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BIGGER THAN ME PODCAST
195. Niki Sharma: Attorney General on Crime, Justice & Repeat Violent Offenders
Are crime rates being addressed? BC Attorney General Niki Sharma joins host Aaron Pete to discuss bail reform, repeat violent offenders, Indigenous overrepresentation, justice system gaps, legal aid funding, and building a safer, fairer British Columbia.
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Welcome back to another episode of the Bigger Than Me podcast. Here is your host, Aaron Peet. How are we dealing with repeat violent offenders? I'm speaking with the Attorney General of British Columbia about justice reform, the over-representation of Indigenous people in the criminal justice system, bail conditions and legal aid funding. My guest today is Nikki Sharma. Minister Nikki Sharma, it is an honour to have you on the show. Thank you so much for joining us. Would you mind briefly introducing yourself?
Niki Sharma:Sure, thanks for having me. My name's Nikki Sharma. I'm the Attorney General Deputy Premier of the province and, yeah, happy to be here.
Aaron Pete:Would you mind walking us through a little bit of your background so we can humanize you and get to know some of the work that you're doing?
Niki Sharma:Sure. So I was raised in a very small town in BC called Sparwood I don't know if the listeners know where that is, but it's just in the East Kootenays there and then, after leaving there, I went to law school eventually and was a lawyer that practiced in Vancouver, came to politics kind of through a side door because of the work that I was doing and I was really fortunate to be able to work. Most of my practice was working with Indigenous people and Indigenous government, so really got a lot out of that experience and wanted to go into politics eventually because I saw that when you're in government you could change systems for people and that was really something that was really exciting for me and I'm just grateful to be in the position that I'm in.
Aaron Pete:My question, my first question, is really around the landscape that you see from your perspective. I hear a lot from conservatives that they're very worried about being more tough on crime holding people accountable issues in that regard, on crime, holding people accountable issues in that regard. And then I hear more sympathetic people who lean liberal or lean a little bit left being very worried about that we're treating people fairly, that we're being empathetic to their circumstances, and I'm wondering what are you seeing, what is your understanding of the landscape we're in in regards to justice in British Columbia?
Niki Sharma:Yeah, and I too have been. I guess maybe you weren't expressing concern, but I would express my concern over, sometimes, the rhetoric that comes out of how we deal with crime and public safety. And certainly every community has to have safety right. We have to know that, you know we can walk our kids on the street, that we can live in safe communities, that everything you know is taken care of in that way, and that's something that we're focused on.
Niki Sharma:And those solutions have many different approaches to them and they're about, you know, supporting people through mental health challenges. They're about supporting people through addiction challenges, supporting people at the right time in the right place, making sure that, actually, one of the things that I'm very proud of our government doing is investing in mental health care for young people, because we know that if we can get young people at the right time that are having that first adverse childhood experience and need help, that we may be able to transform their whole life. And then also, when we have those people entering the criminal justice system that are repeat violent offenders, that are shown to cause harm to communities and interventions just haven't worked, then we need to have the justice system tooled up to respond to that. So from our perspective, it's a whole range of solutions that are going to help make sure that our justice system is working well, but also communities are working well and people have the supports they need.
Aaron Pete:So I was a Native court worker for about four and a half years assisting Indigenous people through the legal system, and one of the pieces that I can understand where people are coming from on is releasing people back into the community that don't have the supports that they need, so they are going to go back in order to provide for their friends, they're going to go back to a life of crime, they're going to start stealing and I think this is this is a hard problem from my perspective. It's one that's really you see on a lot of beware pages on facebook of this person stealing my bike. I have footage of this person stealing my bike and then there's a certain level stealing my bike, and then there's a certain level of inaction, or what do you do with these types of circumstances? Where they're in poverty, they're often struggling with addictions. What are the potential solutions that we can look at to support people, because these are the ones that I think impact British Columbians on a day-to-day basis is these constant posts of like that? We know this person's doing this.
