage point to ground the discussion that did not look after our own interests first. Agreeing that our focus had to be on what was in the best interests of our client community was not difficult. It has proven to be a very useful lens to look through when evaluating ideas and past practices. It certainly helped us understand that the status quo could not be maintained.

There are, of course, other interests than those of our clients. We are entirely dependent on Legal Aid Ontario for funding the work we do; we have community partners, including political representatives, on whom we depend for working with our clients; we have Board members who volunteer and give direction to our work; and, we have staff who do the work. Our conclusion was that we needed all these people in the process and that we all had to agree in the end: we knew that we could only proceed by developing a consensus.

Expanding and enhancing our work

Money is a big thing for small not-for-profit organizations. This is especially true at a time when governments are pretty tight fisted at budget time. Moreover, our recent history with our funder focused on increasing efforts to realize savings in our budgets.

Job security for staff is a big part of the money picture. From the beginning, we realized our own commitment to move away from the status quo was completely tied to the vision of change that was not an exercise in cost cutting.

A very big part of the problem with the status quo is that too many poor people were not getting the legal services they needed. Cutting costs would only exacerbate that problem. We needed to protect our staff positions and our budgets if we wanted to expand and enhance our work for our client community.

A change process directed by clinics

It did not take rocket science to figure out that a consensus on change could not be built on staff and service cuts. Any sense in the community of change moving in that direction would feed resistance and hostility to that change. So, given the history of clinics and their funder, it was also essential that the change process be directed by clinics.

In July 2013, LAO first announced and then withdrew a provincially-mandated budget cut. Initially our request for written assurance that there would be no further cuts was rejected. The foundation of our consensus, namely that we were all working for the best interests of our client community, seemed to be disintegrating underfoot.

The GTA Project

By this time, the GTA Project was well underway. Sixteen of the 17 GTA-based general service clinics signed a Memorandum of Understanding to formalize their participation in the Project, agreeing to a process without committing to the final result. A Steering Committee of clinic boards and staff were established to govern the Project with a Working group of seven executive directors (EDs) to manage it.

Two of the EDs are working on the Project on a half-time basis to take care of day-to-day matters. A Project Consultant was also hired.

The Project’s work plan detailed quantitative and qualitative data to be collected, focus group reports, literature to be reviewed and, finally, a draft recommendation to be developed.

This coming spring, the Steering Committee will approve the final recommendation as to how many clinics there should be in the GTA, what their catchment area boundaries should be, and how these respective clinics should be resourced.

Success requires openness on all sides

Moving forward, we realized that we needed both greater assurances from LAO that our budgets would not be cut, and an understanding from LAO that they would financially support the final recommendations. The latter point required they be engaged throughout the process as a participant. These arrangements needed to be formalized.

We arranged a face to face meeting with LAO’s CEO, Bob Ward. Success required openness on all sides and we worked hard to ensure that in advance. More importantly, success would require mutual acknowledgement that LAO and the clinics in the GTA Transformation Project were fellow travellers on the road to improving services for our clients.

In this meeting, we recognized everyone wanted the Project to succeed. We agreed that we could work together much more effectively if we looked forward rather than backward; if we talked about transformation rather than administrative savings.

Like a complicated puzzle, finding this one piece made the rest of the work much easier and less contentious. It got us to “yes” quickly and the framework agreement flowed naturally.

Jack de Klerk is the Director of Legal Services at Neighbourhood Legal Services. He is one of the project leads of the GTA Clinics’ Transformation Project. 

Par Jeff Plain, Traduit de l’anglais par Sophie Raymond

En tant qu’Autochtone, je comprends que le sentiment d’appréhension et de désespoir puisse se manifester lorsqu’on cherche à obtenir justice. Ce sentiment peut provenir d’une certaine méfiance envers les différents systèmes de justice — pénale, familiale, civile ou administrative.

Combler un besoin important

Nous avons déjà pu constater les répercussions tragiques de l’incarcération et du suicide dans nos familles et nos communautés. En outre, comme beaucoup d’Autochtones le réalisent en s’installant dans des zones urbaines— les jeunes de plus en plus —, faire son chemin dans la vie peut s’avérer éprouvant et difficile lorsque les lois et la législation leur sont inconnues.

Une assistance adaptée fournie par des organismes qui comprennent la « réalité autochtone » est nécessaire afin que les individus ne tombent plus dans l’itinérance et la pauvreté et qu’ils soient plus susceptibles d’obtenir justice. Comprendre la culture, le dialogue, la spiritualité et l’identité autochtone, de même que ne porter aucun jugement et partager des affinités avec les personnes autochtones, est essentiel pour établir une bonne relation avec les clients.

