Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The issue I’d like to discuss today is how a constituent’s experience could have been handled much better. A few short weeks ago an emergency protection order was issued by the justice of the peace, but what makes this different and unusual is this was under false testimony, with the support and the assistance of a third party. At the time the EPO was issued, it moved swiftly through the justice system without a chance for my constituent to be heard, because if he had been heard, the accusations made against him may have warranted a balancing of other considerations to be weighed at the time the EPO was requested and then issued. However, for reasons not fully understood, the one-sided EPO was pushed forward and the transcripts were then sealed.
I’m not here to comment as to what the justice of the peace or the judge had heard, and I’m not here to question the credibility of testimony that was brought forward to them for their understanding due to the circumstances at the time, but what we have here is an experience that an accused was not heard and the accuser was able to paint a horrendous narrative of accusations against him and, surprisingly, a one-sided side of facts stood on record.
Now, I’m confident that the system was trying to act in good faith, but the problem here is the accuser has mislead the justice system, so rather than using the justice system to protect her, she used it to strike out at another person through an unspeakable accusation.
Now, it’s always easy to look back at circumstances to say what should have been done, but in cases like this, the obvious questions start to surface, which is why is the person who is being accused of such a dreadful accusation not given a chance to comment on those accusations? Where’s the fairness in that, Mr. Speaker?
Fortunately, the accused was relentless in his efforts and refused to yield to the injustice. In time it became clear that the accused was now becoming the victim. I know, as most people know, that almost all EPOs are both necessary and issued in good faith, but in this case when this one went bad it went really bad. Out of this experience the family has asked for two things: Firstly, they’ve asked for some type of review of the circumstances with the eye to ensure that the process of issuing EPOs can be brought forward in the best and appropriate manner. Mr. Speaker, does that mean that the third party should be advocating, or should it be in the hands of the RCMP? Let the review decide itself. Secondly, if the EPO is issued in error with false accusations, this order then puts the unfair obligation on the accused to clear their own name. There is no process to fix it for them that is automatic. It becomes a burden on the accused, who has become the victim.
Mr. Speaker, I will have questions later today for the Minister of Justice to see what we can do. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. The Chair is not aware of a matter being before the courts, but I would caution Members that if any issue is before the courts, then we are limited to what we can talk about in this House.
The honourable Member for Tu Nedhe, Mr. Beaulieu.