Niki Sharma:We just these constant posts of like that we know this person's doing this, we just don't know how to get them to stop stealing from individuals. Yeah, it's a really it's a really good question. I just want to say thanks for your service with native, native court workers. It's a great organization and I've seen kind of on the on the ground about how they work, uh, with people that are entering the justice system and how to give a full solution to that person and the community, which I think is really the answer. We need the right interventions at the right time, right, and what ends up happening is that if people aren't getting the right solution at the right time, things can get worse for them and their communities. So, how we've been approaching it, we have certain interventions that are about the kind of frontline street response, so making sure that we have police that are tooled up to respond and also mental health workers and also the type of people that are tooled up to deescalate issues that are happening on the street. If there is an offender that is prolific, that is entering the justice system a lot, we've ramped up tools to try to make the system a lot. We ramped up tools to try to make the Crown Council, the probation officer and the RCMP work better together for those individuals so we can figure out what the solution is. Well, they can figure out what the solution is for that person With the Indigenous justice strategy, which I think I'm really proud of, the work that the First Nation Justice Council's done and Native court workers are definitely a strong role in transforming the justice system for Indigenous people and that is culturally safe supports at the right time so we can transform and understand how the impacts of colonization have affected Indigenous communities and their people.
Niki Sharma:I hear, actually, about the solutions we need across the board and that's kind of how we've approached the problem or solving the problem. And when people hear and they see those videos that you're talking about on the street, I know people feel like the sense of unsafety or lack of safety that we need to step in and that's why we've targeted different responses to different communities. There's about um five or six major communities in the province now that have seen a decrease in crime rates, um as a result of the, as a result of some of the targeted support. So working with rcmp, working with the social services systems in those communities, like situationables, is another example of that. They've seen a drop in levels of petty crime and also levels of unprovoked stranger violence. I mean, one is too many, so we can't stop working to make sure it keeps going down. But it's a complicated problem and we have to intervene in all possible ways to prevent those types of things from happening.
Aaron Pete:A Research Co survey found that 87% of British Columbians support tougher bail conditions for repeat offenders. I'm wondering how do you take that information and what action is being taken based on that research?
Niki Sharma:Yeah, it's a really good point. So we've been a leader in BC on bail reform and I track that very closely when it comes to uh how our bail system is working. We need to have strong bail laws and we advocated and actually were able to get other every other province to agree with us uh to advocate to the federal government to change rules on bail, particularly for repeat violent offenders that we know are uh are dangerous to communities and themselves. And we got that bail reform in January so that the judges who are there determining whether or not somebody should really be released on bail or not, it switches their onus on them. So instead of saying which is generally the case, innocent until proven guilty and you are free before your trial, which is how our justice system works there are those occasions where we ask the judge instead to do reverse onus, to say that instead you should see is it safe to release this person, rather than the default being the release, and those are situations where intimate partner violence does at play, where there's repeat violent offending, if there's a risk to community, and so the justice system is better tool to respond to them.
Niki Sharma:I still think there's work to do on making sure our bail system is strong and working and we're always looking at different ways to either push on the federal government because they hold the criminal law in the end, provinces don't hold the criminal law and it makes sense, right? You wouldn't have each province having a different set of criminal rules, right? So if you go to Alberta, you can do this. So it's a nationwide system and we've also tried to tool up our system in BC better to respond. So there's been a few ways we've looked at it and we're going to continue to advocate for better changes.
Aaron Pete:I'm going to walk you through my understanding again, working in the court system, and I want to see where my gaps of understanding might exist. So I would have a person come in. They'd need support. They may be struggling with an addiction, struggling with homelessness, they've stolen something which has frustrated a business or a person, and I'm trying to help them. I go through a resource list of something to help with their addiction and there very limited resources on this front and I know that that doesn't fall directly within your purview, but these are the challenges I've come up against. There's this resource, there's that resource, maybe this one's more of a religious resource that doesn't really fit what they're looking for.