Ces croyances, ainsi que certains obstacles comme la difficulté de se déplacer pour les individus vivant dans une réserve, ont constitué le fondement de mon engagement à l’élaboration du programme Baamsedaa « Marchons ensemble » avec la clinique juridique Community Legal Assistance Sarnia (CLAS).

Comment le programme fonctionne-t-il?

Le programme Baamsedaa fournit un soutien adapté aux clients tout au long du processus. Nous nous assurons surtout que les voies de communication sont ouvertes. Cela nous permet d’entretenir des discussions avec nos clients qui peuvent contribuer à repérer plusieurs problèmes ou à les guider plus adéquatement vers d’autres organismes.

Le programme, qui a été élaboré et est géré par CLAS avec le soutien financier d’Aide juridique Ontario, compte parmi ses partenaires plusieurs services sociaux essentiels de Sarnia-Lambton. Ces collaborations permettent aux clients des différents organismes de recevoir plus facilement une assistance adaptée concernant les problèmes auxquels ils sont confrontés.

Depuis son lancement en 2011, les tribunaux de Sarnia-Lambton, le Lambton College, la Société de l’aide à l’enfance, des avocats du secteur privé, des organismes se trouvant à l’extérieur de la région et des organisations qui cherchent des ressources ou de l’assistance pour leurs clients ont tous eu recours au programme Baamsedaa. Puisque la communauté autochtone appuie sans hésiter les travaux profitant à ses membres, il est permis d’envisager une croissance potentielle du programme. Un indice de la possibilité de cette croissance a été fourni par la collaboration avec la Clinique juridique communautaire de Hamilton alors que cette dernière désirait créer son propre poste de travailleur d’approche autochtone basé sur le modèle Baamsedaa, qui est actuellement occupé par Lyndon George.

Ce qui me rend le plus fier en tant qu’Anishinabe

Personnellement, en tant qu’Anishinabe, ce qui me rend le plus fier est d’avoir la capacité d’aider et de renseigner les autres. Mon expérience me permet de comprendre réellement les clients avec qui je travaille et, par conséquent, de diminuer leurs appréhensions, leur méfiance et leurs peurs, à un point tel que j’ai vu s’effectuer chez des personnes des changements d’attitudes qui ont entraîné une nouvelle orientation pour eux, leur famille et même pour leur communauté.

Je suis également fier de la reconnaissance que le programme Baamsedaa/CLAS a reçue des communautés autochtones et non autochtones. Les aînés autochtones nous ont remis une Plume d’Aigle en reconnaissance du travail accompli auprès des jeunes autochtones en 2012 et l’Association des Services sociaux des Municipalités de l’Ontario nous a remis le prix provincial « Local Municipal Champion » en 2013. De telles marques de reconnaissance témoignent de l’éducation interculturelle, laquelle entraîne une meilleure compréhension de la réalité autochtone et du système de justice.

Les effets du programme Baamsedaa

J’ai vu des clients qui ont été en mesure de régler leur affaire éprouver un sentiment d’équité. Ceux qui cherchent à obtenir réparation par l’entremise du programme comprennent mieux les processus législatifs et comprennent également qu’il existe des mécanismes qui garantissent l’écoute des clients lors de la prise de décision.

Avec un peu de chance, plus le nombre de personnes participant aux processus augmentera, plus la compréhension mutuelle des différents systèmes et des différentes croyances et cultures se développera. Il faut du courage et de la force pour chercher à obtenir justice dans un système de justice étranger, mais le faire encourage les individus et crée des occasions qui pourront modifier positivement les circonstances.

Il faudra un certain temps avant que le travail que j’effectue ainsi que celui de différents organismes traitant des questions de justice touchant les Autochtones permettent de restaurer la confiance des clients dans les systèmes de justice. Cependant, l’engagement d’Aide juridique Ontario envers son importante Stratégie de justice applicable aux Autochtones et le financement continu qu’elle accorde aux projets de types Baamsedaa nous aideront à renforcer l’inclusion et à changer les attitudes des personnes vis-à-vis des systèmes de justice.

Jeff Plain est travailleur juridique communautaire à la clinique juridique Community Legal Assistance Sarnia (CLAS). Jeff et des membres du personnel de CLAS ont élaboré le programme Baamsedaa et l’offrent actuellement à cette clinique juridique communautaire. 

AJO est ravie d’annoncer que  le programme Baamsedaa de la Community Legal Assistance Sarnia sera financé pendant deux autres années à compter du début de l’exercice financier 2014/15.