r v. JESSIE SIASI QUANNAALUK, 2020 QCCQ 8253

R. c. Quannaaluk 2020 QCCQ 8253 COURT OF QUÉBEC CANADA PROVINCE OF QUÉBEC DISTRICT OF MONTREAL TOWN OF MONTREAL Criminal and Penal Division No: 500-01-186120-199 500-01-206878-206 500-01-206879-204 500-01-210846-207 DATE: November 26, 2020 ______________________________________________________________________ PRESIDING : THE HONOURABLE ÉRICK VANCHESTEIN, J.C.Q. ______________________________________________________________________ HER MAJESTY THE QUEEN Prosecutor v.

JESSIE SIASI QUANNAALUK Defendant ______________________________________________________________________ JUDGMENT ON SENTENCE ______________________________________________________________________ [ 1 ] The defendant is charged with having failed to comply with the conditions of a probation order and a release order in four different files. [ 2 ] The probation order was imposed on September 6, 2018 after the defendant pleaded guilty to a charge of manslaughter.

After the defendant had spent a period in jail that amounted to five years, Justice David decided to suspend the passing of sentence and release the offender on the probation with a number of specific conditions. [1] [ 3 ] The crown is seeking a total sentence of imprisonment of four months for all the files while the defence is asking for the time already served. [ 4 ] The only question the Court has to answer is what is the just and fit sentence in the case of the defendant.

CONTEXT OF THE INFRACTIONS − File 500-01-186120-199 [ 5 ] This file is concerning infractions committed between December 6, 2018 and March 13, 2019. [ 6 ] In this file, a notice was sent by the probation officer to the prosecutor’s office on March 14, 2019 informing them of several breaches in the conditions: the defendant moved from the house assigned by the probation officer without a prior authorization; she didn’t report within three working days after her release from prison at the beginning of her probation and she is not involving herself in treatment programs in relation to her consumption of alcohol or drugs or her mental health problems. [ 7 ] According to the follow-up notes, [2] she met with her probation officer Véronique Ducharme on September 25, 2018 and they were constantly in touch after this date. [ 8 ] Regarding the fact that she moved without prior authorization, on December 6, 2018, the defendant decided by herself to move from the place she was living into another shelter.

The probation officer was informed by one of the workers and not by the defendant herself a couple of days after. The probation officer met with the defendant soon after, on December 13 and 17, 2018. She decided that even if the situation was not the ideal one, it would be hard to convince the defendant to go back to the place where she was living because she was not feeling well at that place for many reasons.

The important thing is to maintain services wherever she may reside and not to lose contact with her. [ 9 ] Concerning the implication of the defendant in different treatment programs, we can see from the follow-up notes the great implication of the community workers and the probation officer who had to find the best treatment or program for the defendant, but it was not easy. There are still many obstacles to overcome, as explained by Mrs. Gagnier, before finding a place suitable for the reality of the defendant.

[ 10 ] The particularity with this file is even though she was under warrant for arrest from March 15, 2019, this warrant was executed mostly a year after, on January 31, 2020. During that period, the defendant was constantly in contact with the probation officer and the community workers involved in her file. [ 11 ] After a bail hearing on February 5, 2020, the defendant was granted bail on February 7 with a specific condition to report to the probation officer within 72 hours. [ 12 ] After that, on March 16, we entered the COVID-19 confinement.

Due to the measures put in place at that time, the contacts between all the workers and probation officers and the defendant were limited. − Files 500-01-206878-206 and 500-01-206-879-204 [ 13 ] On June 8, 2020, the defendant was seen arriving at her building in an alcohol consumption state. The police was called because she claimed that she had been beaten up by a man who was with her. No complaint was made, but there were witnesses of her alcohol consumption state. [ 14 ] After discussion between the crown attorney in the file and the probation officer, a warrant was issued for her arrest on June 30, 2020.

She was in fact arrested on July 3 and she was granted bail on July 10 with harsh conditions that she had to follow. − File 500-01-210846-207 [ 15 ] Things go well during this summer and at the suggestion of the probation officer, she contacts the Centre Vilavi and enters a detox program on August 14, 2020. After a week, when the probation officer contacted her, she said that she was happy there and that things were going well.

After, the probation officer went on a holiday and when she came back on September 15, she learned that the defendant had left the therapy centre on September 4. [ 16 ] The defendant gave different reasons to different workers of why she left.

She said to someone that there was a language problem and to someone else, that following a family drama up north, she was not emotionally in a state of mind to involve herself in a closed therapy. [ 17 ] She was arrested for this last breach of probation on November 3, 2020 and pleaded guilty in all the files on November 4. [ 18 ] At the date of this judgment, the total preventive custody amounted to 53 days.

