I would invite Mr. and Mrs. Pauchay to check into our live-in LifeChange Program for life controlling problems. Our campus location would allow them to live across the street from each other, and integrate their treatment with couples and grief counselling. When a tragedy like this strikes, I guarantee you're never going to get off the bottle, your marriage will never survive, until you deal with the grief.
MELFORT -- With his feet in shackles and one arm raised to conceal a gash on his face, Christopher Pauchay avoided eye contact with a crowd of spectators as he appeared before a judge in Melfort today, accused of violating his bail conditions by drinking.
The 25-year-old father from the Yellow Quill First Nation, who is awaiting a sentencing circle for criminal negligence causing the freezing deaths of his two daughters last winter, was released from the prisoner's box so he could sit next to his lawyer.
The evidence and arguments presented during Pauchay's bail hearing is banned from publication. Judge Barry Morgan adjourned the matter until Jan. 23 in Tisdale, when he is expected to decide whether to release Pauchay again pending sentencing.
Greenwater RCMP arrested Pauchay Jan. 8 — the day after Morgan agreed to grant his request for a sentencing circle — at a drinking establishment in a town near the reserve. He now faces charges of violating his release conditions by drinking in two separate incidents on Dec. 14 and Jan. 8.
Outside court, Pauchay's defence lawyer Ron Piche told reporters a brief medical exam by a doctor is the "last piece of the puzzle" necessary for Pauchay to secure a month-long stay at Saskatoon's Calder Centre for alcohol rehabilitation.
Piche said it's the defence's position that the intensive Calder program could be followed up with stricter bail conditions that would still allow Pauchay to live at home while awaiting his sentencing circle.
"The judge hasn't foreclosed that option. He wants to have all the information before him before he makes a decision. I think we're fortunate in that we have a very open-minded judge, a judge who doesn't just draw conclusions without evidence," Piche said.
He feels Pauchay deserves the opportunity "because the reality is . . . the struggles, the affliction that he has with alcohol demands some treatment," he told reporters.
Plans to get Pauchay into professional treatment have been in the works for a long time, Piche said, "(but) this matter was in court and there were all sorts of things going on, there was even a trial scheduuled last fall, so it didn't lend itself to that kind of very difficult decision that easily."
Since his daughters' deaths, "he has taken other forms of treatment, in the sense that he's spoken with his elders and some of his support network, and he's tried other means, other than the 30-day stay (at Calder)," Piche said.
No date has been set for Pauchay's sentencing circle.
Justice Minister Don Morgan said Wednesday there has been no formal policy by the provincial government to discourage the use of aboriginal sentencing circles and he has asked officials to look into the reasons behind the sharp decline in their use since the late 1990s.
Unofficial numbers released by the Ministry of Justice last week showed that the use of the “restorative justice” measure had gone down from a high of 39 times in 1997 to one sentencing circle in 2007 and five in 2008.
“Whether it’s a shift from the courts or the prosecutorial practice at an informal level, I don’t know yet,” Morgan said outside a meeting of the Saskatchewan Party cabinet at the legislature.
Morgan said once he has an explanation for the decline he will decide whether further action on his part is warranted.
First used in Canada in the early 1990s, the circles traditionally bring together offenders, their family members, friends, community members and sometimes victims to come up with remedies.
Former deputy minister of justice John Whyte said last week that sentencing circles are labour-intensive and present logistical challenges for judges, lawyers and the First Nations involved, but are worthwhile and need the support of the government.
by Lori Coolican for The Star Phoenix
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