Debates of April 21st, 1999

Committees Of The House

[An hon. member]

Tied selling.

[Roy H. Bailey, Reform, Souris—Moose Mountain, SK]

Yes, indeed, it is tied selling and anything related to the selling of the House to Canadians. That is what I am talking about.

[Bob Kilger, Liberal, Stormont—Dundas, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. I move that we proceed to orders of the day.

[Dick Harris, Reform, Prince George—Bulkley Valley, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. When you called for a resumption of debate, the hon. member for Calgary East was quite prepared to stand and continue the debate. Unfortunately he was missed. I wanted to bring that to your attention.

[The Acting Speaker (Mr. McClelland)]

The Chair is deeply indebted to the hon. member for Prince George—Bulkley Valley.

The hon. member for Stormont—Dundas—Charlottenburgh has moved that the House do now proceed to orders of the day. Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[Some hon. members]

No.

[The Acting Speaker (Mr. McClelland)]

All those in favour of the motion will please say yea.

[Some hon. members]

Yea.

[The Acting Speaker (Mr. McClelland)]

All those opposed will please say nay.

[Some hon. members]

Nay.

[The Acting Speaker (Mr. McClelland)]

In my opinion the yeas have it.

[An hon. member]

On division.

(Motion agreed to)

Criminal Records Act

[Art Eggleton, Liberal, for the Solicitor General of Canada]

moved that Bill C-69, an act to amend the Criminal Records Act and to amend another act in consequence, be read for the second time and referred to a committee.

[Jacques Saada, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to Solicitor General of Canada]

Mr. Speaker, it gives me great pleasure to rise to speak to and comment on the motion at second reading of Bill C-69.

Since coming to power, our government has shown through specific actions its desire to thoroughly reform our criminal system, by passing, for example, a number of administrative and legislative measures to prevent the sexual exploitation of children.

First off, in 1995, our government passed amendments to the Corrections and Conditional Release Act to allow, among other things, certain offenders to be kept in prison until the very last day of their sentence, if it had been shown that they were likely to commit another sexual offence against a child.

In 1997, we added a new category of offender to the Criminal Code, that of long term offender, which applies to sexual offenders and provides for their surveillance for up to ten years after the end of their sentence.

In 1995, we created the national flagging system, which through the intermediary or the use of the Canadian police information centre, which I will call the CPIC throughout my text, enables prosecutors to better identify and try violent offenders, under the provisions of the Criminal Code pertaining to dangerous offenders.

The national screening system, created in 1994, also uses information from the CPIC on criminal records to help certain agencies identify child molesters seeking work where they could be in contact with children.

The planned measures will therefore allow the organizations concerned to protect the vulnerable individuals for whom they are responsible. When we speak of vulnerable individuals, we mean primarily all those who are more at risk than the rest of the population, because of age, disability or handicap.

We have all heard about troubling cases where children having been sexually abused by individuals in a position of trust. Of course this has a devastating impact on the victims and their families, but it also has one on the community as a whole.

In addition, the provincial and municipal governments, as well as the volunteer organizations, adopt policies and practices aimed at preventing such occurrences. While a criminal record check by the police is an important screening tool, this must not be considered the first, last, or only method.

The organizations must have a reliable recruiting, training, and supervision system. Any properly designed screening system must make unqualified candidates, pedophiles included, withdraw of their own accord, when they see how careful the organizations are about selecting candidates and ensuring the safety and protection of those for whom they are responsible.

In this connection, I will refer briefly, but with the utmost pride, to the very close collaboration that has been in place since 1994 between the government and an organization called Volunteer Canada, in promoting a national information campaign on this important topic.

We produced educational material for distribution across Canada via volunteer organizations and local communities. Thanks to these measures, increasing numbers of organizations are gaining an awareness of the importance of an effective screening mechanism. Despite all that has been done, more needs to be done, and we want to do more.

This is what is behind Bill C-69. It provides for a flagging system. This system of flags for certain files has the support of our provincial and territorial colleagues.

In fact, I would remind members that, during the past year, the federal-provincial-territorial task force on high risk offenders met on several occasions to discuss certain issues with respect to information systems on sex offenders, and the pardon of sex offenders.

It focused primarily on ways of simplifying police access to the criminal records of pardoned sex offenders.

Following its discussions, the task force produced a report containing ten recommendations, one of which specifically deals with the flagging system the CPIC should adopt to identify criminal records of pardoned sex offenders. This report received the approval of federal, provincial and territorial justice ministers at their October 1998 meeting.

Right now, the provisions of the Criminal Records Act and administrative guidelines allow access to the sealed records of pedophiles, particularly when the police are looking for a criminal record. Naturally, when the police know or suspect that an individual with a record has been granted a pardon, they may, based on fingerprints, submit the sealed record to the attention of the solicitor general.