EVIDENCE ADDUCED AT THE HEARING ON SENTENCING [ 19 ] The Court has the benefit of the following documents: • the judgment on the sentence of September 6, 2018 by Honourable Marc David; [3] • the pre-sentence report prepared for the manslaughter case; [4] • the Gladue report prepared for the interim release hearing; [5] • the follow-up notes of the probation officer; [6] • the criminal records; [7] • the notice to the prosecutor from the probation services. [8] [ 20 ] The defence presents two witnesses. [ 21 ] Mrs. Breana Prince-Harris is a caseworker at the community centre Chez Doris.

She is in charge of the financial program and she handles the finances for the defendant. [ 22 ] Because of the COVID-19 crisis and the limited space the centre had, they had to reduce their services and limit the presence in the house exclusively to the homeless people. As for the clientele in needs of financial or administrative services, they could meet them only once a week for a 10-minute period. Due to that situation, the defendant had almost no follow-up until they went back to regular hours in mid-August. [ 23 ] Mrs.

Prince-Harris pays the defendant’s rent and she confirmed that the defendant still has her apartment. She stresses the fact that the defendant has a roof over her head, but that it is not a home for her. The indigenous clients try to create a new family and their home is at Chez Doris who is more than a shelter. At Chez Doris, they receive services, but they also find a community.

Once a week, on Friday, the women altogether do country kitchen, they prepare a traditional meal with products coming from up north. [ 24 ] As far as she knows, the impact of incarceration is heavy on the defendant’s conscience because she wants to improve her situation. Her reality is she wants the help that they can offer. [ 25 ] Mrs. Sonya Gagnier is a native court worker working at Services parajudiciaires autochtones du Québec (SPAQ) which is an organization funded by Justice Québec and Justice Canada to provide free services to First Nation and Inuit clients.

They also provide resources for things such as therapy, apartment, going back up north and culturally based resources with other First Nation organizations. They also have a victim service. They support the persons from the point of their bail up until the point of sentencing. They make follow-ups with regards to the court, make sure that they go to all the meetings they have and support them with all this process. [ 26 ] She has known the defendant since early January 2020. What she can tell the Court is that the defendant has a lot of pressure on

her with all the things she has to do, the people she has to meet and how her life is here, in Montreal. [ 27 ] She noticed that this pressure puts the defendant in a vulnerable position, in the sense that she does not have control of her own situation, that she is just following instructions given like as if she was on a remote control and trying to meet them.

That is a lot on her and she thinks it is not an easy thing for the defendant to be able to handle. [ 28 ] The defendant is always saying sorry for everything and when she met her when she was taken into custody, the defendant expressed that “maybe if I kill myself, everybody will be better off”. [ 29 ] The defendant needs to be recalibrated in the sense of giving her another kick start with not so much on her plate and that could be beneficial for her. [ 30 ] Regarding the therapy for Inuit clients and First Nation clients, there are a lot of things that pose a problem or obstacle when you try to have them go to therapy, the first one is the language barrier.

For women, a six month closed therapy is almost nonexistent. According to Mrs. Gagnier, a therapy to succeed needs a culturally-based approach: “For example, the Inuit people, by nature, are very private people, they don’t share a lot of things with each other, even in their personal relationships. (…) They even congregate separately, men will congregate with men, women will congregate with women. And then, they don’t feel comfortable when you just throw a whole bunch of questions at them or you throw them a bunch of responsibilities. Culturally, they don’t handle things like that well.

When it comes too hard and too fast or too, like it’s something that they need time to comprehend and they won’t easily like invest themselves in things like therapy, they won’t easily invest themselves in groups like talking about themselves, like in AA.

This is a mishap that we have with a lot of the… when I say we need culturally based therapies, it’s not because we want special treatment, it’s because the people don’t understand that those mechanisms in our culture exist and we’re at an impasse with that, so we end up like a round peg trying to fit in a square hole…” [9] [ 31 ] In fact, actually, according to Mrs. Gagnier, there is no therapy that really fits for the defendant. Mrs. Gagnier said: “For any First Nation or Inuit right now, it’s… I almost want to cry, it’s so difficult.

I’m Mohawk myself and I see it, then there’s… I’m meeting with the minister of Indigenous affairs tomorrow and I’m going to be putting that on his plate tomorrow morning because there’s just nothing for them, nothing at all and we try so hard to find therapies and it’s just, we’re asked to comply with what’s available and sometimes, it’s just not the case, it’s really an uphill battle and the more we try to educate and explain to people how important it is for us because… with residential school, we had to comply.

