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have been cut. We will do what we have to do because we always will but the heart is gone. People are looking at options, look- ing to leave, or preparing to leave." Immediately after the Feb. 21 back-to- work law was adopted, 28 of the province's May, Quebec Justice Minister Jean-Marc Fournier, flanked by Dionne, said the government was willing to spend $100 million, or $25 million a year over four years, to add 160 prosecutors and support staff and to pay 200 prosecutors some overtime for the first time. At the time of the tabling of back-to- Quebec's Crown prosecutors and jurists demonstrate at the National Assembly in Quebec City during the February strike. work legislation, Quebec Treasury Board president Michelle Courchesne had promised 120 more staff, 80 prosecutors and 40 legal researchers and administra- tive assistants. Fournier says that number will now be bumped up to 160, including 94 Crown lawyers, with hiring set to begin in June, and the annual DPCP budget increased to $105 million from $80 mil- lion. He also said André Dicaire, former secretary general of the executive council that is the government's chief decision- making body, would immediately under- take an analysis of the structural organiza- tion of the prosecutors' workload, and the government wants to institute permanent consultation sessions with the associa- tions. It was also still trying to work out details with government jurists on how to improve their working conditions. "The law that was adopted was not to top-level prosecutors, including four chief Crowns and 24 assistant chief Crown prosecutors, quit their management jobs and asked to be reassigned. Among them was Claude Chartrand, chief prosecutor for the special unit formed to fight orga- nized crime. In a letter made public, Chartrand decried that there were still at least six unfilled positions on a 22-mem- ber team assembled to go up against an armada of 60 lawyers defending 155 Hells Angels gang members and called on Louis Dionne, Quebec's director of criminal and penal prosecutions (DPCP), "to use all of your influence to avoid the disaster wait- ing for us." In late March, within a few days after Chartrand resigned altogether after accepting a job as deputy syndic with the Barreau du Québec starting in end our effort to have better working con- ditions," Fournier said at the Quebec City press conference announcing the mea- sures. "I think we are doing things that are substantive. Other discussions have to be undertaken." While the hiring of new prosecutors, legal researchers, and support staff would undoubtedly work to lessen the load of Crown prosecutors, the two connected underlying problems of recruitment power and what many see as chronic underfunding of the justice system could necessarily complicate improvement. "It is too little, too late," says prosecutor LeBel. "I am not saying that 94 prosecutors won't help, but they won't find them. With the actual conditions we are working in, no one wants to come [work as a provincial Crown]." Even with the prospect of some over- time — and the modus operandi of that is still being worked out — the latest prom- ised salary increase of six per cent over five years, the same promised to other public sector workers, does little to nar- row the gap of salaries that are 40-per-cent less than Crowns in other provinces. And while newly minted lawyers who want experience could help fill in — before heading off to higher paying jobs — they do not necessarily have the experience needed to deal properly with the increas- ing number and complexity of cases. Recruiting people for specialized units like that formed to fight organized crime is likely to be even more difficult given "the stress, the media pressure, the bat- tery of defence lawyers they face, legal situations with enormous complexity, and possible threats of repercussions against the lawyer or his or her family members," says Thomas Jacques, vice president and one of two full-time staff at the Quebec Crown prosecutors' association. "We have the highest burnout rate in the civil ser- vice," adds Jacques. "I have seen some prosecutors with less than six months' experience go and plead before a jury and they have too much responsibility for their experience. Recently, I have seen burnout cases of people who are not even 30 years old yet." The second inherent difficulty is the budget allotment for the justice sys- tem, says Gilles Ouimet, bâtonnier of the Barreau du Québec and a practising criminal defence lawyer. "The underly- ing problem is the under-financing of the justice system in general, which is simply a manifestation of the larger and worse problem of the significance of justice in our society for the government. This is not something new. It has been a constant trend for the past 30 years. "In Quebec, we tend to treat the jus- tice system like any other public service and the difficulty is when you assess the efficiency of those services, it is a net expense. There is no financial gain, but it is a fundamental service that cannot be assessed strictly from an accounting and financial point of view." — KATHRYN LEGER kathryn.leger@videotron.ca www.CANADIAN Lawyermag.com M AY 2011 9