On Tuesday, March 18, 2003 in Regina, the Commission on First Nations and Métis Peoples and Justice Reform held a roundtable on Restorative Justice Initiatives in Saskatchewan. In attendance were the Commissioners and staff plus invited guests from a wide range of service and government organizations as well as Elders and youth representation. An open discussion was held throughout the day.

The Commission hosted a roundtable to discuss a different way of doing justice, a non-confrontational approach as opposed to confrontational. The questions addressed at this roundtable were:

1. A perspective on restorative justice – ideas, concerns and the participants’ understanding of what restorative justice is.
2. Give some examples of successful restorative justice initiatives in Saskatchewan.
3. What are the solutions to the issues that are associated with restorative justice in Saskatchewan?
4. Identify some implementation long and short-term strategies for the Commission.

1. PERSPECTIVES ON RESTORATIVE JUSTICE

Everyone was asked for his or her views on restorative justice in Saskatchewan. Following are the main points from this discussion.

• Youth are not being heard when appearing in court. There needs to be a way that they can become involved in the process and find a better way of doing business. Possibly with the new Youth Criminal Justice Act, the shift to conferencing will open different relationships between the parties and the youth will have an opportunity for their voice to be heard;
• Mediation is a potential tool that needs to be developed more. The potential to restore and build trust and a sense of safety through mediation versus the more traditional adversarial role will give people the information to become more involved and take responsibility;
• A community needs to become more involved with the youth. Building relationships and working together to keep youth active and involved will help in reducing crime;
• For a successful restorative justice program to work, the people involved must be ready to change. There needs to be willingness on the part of the participant. If there is any addictions involved, this needs to be dealt with before the restorative justice process can work;
• The time frame from arrest to sentencing for youth needs to be reduced significantly. Currently, by the time a youth goes to trial, what they have done was so long ago they have no connection to it any longer. Also, if a youth has cleaned up their act, having to go to court six months later and being sentenced to jail will be a negative influence on their lives and reverse the changes they had been making;
• Restorative justice is working with individuals in their communities and trying to restore those relationships and making people accountable for their behaviors in their own community. Restorative justice needs to restore the balance in the individual in a holistic way;
• Hosting camps in communities so youth can learn to appreciate the gift of life. The use of life skills camps as an alternative to locking up youth need to be used as teaching tools. Children should not be locked up like animals, they need to be out training, running, involved in sports and other positive activities;
• Programs and processes that deal with fairness and about restoring or building harmony, that include or involve the community;
• Programs that are future focused on the healing and the building versus focused on the past mistakes;
• For restorative justice to work we are suggesting that you have to go back to community and you have to look at traditional authorities and involve them in design and development;

2. EXAMPLES OF SUCCESSFUL RESTORATIVE JUSTICE INITIATIVES IN SASKATCHEWAN

• Regina Alternative Measures Program (RAMP)
• Conferencing program in Moose Jaw
• Cree Court which operates in the North
• Gladue Court in Toronto, Ontario
• Tsuu Tina as an example of moving a court into the community
• Manitoba Keewatinowi Okimakanak initiative (MKO)
• RCMP community conferencing in the North
• Vancouver Aboriginal Transformative Justice Program
• The La Loche Model
• Mi’Kmaq Justice Initiative in Nova Scotia
• A country called Cuna that has no police and no jails
• Atoskota Program
• Youth Offender Restoration Program
• The Street Culture Program in Regina
• EGADZ in Saskatoon
• Victim-Offender mediation
• Saskatoon Community Mediation Services
• Circle Court (Courtroom #6) in Saskatoon
• Operation Help
• HEAT, the auto theft program in Regina
• Graffiti Busters in Saskatoon
• Standing Buffalo model of sentencing circles
• Day Star model – Elders working with individuals
• In Search of Your Warrior – program for men who batter
• Public Legal Education Association and their League of Peaceful Schools project
• Thunderchild and their talking circle
• White Buffalo Youth Centre
• Calgary Community Conferencing

3. WHAT ARE THE SOLUTIONS TO THE ISSUES:

• Involving community – educate the community on models of successes;
• Community accountability and support – involve community in the beginning and conclusion not just during crisis;
• There needs to be a vehicle for the voice of change, for the voice of restorative justice;
• More involvement in the arts for youth.
• Setting up conflict resolution centres;
• Permanent funding for programs;
• Restorative justice has to be about change – we have to change attitudes;
• Barriers need to be dealt with such as poverty, education, peer pressure and addictions;
• Increased cultural awareness and education, teaching young people responsibility and guiding young people;
• Find something good to focus on and not just the negative. Youth need something to build up from so focus on positives;
• Early intervention in the court system;
• Have the media promote positive things rather than negative things. There is a need to focus on changing negative attitudes;
• Increased use of community-school approach;
• Work with existing successful programs and not continually creating new programs. Ensure funding is established so the programs can focus on the issues and not trying to continue their existence;
• Pay kids to finish school. Include an all-Aboriginal school as an option where youth can learn about language and culture;
• Use the Big Brother format and have successful youth working with and supporting first time offenders;

4. IMPLEMENTATION PHASE OF THE COMMISSION’S WORK – SHORT AND LONG TERM STRATEGIES:

• Communities need the tools and the skills to be able to resolve their own conflicts;
• Healthier communities – everybody has the right to be part of the decision and part of the result;
• Pride in the community – a healthy community can support youth so they can be more positive and capable, have a sense of growth and belonging;
• Shared leadership and power – respected leadership;
• Permanent funding of programs so the focus can be on frontline service delivery and not on administration problems;
• The community attitude needs to be one of hope and have a feeling of empowerment. If you share the decision making, then this would lead to a more hopeful attitude;
• Review federal-provincial agreements for funding that could be used to support or link a variety of different kinds of restorative justice initiatives with other things dealing with human services and social or economic development in a way that helps Saskatchewan move forward;
• Educate private sector to understand that if you have healthy communities then these communities are good to invest in for economic reasons. If a community is healthy and growing then businesses will naturally move to these communities;
• Have a forum where government departments, federal and provincial, can talk and work together;
• Educate the public, let them know change is a good thing and not to be feared;
• Work with community agencies currently not willing to look at changing their mandate or their vision for fear of losing something;
• Work with the media to overcome the negative connotations of change and get them to support and make it positive in the public eye;
• Help communities to develop and become healthy so they can successfully attempt to work on restorative justice issues;
• The Implementation Vehicle the Commission puts forward needs to have a mandate to go out and implement the recommendations and to call on the different government departments and outside organizations and ask them what they are doing, and be able to look into that and to be able to report back to the public and to cabinet on progress;
• We need to empower communities to feel good about themselves and what they are doing. Listen to people, listen to our youth, let’s treat them like they are our future and give them a voice.