Aaron Pete:We don't have a lot of culturally appropriate treatment or services for individuals struggling with that. Sometimes there's wait lists, sometimes they need some documentation in order to be able to access that. Then it's. The question is how are we going to pay for this? And so these are the questions. The judge is asking me hey, what resources are available to this person? I'm going, we have the Salvation Army, we have this resource and it's all voluntary. This person has to choose to want to stick with this, and then they go to this recovery house or this treatment center and the person goes this isn't the fit for me, so I'm going to leave. Now they're breaching their bail conditions. Now they're back before the courts and then I'm again trying to advocate for them. Here's some other resources that you might be able to access.
Aaron Pete:Again, not a good fit or those types of challenges are what I've seen us run into and my understanding and again correct me where I'm wrong was the approach was going to be we're going to be more understanding and sympathetic to people struggling with addiction.
Aaron Pete:We're going to take approach of safe supply to people struggling with addiction. We're going to take approach of safe supply, but the underpinning was always going to be there's going to be more treatment centers, there's going to be more resources to help get them off of that. And to me, we're stuck in this, this in-between world, where we're providing safe supply but we don't have sufficient treatment centers or recovery homes that are run by the province instead of by, like often my clients would say it was a person in this recovery home that was the one selling me the drugs and I was vulnerable and I'm trying to get back on my feet and I ended up accepting and now I'm back in this terrible circumstance it's. These are the gaps that I would often see and I'm wondering am I in the same place as you or is there something I'm missing?
Niki Sharma:Yeah, I think your analysis is one that's obviously from seeing on the front line what the gaps are. It's why we know there's been a chronic lack of resources in BC when it relates to treatment and recovery and we as a government have been stepping up across the province. So we put $1 billion it's a record amount into expanding our addictions and mental health supports across this province. I talked about the Foundry program that's expanding across schools for young youth mental health supports and I think we've opened up close to 800 or something new beds or new treatment centers across the province. But there's totally more work to do, especially in parts of the province that are generally underserved with these types of services, and we've tried to reduce wait times to get from detox to treatment, because oftentimes and we've had some pilot programs that are really successful instead of waiting for three days, you can get a detox quickly, so you're not letting that person change their mind, as addictions is something that's very difficult for people to overcome. So absolutely we need to make sure that all those services are at the hand of people like yourself that were Native court workers and ready to present to the judge with the if there's a gladiator report or whatever's before the judge saying this is what this person is going to do in the community.
Niki Sharma:And another resource that's expanded quite a bit is with the Indigenous Justice Centre.
Niki Sharma:So there are now 15 of those across the province and the idea of those centres is to provide those kind of very frontline services for an Indigenous person that's encountering the justice system. So they are tooled up with connecting with all those organizations and also have been able to secure funding in different ways to help with those culturally appropriate programs that you're talking about and the communities that they operate in. So what is it? And I think there's so much potential there because if they're set up in those 15 locations across BC, they're going to start to be able to respond locally to what's needed right there for that individual, whether it's the network of connections of the organizations that are out there or building up those connections. And they have some diversion programs that they're working on that are culturally appropriate, that they're working on that are culturally appropriate. So a person like yourself you were talking about representing somebody and wants to present the supports that this person will have in community will have better tools to be able to do that.
Aaron Pete:The piece around Indigenous justice and the approach being taken. I have a question for you, and perhaps it's a bit complicated. I had the privilege of doing that work. I got to be involved in helping people connect with important services. My fear, though, is we've done this a lot and just the track record of evidence. I don't know if you feel the same way. It's not working, and it's not working because I wasn't doing my job or Native court workers weren't doing the job, but the Native court workers existed for 50 years and the numbers continue to go up in terms of Indigenous over-representation and putting Indigenous people into the courts or sorry, the jail system to support people and to provide culturally appropriate services. It's just it's not having the impact.
