Series 6 - Government-commissioned and other research

0.75 m of textual records

The principal elements in this series consist of the files Dr. Friedland assembled while a consultant to the Ontario Justice Review Committee and as a general consultant to the Office of the Attorney General for Ontario. The series ends with a small number of files on other activities, ranging from contract work for the government of the North West Territories to providing advice on the Hepatitis C class action lawsuit in Ontario.

As Dr. Friedland notes in his introduction, he was asked in 1998 to “help organize and draft the report for a committee [the Criminal Justice Review Committee] that was looking at the working of the criminal justice system in Ontario.” Its report was published in 1999. Most of the files relating to the Committee’s work, as might be expected, remain with the government of Ontario but there are still a substantial number in this series. Dr. Friedland’s correspondence and the briefs, memoranda and reports, often heavily annotated by him, along with his notes and the drafts of the Committee’s report, clearly demonstrate the role that he played in the process.

The consulting contracts Dr. Friedland signed with the Office of the Attorney General, beginning in 1996, enabled him to participate in the review of a “range of policy issues that were being debated in the department. These included issues relating to a possible court services agency and questions concerning devolution of a number of criminal justice matters to other bodies, including devolution of responsibility for the Provincial Offences Act to municipalities.” In addition, Dr. Friedland’s involvement in departmental roundtable discussions and the Crown Policy Manual Review Committee, provides insights into the high-profile legal cases of Guy Paul Morin and Paul Bernardo, and issues arising therefrom, including “jail-house confessions and the forensic laboratories”. Again, extensive notes and annotation complement the correspondence, memoranda, background and briefing notes, and reports found in the files.

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