If you look at 60… we had to change our whole life and adapt, we’re always in that adaptation mode and it’s really… even as a Mohawk it’s hard and we’re always asked to do that and it’s the same with the therapy or anger management or, I think we’re just very misunderstood and not heard enough, is really where it’s at.” [10] [ 32 ] On one question from the prosecutor regarding the transparency of the defendant, she answered that way: “I have to say yes, there is, she does not… there is a lack of that transparency like you’re explaining, just in the sense that she does give a different version to different people and we all are aware of that and that’s why we all talk and we try to work… we do go to Siasi and we tell her because while we’re helping them, we also need them to understand how, the gravity of what’s involved and we don’t always, you know, sugar coat, we tell them and we have told Siasi like: “Listen, you know, it means this or it doesn’t mean that, if you don’t do this”, you know, like, we’ve explained it to her and we’ve also confronted her on that “you told her something, you told her something and you told me something”.

We do talk to her about that.

Again, I don’t know why, I don’t know if it was something stemming from her, how she grew up or the incident in hand or, I don’t know what is getting her to be that way, but we’re all trying to figure it out like the next person, on how the best… that’s why I said we’re trying to always evolve with her to try and find a way like, okay, you know, is this a problem stemming from a mental health issue, is it a problem stemming from she just lacks the…. a lot of Native people or indigenous people lack trust in the system, they don’t trust easily, they feel like everybody… and that’s just based again on cultural experiences that we’ve had as First Nations people, is that we’re raised not to trust very easily, like, you know, we’ve always had like really bad interactions with police, with court, with non-indigenous organizations in people, so, our trust factor, it’s very thin and very hard to attain a good bound with somebody that they can really trust you and I think that could be an issue.” [11] [ 33 ] According to Mrs.

Gagnier and her experience with working with the defendant, when you can set a goal for her or motivate her and give her some positive reinforcement, she really comes out shining. She needs to have some kind of recognition for her efforts and something that she could say is an accomplishment. [ 34 ] The different workers are actually talking between themselves to try to find something that will provide her with such an opportunity.

They are exploring the idea for her to be able to take charge of preparing the country food on Friday mornings or to help with the cultural activities at Chez Doris, that will keep her connected to her culture and to the community and will give her some sense of an accomplishment. They think that this might be very helpful for the defendant. POSITION OF THE PARTIES [ 35 ] For the defence, according to the principles set out in Gladue [12] and I peelee [13] concerning aboriginal offenders, the main objective in the present matter should be corrective justice.

The defendant has remorse, feels bad and tries to face her obligations, but it is not an easy task for her. [ 36 ] The actual infractions are without violence and the defendant is not representing a danger to society.

The breaches are minor infractions and the time served exceeds what would generally be imposed in a situation like this one. [ 37 ] For the crown, the prosecutor stresses the point that the probation was crafted and adjusted carefully by Justice David to find the best conditions to try to help the defendant. [ 38 ] According to the prosecutor, considering the defendant’s lack of transparency, the importance of the breaches related to the alcohol consumption and the fact that she left the therapy centre without advising anyone, those breaches are not minor infractions. The

Court should send a message to the defendant to convey the importance of respecting court orders and probation conditions. ANALYSIS [ 39 ] The fundamental purpose of sentencing is the protection of society and respect of the law by imposing just sanctions that follow one or more of the objectives mentioned at

Section 718 of the Criminal Code . [ 40 ] As Justice LeBel mentioned in Ipeelee , “proportionality is the sine qua non of a just sanction” [14] and the determination of a fit sentence is “a highly individualized process”. [15] This is in accordance with the fundamental principle stated at

Section 718.1 of the Criminal Code where “a sentence must be proportionate to the gravity of the offence and the degree of responsibility of the offender”. [ 41 ] Also, in his assessment of the just sanction, the Court should take into consideration the principle stated at

Section 718.2(

e) Cr.c . […] (

e) all available sanctions, other than imprisonment, that are reasonable in the circumstances and consistent with the harm done to victims or to the community should be considered for all offenders, with particular attention to the circumstances of Aboriginal offenders. [ 42 ] In the present matter, all the files are prosecuted by way of an offence punishable on

summary conviction. [ 43 ] The objective gravity before September 19, 2019 is a term of imprisonment not exceeding six months while after this date, is raised to a term of two years less a day. PROFILE OF THE DEFENDANT [ 44 ] Apart from the conviction for the manslaughter case, the defendant has not had any significant conviction, but she has a life qualified by Justice David in his judgment as “far removed from the experience of most Canadians”. [ 45 ] The Court relies on the description of the profile made by Justice David who gives a good overview of the life and situation of the defendant: [16] [44] Here is a

summary description of that life. [45] Ms. Quannaaluk was born in 1959 in a sealskin tent. She is the second eldest child of seven siblings. Always, her parents abused alcohol and fought with each other. She herself began abusing alcohol at the age of 12. All her siblings are beset with alcohol abuse problems. [46] She attended “Federal” day school sporadically. To raise her brothers and sisters, she was forced to quit school when she was 14 years old. As a result of having to abandon her studies, Ms. Quannaaluk developed a suicidal ideation.

