Ont. crime compensation board 'colossal failure': ombudsman

Ontario's board responsible for compensating victims of crime is in "deplorable shape," suffers from a"document fetish" and forces people through a gruelling bureaucratic process, the province's ombudsman said.

"The board has become so dysfunctional that it often causes more frustration and hurt to crime victims than it relieves," Andre Marin said in his report"Adding Insult to Injury," released Tuesday.

The Criminal Injuries Compensation Board is an arm of the provincial attorney general's office charged with assisting crime victims.

"With its rule-obsessed, paper-shuffling culture, its pace is glacial," Marin said. "Far from serving as the comfort to victims it was intended to be, it denies themclosure through cruel delays."

It takes three years for a person to get compensation, Marin said, and victims must go through a "gruelling process"that "greets victims of crime with bureaucratic indifference and suspicion.

"It is one of those organizations that craves officialdom and relishesred tape," he said.

"As a result, instead of providing relief, the Criminal Injuries Compensation Board toooften adds insult to injury."

Marin blames the "colossal failure" of the board on successive Ontario governments, which, he claims, have broken the law by not providing proper funding.

Marin accused the governments of "posing as victims rights advocates, [and] watching the process harm the very people it was meant to help."

He said governments have known about the problems for yearsbut have consistently refused to act.

Marin lists 'appalling stories'

As for the board itself, they have no special training in how to deal with traumatized people and are insteadobsessed with the proper procedures for filling out forms, Marin said.

"The board appears to suffer from an official document fetish."

He liststhe "appalling stories"of victims who have had to deal with the board, which include:

• Aman whose five-year-old daughter was raped and murdered who was treated as though he was trying to scam the board of money to pay for her funeral.
• Amother of a murder victim "berated" for forgettingher file number.
• Ablind retiree who had to chose between buyingfood and burying her murdered daughter.

Marin launched an investigation after an increasing number of complaints to the ombudsman's office by people who felt they were revictimized by the board's actions.

He called on the Ministry of the Attorney General to immediately provide more resources to the board.

The board must "replace a culture of survival with oneof support and caring, lest it continue to do more harm than good," Marin said.