Cabin Radio – Gladue reports are not used and the territorial government says it is not considering using them any time soon. Instead, “Gladue factors” are often incorporated into other forms of pre-sentencing report or presented as evidence by defence lawyers during sentencing and bail hearings. Justice minister RJ Simpson said that while Gladue reports are a “very live issue” in the south, courts in the NWT are more familiar with the history of Indigenous people due to the territory’s high percentage of Indigenous residents. (Roughly half of the territory’s population identifies as Indigenous.)

Advocates for Gladue reports say they differ from regular pre-sentencing reports and play an important role in providing judges meaningful and accurate information about Indigenous offenders.
“There does seem to be a certain whiff of colonialism to the approach of flying the judge, prosecutor, defence lawyer – none of whom are from the community, in my case not even from the territory – into a community, proclaiming justice, and leaving,” said Lance McClean, a criminal defence lawyer in Alberta who practises in the NWT.