Aaron Pete:Gladue has existed for over 20 years now. It has not brought down the rates of incarceration of Indigenous people, and I'm not saying that the Indigenous justice centres won't work. Obviously, this is very new, but my fear is that a lot of this may not be underpinned by clear evidence that it's going to have the effect that it needs to, and I understand. I know a lot of people at the First Nations Justice Council. I know that their heart is fully in it. My fear is that we're going down a path and we don't know where we're going to end up. And what if, in 15 years, we've invested all of this money, we've built all these justice centers and there is no evidence that we're bringing down these rates? And I'm wondering how you grapple with that, because I'm sure that your goal, your intention, is to address these issues.
Niki Sharma:Yeah, so we are working on, I think, to your point, we need to make sure that those programs are working. I'll tell you what I've seen. What I've seen in the last maybe few years is I think Gladue reports have been around for a long time and the thing that I heard and seen and I wonder your perspective on this is that they weren't being used to their maximum in the system. Wonder, your perspective on this is that they weren't being used to their maximum in the system and the the system, like the judges and the crown council and the defense council sometimes were not, except for when there were really dedicated workers like the native court workers. The whole system in itself wasn't necessarily using the gladiator reports to the ability that it could, and what I was.
Niki Sharma:What I've been seeing in the last couple years and I meet with the judiciary quite often and I meet with Crown Council and I meet with Defence is a pretty constant ask for how are we incorporating GLADU into our like? They're asking me as the Attorney General about the use of these reports and how we can integrate it with their systems. I see that has changed over the last two years to the point where the number of reports, even requested of the Justice Council, has gone up because the system is recognizing that it's a vitally important aspect of it. So I guess I'm hopeful that with that change that I've seen, with the demand that that will mean that the outcomes will be better. We'll be watching for that, that we'll actually see the decrease of incarceration of Indigenous people and the track two, which is the upholding of Indigenous legal orders, so having different ways that are not the colonial ways necessarily of resolving disputes to bring a more whole outcome for that community and that individual.
Niki Sharma:I'm hopeful that we'll start to see that and I've certainly seen that our justice system in BC and I think I was in a conversation with other justice systems in the country and I've seen us like really take off when it comes to our different actors understanding how important this work is and it gives me hope that we're going to turn the corner. That was, I think, really what your point is a solid one. For 50 years the Native courtrooms have been working on the front line of this. Gladiator reports have been around for 20 years.
Aaron Pete:It's too bad that it takes the system so long to kind of maybe fully adopt or understand its role in it, but hopefully that's what's happening now my perspective is I had the privilege of working with uh crown council in chilliwack, abbotsford, surrey, vancouver, um bella bella doing circuit court and everybody wants good, fair outcomes, that that put people back home with their families. Like, like I understand a lot of the arguments around systemic racism. I just dealt with a lot of people who were like, give me the resource that I can let like a judge would be. Like, just give me the resource where I know this person's going to stay on the right track. You give me that resource. I don't, and like I struggle. I go back and forth with First Nations court and the part that I don't like is it becomes.
Aaron Pete:It's very meaningful for the people involved because they're watching somebody spill their heart and their soul out in front of them and so it's cathartic for people to go wow, this person's really opening up about how they were abused and what they overcame. But to me that's for a counsellor, that's for a one-on-one counsellor, and a lot of the information that I see get put into GLADU reports or I used to do GLADU letters is not for the public eye, it's not to be discussed in front of people. The thing they need is this person's struggling. They need resources. I'm scared to share too much about somebody's personal circumstance because those are all what we would call in probation risk factors, concerns about whether or not they're actually going to follow through. We don't need a long biography on the person.
Aaron Pete:Again, it's cathartic for the person to share their life and what they've been through, but some of that leaks into. Is this absolutely necessary for a judge to make a decision, or do they just need information on where are we sending this person? What resources are they tapping into that they weren't prior to interacting with the system? And so I just worry about these pieces becoming almost like struggle sessions, where we're publicly sharing people's the darkest things people have been through. And I worry about that on a personal sense, because it's so meaningful when you're the judge or when you're the Crown Counsel or when you're the defense counsel to hear what people have been through. But that's really not what this discussion should be about. It should be how this person's struggling, how do we help them, and so I just I worry about those pieces as just almost re-victimizing or oversharing people's personal circumstances.
