Bill 28 - Jury Amendment Act, 2008
October 21, 2008 - Second Reading
Ms Blakeman: Thanks very much, Mr. Speaker. I just want to speak fairly briefly to second reading of the Jury Amendment Act, 2008. In Canada we don’t actually do that many jury trials. We tend to do trials that are mostly based on a technical challenge of the bill, so they are usually decided by a judge. We all watch a significant amount of American TV, in which they always seem to be jury trials. Of course, anybody that’s a fan of John Grisham: always big jury trials in his books as well. But that’s not really the case here, it’s my understanding, in Alberta, probably in Canada. My colleague the Member for Calgary-Buffalo, who is the critic that we have for Justice and Solicitor General, has recommended caucus support for this bill. I think that it, as he’s pointed out, does allow for although a smaller jury pool, because people will be, I think, cut out because of this, but one would say a less tainted jury pool, although that in itself is interesting because one of the things I asked for when I first saw this bill was: well, who would be caught under that category of summary offences? Well, first of all, you’re not fingerprinted for a summary offence conviction. It includes things like causing a disturbance; stuff like yelling in the mall, for example, if you got brought up on charges and convicted of that; harassing phone calls – well, that’s a bit creepier; I mean, there’s an element of threat involved in that, and certainly somebody has been made very uncomfortable or perhaps frightened by that – or mischief, and mischief can be all kinds of things.
It’s interesting who we are excluding here by bringing this change forward or actually clarifying something. Clearly they’re allowing an out or an appeal, if you will. I think the way it goes is that five years after a conviction for an indictable offence you are eligible for a pardon. Of course, that amount usually involves a bit of expense because you’re going to have to get a lawyer to run those papers through that legal process for you, so it’s not free. People that want it usually are interested in having their passport cleared so that they can travel into the U.S., for example.
It certainly does allow for, arguably, a less tainted jury pool but also a smaller jury pool, which really may not matter very much to us in that we don’t seem to need to draw on them. I don’t think I’ve ever been asked, unless my name has been excluded because I’m a Member of the Legislative Assembly. I’ve never received a request to serve on a jury. It does provide for incapacity in various situations, and it does offer an educational benefit to those that are serving the administration of justice. I see this essentially as a housekeeping bill, and I expect that we are not raising any objections to it per se, just a few comments that some of my colleagues will no doubt want to get on the record. As long as the minister is confident and comfortable that we’re maintaining an adequate jury pool, I don’t have any concerns with this other than the ones that I’ve already raised.
Maybe I’d be interested in hearing what the minister had to say back about those summary convictions; you know, the sort of mischief versus what she regards as unacceptable on that list that would take somebody off of that eligibility pool. But given that, I’m certainly willing to support what has been proposed here today. Thank you.
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