nunavut

Bill C-10 will hit Nunavut hard, Shewchuk tells senators

Submitted by Nicole Seguin on Mon, 02/06/2012 - 1:20pm

NUNATSIAQ NEWS

Dan Shewchuk, the Nunavut justice minister, told the Senate legal affairs committee Feb. 2 that Bill C-10, the Conservative government’s omnibus crime bill, will create big costs and other problems for Nunavut’s justice and correctional systems.

Bill C-10, known as the Safe Streets and Communities Act, would amend the Criminal Code, the Youth Criminal Justice Act and other federal laws to limit the use of conditional sentencing, create more mandatory minimum sentences and make the youth justice law more tough.

“Nunavut has a unique justice system and Bill C-10 will have repercussions on our territory,” Shewchuk said. Read more »

Safe injection sites needed across Canada to fight hepatitis: group

Submitted by Nicole Seguin on Thu, 07/28/2011 - 2:14pm

By The Canadian Press, The Tyee

Canada needs safe-injection sites in every region to curb the spread of hepatitis B and C, says a health-care coalition that is calling for a more aggressive approach to combat the diseases.

The Canadian Coalition of Organizations Responding to Hepatitis B and C has issued a report card on Canada's performance and found that resources are inconsistent across the country.

Co-ordination appears particularly poor in Prince Edward Island, Nunavut and the Northwest Territories and prison inmates across the country are especially vulnerable, the group says in its report.

"Governments are essentially failing in terms of the prison population," the report says. Read more »

Nunavut’s plan for treatment centres stalls

Submitted by Nicole Seguin on Mon, 04/04/2011 - 10:41pm

By: JANE GEORGE, Nunatsiaq Online

Nunavut residents who hoped to see two new addictions and treatment centres in the territory will likely have to wait longer.

That’s because the Government of Nunavut has put on hold its request for proposals for centres in Iqaluit and Cambridge Bay.

In Cambridge Bay, there’s already a plan to convert the former student hostel into a residential addictions treatment and healing centre and many people in the Kitikmeot region are eager to get help closer to home.

But after hamlet officials hadn’t received any news about their proposal, which they submitted this past February, they learned that the RFP was cancelled. Read more »

Canada’s shame

Submitted by Nicole Seguin on Thu, 10/14/2010 - 4:30pm
By: Cathy Gulli with Patricia Treble, Macleans
 
Talk to people living in the North about why the violent crime rate is so high compared to the rest of Canada and you’ll hear about the “complex” or “unique” problems “up here.” But it’s not until you listen to Peter J. Harte, a lawyer in Cambridge Bay, Nunavut, tell the unimaginable story of a young woman he knows that you can begin to understand what that means.
 
At 13, the girl was sexually abused by her brother. This only came to the attention of police when they questioned her about why she was trying to put her little sister into hiding. Her brother wound up in jail, and the teen was placed with a foster family in another community.

Study cites problems with defendants who lack lawyers

Submitted by Nicole Seguin on Wed, 10/13/2010 - 1:34pm
By Dean Beeby, The Canadian Press
 
OTTAWA - An internal Justice Department study says too many people are showing up in Canadian courts without a lawyer, damaging their chances of acquittal.
 
The analysis, which examined the records of almost 130,000 accused persons, is among the few in Canada that has tried to quantify how the absence of legal representation affects case outcomes.
 
The data was drawn from criminal courts in four provinces - Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Quebec and British Columbia - as well as Nunavut, for cases heard in 2006-2007.
 
Those jurisdictions were chosen because the records offered the most complete information about whether lawyers had appeared alongside clients.

Cannabis pharmacy raids abusive, says BCCLA

Submitted by Nicole Seguin on Thu, 06/03/2010 - 1:40pm
BC Civil Liberties Association:
 
Quebec police shut down three medical cannabis dispensaries, also known as “compassion clubs” today, arresting all staff on site for trafficking. The Quebec closures follow a raid on a compassion club in Nunavut in February, in Toronto at the end of March, and in Guelph in May.
 
“These national raids have now sent thousands of Canadians to purchase their medicine on the street,” said Micheal Vonn, Policy Director of the B.C. Civil Liberties Association. “The police by these actions have enriched organize crime, encouraged associated criminal activity, and shut down non-profit organizations dedicated to improving people’s health and wellness. By any standard these raids make no sense at all.”

Overcrowded Nunavut jail reaches boiling point

Submitted by Nicole Seguin on Sun, 05/09/2010 - 11:32pm
By Gabriel Zarate, Nunatsiaq News Published: The Gazette
 
IQALUIT — During the third week of April, the Baffin Correctional Centre, Nunavut’s biggest territorial jail, was more crowded than at any other time in its history.
 
The inmate population stood at 102 in a building now designed to hold less than two-thirds that number, and originally built to house only 48 people.
 
The badly overcrowded state means more than mere discomfort: it means few essential programs, dangerously poor hygiene and the ever-present threat of violence.
 
Those conditions have created a “nightmare” scenario for short-handed staff at the prison, and there are fears the situation is only going to get worse.

Nunavut man facing pot charges launches Charter case over medical marijuana club

Submitted by Nicole Seguin on Fri, 02/05/2010 - 1:26pm
By Bob Weber, Canadian Press
 
IQALUIT, Nunavut — He calls himself a healer, not a dealer.
 
And despite spending last weekend in jail on drug charges, Ed DeVries is not about to shut what is almost certainly the most northerly - and perhaps the most popular - medical marijuana club in Canada.
 
"I couldn't stop this if I wanted to," says DeVries, a 52-year-old grandfather of four now facing four drug-related charges in Iqaluit, Nunavut.
 
He may be right.
 
The Qikiqtani Compassion Club, he says, distributes marijuana to 543 members, almost all of them in Iqaluit.
 
Read more »
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