Niki Sharma:Yeah, I know I take your point like everything has to be really respectful. The times that I've witnessed and been followed followed the outcomes for some of the First Nations courts from my understanding and I'd be interested in. Maybe your perspective would be slightly different. If it's done well, it can have more transformative impacts on that individual. And that's the real focus. You're right, it's not about like airing your trauma to the system. It's about saying we see you as a human and not as an accused and we want to support you and absolutely that means that the supports on the other end of that have to be there. Right, you have to be able to confidently say like here's what we're doing with this. We're doing to help you right To overcome this, and it has to be like a longer term process. So I completely agree with you and I think we have to be always cognizant about how processes work, so they're not just an exercise of, as you mentioned, airing your pain, but they are a productive, holistic approach.
Niki Sharma:And one thing that I have to say, things that I'm learning about, is that I'm not sure that our justice system in a lot of ways, I think the system has things to learn about more restorative, more holistic ways of resolution, and I see that in family law. I see that like it's not just in criminal law where you think about, and what I hear is that sometimes people feel re-traumatized when they've gone, they've had to go to the justice system whether it be criminal or family, and it's for a resolution and they leave feeling like they're more traumatized, like their family is further apart. So we've been doing a lot of work just to introduce things that I think we should do better in the system, because the flip side of not seeing the person as a human is that you lose a resolution that could be deeper than just or that could be more transformative. Right for that problem you're trying to solve.
Aaron Pete:I agree, and I don't mean to disparage any of the work going on by other organizations. I just I do fear that it's very tough for certain people to be able to voice criticisms or concerns about the path that, say, the BC First Nations Justice Council is taking, and I think it's just important that we we put out warning signs.
Niki Sharma:That's the bell, which is funny. I live. I live in a. I live in an environment of working about, where I have bells that tell me where I have to go. I don't know if you heard that.
Aaron Pete:I did yes. Can I ask two more quick questions?
Niki Sharma:Um, I have probably two more minutes and then I can. I can sneak off, so go ahead go ahead.
Aaron Pete:Sounds good, Okay. Legal aid funding. The BC branch of the Canadian Bar Association recently criticized the 2024 budget for failing to provide new legal aid funding, and I'm wondering was there a rationale behind that?
Niki Sharma:Yeah, you know what? I'm always looking for ways to expand access to justice, and part of it is, I think, definitely legal funding, and last year we were able to infuse a record amount into legal aid, so $29 million additional, which is quite the infusion into family law legal aid. We're also and I'm always looking for ways that we can expand that, so I'll continue to do so. Also, we're transforming systems, which is also a form of access to justice. So, particularly for family law, we have different resources that can reduce conflict.
Niki Sharma:So the early resolution process is an example of that. We piloted in Victoria and Surrey and what was that? That was like a legal information, a very effective way of getting resources to people before it goes to court, and what we saw was 80% reduction in court time and trials and 80% reduction, I think, in both Victoria and Surrey. So we're expanding that across the province. So what that means is that I know it's important to access a lawyer, but that if you can resolve it even without that, then that's an amazing, but that if you can resolve it even without that, then that's an amazing, hopefully more holistic approach. So, yeah, I'm continually looking at ways to expand and continue to increase legal aid and I really expect the system to keep asking. So I appreciate that they do and I'll continue to do the work.
Aaron Pete:Sounds good. Thank you so much for being willing to share your time today. I very much appreciate it. Can you tell people how they can follow your work?
Niki Sharma:So you can follow me. I have an Instagram and Blue Sky. I'm not on Twitter anymore, which is great for my mental health. I'm happy to even reach out to me in many different ways. If you just search Nikki Sharma, you'll find all the ways and thank you for having me. Really great to be here.
Aaron Pete:Thank you so much for being willing to share your time and so many insights. Have a great day.
Niki Sharma:Take care, thanks, bye.
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