The BC Crown Counsel Association has filed a formal workload grievance against the BC Prosecution Service with the hopes of addressing what its president says is an insufficient number of prosecutors in the Okanagan and Kootenay regions.
The association represents 550 Crown prosecutors across B.C. The Prosecution Service is the employer of those prosecutors.
Adam Dalrymple, the association's president, told Black Press Media that inadequate staffing and resources is taking a "significant toll on our people and it's undermining our work."
He said the need for more Crown prosecutors is particularly critical in Vernon, Kelowna, Penticton, Nelson and Cranbrook.
The association is exercising its rights under its collective agreement to encourage the Prosecution Service to properly staff these offices, Dalrymple said, adding the Prosecution Service has breached this agreement by failing to hire more staff.
Dalrymple says the Okanagan and Kootenay regions need 20 more Crown counsels to handle an increasing workload, representing a 20 to 30 per cent staff increase in those regions.
He said the lack of Crown prosecutors is preventing justice from being served in a timely fashion.
"So much of the system depends on making decisions quickly and efficiently and holding people accountable," he said. "We want the system to work better. We want to serve our communities better. But to do that we need more resources, we need more people."
It's not the first time the association has raised the alarm about staffing levels. Last year Dalrymple called on the Prosecution Service to , from six full-time members to nine. The Prosecution Service said at the time it had not identified a need for 50 per cent more prosecutors in Vernon.
Speaking on Thursday, May 22, Dalrymple said the situation at the Vernon Crown office has gotten worse in the last year, as the office now has between four and five full-time-equivalent prosecutors. He said there were six in 2004, and since then the volume and complexity of cases has only increased while prosecutor availability has shrunk.
To illustrate the added complexity of court cases today compared to 20 years ago, Dalrymple used the example of digital evidence such as cell phones and police body cameras. He cited a routine intimate partner violence case where a body camera captured three hours of evidence.
"Not all of (the evidence) was material but it still required the prosecutor to review that," he said. "You can imagine just that one file, three hours of your day, and if all of the files start to see that or we start to see multiple files with six seven hours on it, we're going to need more resources."
The RCMP has been rolling out police body cameras across the country. Vernon's body cameras following a roll-out that started at the end of April.
The association is seeking staffing levels that are commensurate not only with increasing case complexity, but also with a growing population.
"It's our contention that these offices have been generally understaffed and haven't increased the complement commensurate to the population growth in the Okanagan," Dalrymple said.
He added he's heard more and more that triaging is taking place in Crown counsel offices, meaning more serious crimes are having to be prioritized over lesser crimes 鈥� ones that the public still wants addressed by the court system.
"What I'm hearing from people in the community is that there's a public interest 鈥� people don't want their cars broken into, people don't want their bikes stolen," Dalrymple said. "If we're triaging, that's a problem, and that's my concern, particularly from a bail perspective."
Dalrymple says he's hoping Vernon mayor Victor Cumming and Vernon-Lumby MLA Harwinder Sandhu will push for more Crown resources. He said he's spoken to Sandhu about the issue "numerous times," and Cumming has reached out to the Attorney General about it on multiple occasions.
In addition to more prosecutors, Dalrymple said technological updates are also needed. He said the digital electronic management system prosecutors are using is slow and cumbersome.
"We need to make the investment in prosecutors, and we also need to invest in the support staff," he said. "We're losing experienced paralegals and legal assistants, which are also so critical to what we do.
"My hope is that the public will hear us."
The BC Prosecution Service did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
