Edmonton Drug Treatment & Community Restoration Court

 

Drug treatment court participants in Edmonton enter the program on the basis of either drug charges or criminal charges, or both. The DTC program exists within an adult criminal court in the Provincial Court of Alberta, and operates squarely within the law as applied to all criminal matters, including drug charges. There are no separate or special provisions at law that govern or apply uniquely to the DTC process. The DTC is a criminal prosecution.

 

However, in the very same courtroom as DTC participants appear, and sometimes during the same portion of a daily sitting, other accused appear. Such accused quite commonly appear for sentence, before and within the ordinary criminal process. This happens when the presiding DTC judge is seized with the other case and its accused, and a final sentencing is scheduled to occur, coincidentally, during the DTC sitting. When this occurs, both the “ordinary” offender(s) and DTC participants experience first hand the significant difference between ordinary and DTC proceedings, and their respective results. The dramatic differences are patently obvious, even though both proceedings share the identical legal foundation, the same judge, the same Court Clerk, often the same prosecutor and defence counsel, and very likely very similar if not identical charges.

 

Drug offences in Canada are contained in a separate (Federal) statute, the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act. However, they are considered criminal offences, as opposed to quasi-criminal or regulatory offences. Is should be noted that Canada has a unitary Criminal Code, also a Federal statute, and all criminal offences are prescribed by the Criminal Code. It should also be noted (notwithstanding that the Edmonton DTC program is for adult offenders only) that youth criminal justice is also governed by a unitary Federal statute, the Youth Criminal Justice Act, which combines with the Criminal Code to govern youth criminal proceedings.

 

Other fundamental legal foundations, by way of statute, which support DTC process and court proceedings include the Constitution, being a set of statutes, both U.K and Canada, commencing with Constitution Act, 1867, formerly the British North America Act, 1867, 30 & 31 Victoria, c. 3 (U.K.) (which established the Dominion of Canada), another significant predecessor, the Statute of Westminster, 1931, 22 George V, c. 4 (U.K.), (whereby Canada ceased being a Colony of Great Britain) the “Charter of Rights and Freedoms” (enacted as Schedule B to the Canada Act 1982 (U.K.) 1982, c. 11, which came into force on April 17, 1982), which is contained in the first 34 sections of the Constitution Act, 1982 (the foundation of the final repatriation of Canada’s Constitution, a purpose of the Canada Act, 1982 (U.K.), supra, and the Canada Evidence Act (an adjunct to the common law of evidence).