Councillor Blake Edwards. (File photo/paNOW Staff)

By Alison Sandstrom

Council on crime

City of P.A. considers submitting victim impact statements in drug trafficking cases

Jul 8, 2020 | 5:00 PM

Prince Albert city council is exploring the possibility of providing a victim impact statement to courts when someone is convicted of a drug trafficking offence.

Coun. Blake Edwards, who brought the idea to council, told the June 29 meeting it would provide Prince Albert the opportunity to have its say on crimes that affect the entire city.

“The courts need to hear that drug traffickers are negatively impacting our community,” he said. “And I don’t think they’re taking this into consideration, of how many families a drug trafficker is impacting.”

Edwards said even if someone trafficking drugs gets just one person addicted, the consequences are far reaching and that’s often not reflected in sentencing.

“It’s impacting the whole entire family, the neighbourhood,” he said. “It’s impacted the entire city when they’re trying to get that fix, when they’re in our backyards because they need money to get that fix.”

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“I think there’s a way that we can work as a city along with the city solicitor that we can word it properly and that when [drug trafficking offenses] go to court, we can put our say in there and it impacts the sentence.”

Mayor Greg Dionne said the city has provided victim impact statements to courts in the past when requested, but didn’t know of any cases where it had submitted one without being asked.

“Most of them have been when people have committed property damage and we want our money back and compensation,” he explained.

Council voted to have city administration prepare a report on the issue for discussion at a future meeting.

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alison.sandstrom@jpbg.ca

On Twitter: @alisandstrom