We, The People Of the Jury..

In Canada we do not have mandatory enlistment. Our young men and women need not worry about being drafted. One of our civic duties, however, is to present ourselves to serve as a juror when summoned.

I received my jury questionnaire about a year ago in the mail. The form was very official. It asked for my occupation, the languages I speak and whether or not I’d ever been convicted of an indictable offense. I dutifully filled out the form and returned it.

A month or so ago, my other half received a summons for jury duty in the mail. I was quite excited about the whole thing – but I’m like that. Any new experience is worth investigating. My number hasn’t been pulled yet, so I’m living vicariously through my spouse and his experiences of late.

He was at the local courthouse on the appointed day, at the appointed time to perform his civic duty. Day one was filled with lots of waiting - waiting to pass through the security check at the courthouse entrance - waiting for someone to call his juror number - waiting to see if he’d been selected. Lots of waiting! Rumour has it that the coffee at our local courthouse isn’t great, either.

He was selected to sit on a jury on day two. The trial was going to be approximately 2 months in duration. That’s when I started doing some research. Jury duty is not paid right off the bat. Some employers will pay you while you’re off serving on a jury, but some do not. By law – in Ontario, your employer does not have to compensate you for your time as you serve on a jury. By law, however, they do have to allow you the time away from work in order to perform your duty as a Canadian.

In Ontario, the first 10 days that you work as a juror are unpaid. On day eleven you start to earn money - $40 a day, to be exact. That’s $5 per hour. Nobody’s going to get rich sitting on a jury around here, that’s for sure.

Your income jumps to $100 per day once you hit day fifty-one.

The first case that Chris was chosen for was going to be roughly two months in duration. Two months is a long time to go without his ‘anticipated salary’, or at least it appears that way from my side of the accounting ledger. He was advised that he could plead ‘personal hardship’ if serving for such a long period of time was going to impact his financial obligations. Thankfully, that’s just what he did.

From what I understand, lots of people did the same thing. There were a few people there with what seemed to be perfectly legitimate reasons for not wanting to sit for 2 months on a panel of jurors. Imagine that you’re a stay-at-home parent with four or five children who depend on you for care while your spouse is at work. Daycare for four or five children for a day would far exceed the $40 allotment that you’d get on day eleven.

I did a little bit of research, and different provinces have different guidelines for jury pay. In Québec, jurors receive meal allowances of about $45 per day. That’s more than the Ontario jury pay amount, and in Ontario you're not compensated for your meals.

In Québec, jurors are entitled to compensation of $90 per day during the hearing and deliberation. They receive the same compensation for each full day as long as they remain on the jury and are confined to the premises designated by the sheriff. If the jury is put into seclusion for the evening (if no verdict has been reached) then they receive a supplementary allowance of $45.

Depending on your salary, and what you do for a living, one might actually MAKE some money serving on a jury in la belle province. A juror in Québec would also receive an allotment for childcare. I don’t quite understand why the pay scale is different from province to province.

As a member of the jury, one is not supposed to talk about what’s going on. Chris is not supposed to read about it, and he’s most certainly not supposed to come home and spill his guts to me.

All that I could get out of him was that the case that has come to trial this week is about ‘an incident’ that occurred in 2001. That was six years ago. I don’t remember what I had for breakfast yesterday, and I have no recollection of what went on six years ago from today. I suppose if whatever transpired was out of the ordinary I might still have some recollection – but I’m surprised that our system works so slowly. Wow.

At any rate, my partner is definitely being a good Canadian. He will do what’s required of him.

I’m glad I wasn’t chosen. . . . not because I’d lose some income, I think I could deal with that. I’m happy not to be chosen because from what I understand, although they call you “Juror Number 54321” they also call you by name. As you walk into the room with the alleged criminal and both teams of legal representation….they announce YOUR NAME to the world. I’m quite happy to NOT make Joe Criminal aware of my first and last names, thank you very much.

But again, I’m like that.