Fort McMurray is a tight-knit oil sands city in northern Alberta, Canada, with around 68,000 residents — the kind of place where everyone knows each other, which makes a criminal conviction ripple through the whole community. In 2022, the city expanded its restorative justice program to include adults alongside young offenders. The results were so striking they're now drawing interest far beyond Alberta.
The program works on a simple but demanding premise: the offender must admit fault, and the victim must agree to be in the room when they do. There's no hiding behind legal procedure — just two people, face to face, with the harm between them. What comes next is a structured process of accountability and repair, not punishment. There is no guarantee of dropped charges — participation is a choice, not a shortcut.
Out of 115 participants, just one has gone on to reoffend. The story of a young man referred to as Sam captures what that can look like in practice: after attacking his brother with a kitchen knife during a fight, he entered the program instead of facing a criminal conviction. Through it, he received a psychiatric evaluation that revealed an undiagnosed bipolar disorder, got a driver's licence, and found a job. He and his brother reconciled so fully that the two still live together.
Nicole Chouinard, manager of victim services and restorative justice programmes for the region's Royal Canadian Mounted Police, once considered the approach too soft. She no longer does. Alberta now has 21 organisations across 11 communities administering the model — and it's drawing interest well beyond Canada's borders.