The pre-sentence report noted the following: “Since she viewed the academic world as being the only area that provided her with a feeling of security, she developed strong feelings of shame, anger and injustice that eventually led her to her developing suicidal ideations during her adolescence.” (S-4a, p. 7) [47] By sheer determination, she completed her high school diploma when in her forties whilst living in Kuujjuaq and Salluit. [48] Ms.

Quannaaluk is a lifelong victim of physical and mental abuse, incestuous sexual abuse, rape and human trafficking for the purpose of sexual exploitation. [49] As a result, she was recently diagnosed as suffering from post-traumatic stress syndrome. (S-5) [50] [...], she was sexually abused by her father from the ages of 7 to 15 years old. The sexual abuse included intercourse. The same occurred with her maternal grandfather for two years, which began when she was eight years old.

Her parents pimped her in this regard, as the mother needed money to sustain her gambling activities. [51] As recently as 2005, when accompanying her father to Montreal for medical treatment, he masturbated in front of Ms. Quannaaluk while sharing a room with her in the treatment facility. This is when she decided to permanently leave the north and moved to Montreal. [52] When 19 years old, Ms. Quannaaluk gave birth to the first of her three children. All have different fathers. Her [...] child was born in 1982 as a result of being raped by an older man from Ungava Bay who was visiting Ivujivik. [53] Ms.

Quannaaluk has been in a number of spousal relationships. She was married once for an 11 year period, which ended in 1995. [54] Save for one spouse that she frequented in 2006, all have been physically and mentally abusive towards her. The author of the psychological assessment, Dr. Stephenson, explained during his viva voce evidence that repetitive abuse in all Ms.

Quannaaluk’s close relationships was the norm, as this was the only reality that she has known throughout her life. [55] Her five year relationship with the victim, Paul Brown, fitted within this cycle of abuse. [ 46 ] As we know, the relationship with Mr. Brown came to a tragic end on February 16, 2015. [ 47 ] The defendant is now 61 years old. She had the life that was described by Justice David and since her release from jail in 2018, she tried the best she can to comply with the probation order.

[ 48 ] The follow-up notes describe all the work carefully done by the workers and the probation officer to try to help her and also the implication of the defendant in her own way to control her biggest problem, the consumption of substances. [ 49 ] Even though she was convicted of a violent crime in 2018, there is no evidence that the defendant is representing a danger to society. [ 50 ] The Crown bases her suggestion on the fact that the defendant is not transparent and she “surfs” with the system and her obligations. Mrs. Gagnier explained clearly why she is not always telling the truth to everyone.

Her pattern is well-known and has justification in the deepest roots of untrustworthiness. A JUST SANCTION [ 51 ] The goal of everyone involved in this case is to help the defendant with her problems and to make sure that she will find her place and have a quiet life. The probation order was issued to achieve this goal. The fact of not respecting it is an offence but is also disrespectful towards all the workers who tried to help the defendant. [ 52 ] The Court is convinced that the defendant is aware of her behaviour and made serious efforts to comply with the conditions.

The Court understands that for a person such as the defendant with her heavy background, the path to rehabilitation is not a smooth one and may take more time than what is generally expected. [ 53 ] Before this tragic event of February 2015, the defendant had no involvement with the justice system. Since then, she has had a lot, it is becoming a recurrent process with all the procedures and stays in prison. [ 54 ] The defendant has a problem, she knows it, but also like Mrs. Gagnier mentioned, she needs to be recalibrated and find herself.

It could be easily understandable that someone who spent time in jail that amounted to five years, who has waited for the outcome of the charge which was originally second-degree murder and after had to adapt to many conditions in a town that is not her original land and had to try to follow a program that was not adapted for Inuit women, would experience a lot of stress and would need a safe space where she can begin her process of healing. [ 55 ] The Court does not sentence only an offence but an individual who made an offence.

In those particular cases, the Court should focus on the objective of rehabilitation. Considering all the relevant factors, the Court finds that the time served in preventive custody is sufficient to achieve all the sentencing goals.

FOR THESE REASONS, THE COURT: SENTENCES the defendant to 1 day of jail concurrently on all counts and in all files (500-01-186120-199, 500-01-206878-206, 500-01-206879-204, 500-01-210846-207) considering the time spent in preventive custody amounting to 53 days; WITHOUT costs and surcharges in all files considering the defendant’s financial situation. __________________________________ ÉRICK VANCHESTEIN, J.C.Q. M e Jasmine Guillaume For the DPCP M e Julien Archambault For the Defendant Date of hearing: November 19, 2020