Duane Hicks
With word that local Crown Attorney Robert “Buster” Young is retiring soon, the town will advocate loud and clear that Fort Frances and Rainy River District needs a new one immediately to replace him.
Fort Frances CAO Mark McCaig noted there’s been a continued erosion and marginalization of court services here in recent years, and he fears this new development could be the next step.
“I don’t think we can be too over-the-top abut this issue,” McCaig told council Monday night.
“We lost our resident judge and it hasn’t worked.
“If we lose our Crown Attorney, I think it’s going to be an even worse situation,” he added.
The town and District of Rainy River Law Library Association began advocating the Ministry of the Attorney General for a new resident judge here when Justice Alan Thomas McKay left back in 2011, making Fort Frances the only place in Ontario without a resident judge.
But since then, no new resident judge has been appointed here.
As such, the town must act now to make sure the same thing doesn’t happen with a Crown Attorney.
McCaig said Young, who has been a resident here for the last 16 years, has provided exemplary service, and also has a stake in—and cares deeply about—the community.
Young helped found the Rainy River District Victims Services Program, the Youth Justice Diversion Program, and the Direct Accountability Diversion Program.
“Buster’s leaving and I see no indication that he’s going to be replaced,” noted McCaig.
“As a matter of fact, I’m hearing all kinds of things that they might not be replacing him.
“I’m hearing that we’re going to be getting services on an emergency contract-type situation with the resources being parachuted in from Kenora,” said McCaig.
“That doesn’t sound like a good solution. It sounds like more of the same,” added McCaig, who foresees increased costs and delayed trials as a result.
McCaig said the loss of court services affects the viability and vitality of the community.
“The travelling judge thing, from what I’m hearing, is not working,” he remarked. “I’m hearing there’s justices complaining about the travelling.
“The old expression for what we’ve got now—‘whistle-stop justice’—I think it’s still applicable.”
The use of video technology to conduct hearings in lieu of having a judge physically here hasn’t worked well, either, McCaig said.
“The links have been terrible, you can’t understand it, it causes further delays to the process,” he explained.
“Further delays mean more money,” he added. “Costs go up whether it’s for the clients or the lawyers, things have to be redone, things have to be re-heard.
“We’re not having a good experience with what their solution was.”
McCaig said district residents should have the same level of judicial service as all other citizens in the province.
“We believe this is a basic right upon which good governance, respect for the rule of law, and good community-based values will always be measured,” he stressed.
What’s more, the local legal community is getting older and what young lawyers are going to want to relocate to a
community that has sub-standard judicial services, wondered McCaig, adding Kenora seems like “the place to be now.”
In places such as Sault Ste. Marie and North Bay, when a Crown Attorney retires, there’s immediate competition to be the new one.
But they also have a wealth of assistant Crown Attorneys assigned to help them, unlike here in Fort Frances where Young has been “a one-man show,” noted McCaig.
He pointed out Young alone handled 716 criminal cases here from July, 2014 to June, 2015.
In Kenora-Dryden during that same period, they had 5,193 criminal cases. But these were handled by a Crown Attorney with nine assistant ones.
“If you love the statistics, there’s our case as to why . . . we should immediately call on the Attorney General to do something about this,” McCaig said.
When the issue of a resident judge was brought to former Attorney General John Gerretsen, he was engaged.
But when the town spoke with current Attorney General Madeleine Meilleur, the town was told that her ministry has no jurisdiction and that the decision lies with the chief justice, McCaig noted.
This time, however, the Ministry of the Attorney General does not get to say it has no jurisdiction because the Crown Attorney is the direct representative of the Attorney General, he stressed.
McCaig urged the town and all the other municipalities of the district not to delay in calling on the Attorney General to immediately replace Young with a resident Crown Attorney.
“We should not, in any shape or form, accept this,” he reiterated.
Mayor Roy Avis agreed.
“It’s been very depressing,” he lamented. “As he [McCaig] has said, we are second-class citizens in the province of Ontario here in this district.”
Mayor Avis said the town will draft a letter immediately to the Attorney General.
Coun. Ken Perry said the issue also will be brought to the Rainy River District Municipal Association, which holds its annual general meeting at the end of January.
“It’s not just Fort Frances, it’s the Rainy River District,” he stressed.
“Fort Frances is one-third of the population of Rainy River District; there’s still the other two-thirds out there that get no justice, either, and no Crown Attorney,” Coun. Perry noted.
Atikokan also will be contacted to garner its support.