However, if the police are unaware that a pardon has been granted, they do not necessarily look up fingerprints while they search for a criminal record. In such a case, a normal query of the CPIC system does not reveal the existence of a criminal record for which a pardon has been granted.

So that the procedure I have just described can apply in all cases—I repeat, in all cases—where a pardoned sex offender is being screened prior to being given a position of trust, Bill C-69 proposes that such files be flagged.

A police officer doing a check would immediately see that a pardon had been granted and that the file was sealed. He could then apply to the solicitor general for permission to break the seal.

This indicator appears only to police officers authorized to do screening research at the request of an agency acting in good faith and with the consent of the person the research is on. These are important mechanisms intended to ensure the credibility of the process. By requiring finger prints be taken, we are making sure the person in question is correctly identified.

The new arrangement will have retroactive effect, so that the files of rehabilitated individuals already in the system may have these indicators attached to them.

The bill also contains provisions guaranteeing the rights of rehabilitated individuals. Only authorized police officers and officials responsible for applying the law will have access to the information on the offenders, and each applicant must sign a consent form in this regard. By requiring this consent, we give applicants the choice of having their job application processed or of withdrawing it.

If they refuse to co-operate, applicants will be making it clear to the agency responsible that they are not perhaps the best individuals for the job.

Bill C-69 will also continue to give the solicitor general the discretionary power to remove the seal on the file of a rehabilitated individual.

As there is no reason to think that the minister's use of his current discretionary power is causing a problem, we must keep it to ensure the integrity of the system.

The government also carefully re-examined the legislative provisions of Bill C-69 to ensure they are in keeping with the provisions of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms and the Canadian Human Rights Act.

We therefore have the national police data bank, the CPIC, the Canadian police information centre, which is operated by the RCMP on behalf of all police services. This bank contains information on offenders' criminal records.

We also have the national screening system I referred to before, by which employers or volunteer groups working with children and other vulnerable individuals may require a record check of applicants as a condition for hiring or for volunteer work.

In conjunction with the notation system proposed in Bill C-69, the CPIC and the national screening system are designed to prevent sex offenders from infiltrating positions of trust.

Some people may wonder “Why not do away with pardons, or considerably restrict access to them?”

As we know, a pardon allows persons found guilty of a criminal offence, who have served their sentence and proven that they have become law-abiding citizens, to have their records sealed.

Those making this request have led crime-free lives for an average of eight years before applying for pardon.

The fact that the majority of pardoned individuals live as honest citizens is clear proof that ex-offenders can indeed become law-abiding members of the community.

In my opinion, it is important to defend the principle of pardon, while taking care not to diminish the integrity of the sytem and making changes which will help provide children and other vulnerable groups with better protection.

I would like to conclude with a comment that may be a bit unusual for this House. In this process, on behalf of the Solicitor General, and with his approval, I pledged before the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights that we would do everything in our power to speed up the process of getting Bill C-69 to a committee if it passes second reading. There, it will be able to be examined by serious and conscientious people with one common goal: to protect our population, particularly our children and people with certain disabilities.

Today, I would like to pay tribute to all the political parties represented in this House, which have helped ensure that this will be possible.

[Eric C. Lowther, Reform, Calgary Centre, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the comments of the hon. member opposite.

For the benefit of those who are listening today and also for those who are in the House, I think we should clarify the issue which Bill C-69 is attempting to address.

In Canada today many people do not realize what a pardon is. I always thought when there was a pardon it meant that some new information had come to light and the person had been convicted wrongly, was not guilty of the offence and, therefore, they were pardoned and the whole record was struck.

However, that is not the case in Canada with the way our parole board and pardons division work. What happens in Canada today is that once a person has been convicted, sentenced and then released on parole, if they have not been caught committing another offence and have not re-offended, they can apply for a pardon.

Many people do apply for pardons. Let me quote some numbers for the clarification of those listening.

When a person applies for a pardon, what are their chances of getting it? According to the National Parole Board records for the last number of years, only about 1% of the total decisions that it makes every year are denials. In 1996-97 there were over 18,000 decisions made with respect to pardons. Of those decisions, 184 were denials, which is about 1%, and 12,566 pardons were granted for mixed indictable offences or summary offences. In effect, about 96% of the people who applied for pardons received them. It is almost a fait accompli.

The effect of a pardon is that a person's record is now sealed, hidden, and no one will ever know they had this on their record.

This bill would allow, in certain circumstances, for that pardoned record to be opened. We think that is laudable and it is consistent with a bill which our party put forward, which has been in the House for some time, Bill C-284, which calls for basically the same thing. The government has come forward with its bill which has followed ours in the same vein.

