Compassionate Justice Speaker Series

Post #257

700 words; 3 minutes to read

Summary: The Compassionate Justice speaker series has featured many outstanding talks and discussions on criminal justice and related issues in Canada.  

Some 12 years ago a group of people from a United Church in North Toronto attended a talk on criminal justice that caused them to think about how that system could be so much better.  Out of that came the Compassionate Justice program, a series of talks on issues related to criminal justice and compassion that has now been going on for well over a decade and has a high profile in Toronto and beyond.

Over time the program evolved to be run by a group of volunteers, some of whom have been involved from the beginning and others only more recently.  The goal of the group has always been to inject more informed discussion into a field that tends to be dominated by emotion and politics.

Each year the series has 4 sessions with some form of interview or presentation or discussion related to the theme of Compassionate Justice.  These occur on Sunday afternoons in the fall and winter.  Some years ago The Globe and Mail became a sponsor and has done much to publicize the events, contributing a substantial part of the audience.

Many impressive participants

Over the years the series has featured some very well known people, including:

• The late Justice Murray Sinclair,
• Senator Kim Pate, at that time Executive Director of the Canadian Association of Elizabeth Fry Societies
• The late Honourable Roy McMurtry, former Attorney General of Ontario
• The Honourable Bob Rae, former Premier of Ontario
• Philip Crawley, former publisher of The Globe and Mail

Another group of speakers has been prominent lawyers in the criminal justice system, including

• Ed Greenspan
• Brian Greenspan
• Marie Heinen
• Nader Hasan
• James Lockyer

The list of presenters includes some noted authors in the field, such as Paula Mallea (Beyond Incarceration) and Benjamin Perrin (Indictment).

In the last few years the program has included two former Supreme Court of Canada justices – Beverley McLaughlin and Rosalie Abella. And many other people all of whom donated their time to a purpose they believe in.

Common themes

These speakers have addressed a wide array of topics from many different perspectives.  But what they have had in common was a commitment to a criminal justice system that values compassion and fairness.  They would recognize that we should be looking for ways to reduce harm in society, but that harsh punishment is rarely the best way to do that, even when there is strong public demand for it.

A good justice system pays attention to individual cases and circumstances, recognizes that crime is rooted in social issues such as poverty and marginalization, and that any human system can and will make mistakes that can have huge consequences.  Our speakers would agree that the presumption of innocence is hugely important even, or perhaps especially, when it appears to be most troubling.  They would agree that while our system has many strengths, we should always be looking for areas of possible improvement.  They would agree that we often neglect the needs and interests of victims, and that sometimes the justice system ends up making things worse, no better.  And that public attitudes towards crime are often not the best basis for policy choices, especially where they conflict with the evidence from research.

All talks in the series are free; speakers volunteer their time and typically attract a live audience of hundreds.  All recent presentations are also available on the internet either as audio or, in the last few years, video files for streaming.  https://esgunited.org/compassionate-justice-past-speakers/

The Compassionate Justice Series is an attempt to help Canadians deepen their understanding of justice in our country, and to appreciate the many people who work so hard to make this a fairer and more compassionate place.

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