The type of pardons that we want to bring to light are the ones that relate to sexual offences, particularly sexual offences against children. There are some good reasons for that when we look at the recidivism rates of those people who are involved in that kind of thing.

The government member equated a pardon with being rehabilitated. From government studies we can see that just because a person has received a pardon for a grievous offence, such as a sexual offence against children, the recidivism rates are so high that we cannot equate a pardon with rehabilitation.

A report was prepared by Corrections Research and Development, which is a government department, concerning child molester recidivism. It states:

The initial follow-up of the child molesters found that 42% were reconvicted of a sexual or violent crime during the 15 to 30 year follow-up period.... The highest rate of recidivism, 77%, was for those with previous sexual offences, who selected extrafamilial boy victims, and who were never married.

This is a 15 to 30 year program with rates as high as 77%.

A report to the federal, provincial and territorial ministers on information systems on sex offenders against children stated:

Reconvictions underestimates the rate of reoffending—as only a fraction of the sexual offences against children result in the offender being convicted. Consequently, the proportion of child molesters in the present study who reoffended would be expected to be greater than 50%, but the precise proportion is difficult to estimate. All the men could have reoffended, but only half got caught.

Hon. members can see that the concern is the rate of recidivism, and rightly so I would submit.

What about the ability of our medical profession and our institutions to rehabilitate people who are in this situation? Again I quote from a government report by the Correctional Service of Canada, entitled “Factors Related to Recidivism Among Released Federal Sex Offenders”. It states:

It is notable that the pedophile group had the highest rate of sexual recidivism relative to incest offenders or rapists.... This finding suggests that pedophiles may be more persistent with respect to committing sex crimes over time.

Another report of the Correctional Service of Canada states:

Does sex offender treatment work? We are still uncertain. There is disagreement even amongst the most prolific and knowledgeable researchers in the area.

As hon. members can see, the whole concept of rehabilitating people who have fallen to this level of depravity is in question. Therefore, the whole premise of giving pardons to people who have not been caught is a moot point and in fact puts our children at risk. That is why, in some ways, I am glad that Bill C-69 has come forward. However, later I will make the point that it needs to be strengthened.

Who should have access to this information if there is a pardoned record out there? It is our premise and the premise of the bill that we put forward that the key people who should have access to this information are those who are hiring people or bringing in volunteers to look after children. These organizations want to know that every possible check has been made to ensure that those they are bringing in to care for the children which they are responsible for have been thoroughly examined and that they are not putting their children at risk or putting these people back in a situation where they will fall prey to old problems.

We questioned various groups. We looked for support on this issue and we asked how they felt about it. We have support from groups right across the country. I have in my hand a list of 40 different national child care organizations which desperately are asking why we are hiding these pardoned pedophile records from them when they are bringing people on board. What is the point of not informing them of this kind of information? They want change.

These groups include the Adoption Council of Canada, boys and girls clubs, Canadians Addressing Sexual Exploitation, minor hockey associations, and even The Sheldon Kennedy Foundation. These groups point out that people who are predisposed to this type of depravity work to put themselves in positions of trust or care over children. They purposely do it. That is why we need to make every attempt to protect children from this situation.

We have also heard from the YMCA and, interestingly enough, the Minister of Justice and Attorney General and the Minister of Family and Social Services from my province of Alberta. Both of those ministers have sent strong letters endorsing the bill which we put forward, Bill C-284, which requires passing along information concerning pardoned records to groups which care for children. In some ways Bill C-69 attempts to do the same thing.

It is probably not surprising to anyone that all of these groups want access to this information. We all say publicly that we want to do all we can to care for children. It is important and incumbent upon this House that we make every move possible and I am glad we are debating this bill today.

There are some key points in Bill C-69 which need to be strengthened. This bill is the weaker sister of Bill C-284, which was brought forward some months back and is now before the justice committee. Bill C-69 proposes to possibly extend—and possibly is the key word here—greater background check information to a person or organization responsible for the well-being of one or more children, or vulnerable persons, or to the person to whom the application has been made for a volunteer position. The government is saying that possibly it will release this information under Bill C-69.

Bill C-69 states that certain criminal records for which a pardon has been granted or issued would be flagged in the system, retroactively if necessary, as part of the criminal convictions retrieval system. That is a good idea. We support it. However, it does not specify which offences would be flagged. It states that those will later be mentioned in the regulations. We have not seen those regulations. We are not sure exactly which ones are going to be included and which are not. When this bill goes to committee we will be calling for a clear disclosure of which offences will be included in the regulations under by Bill C-69 because they are not explicit in the legislation.

Section 6.3 of Bill C-69 requires the consent of the job applicant, in writing, for the authorities to check to see if there is a flagged criminal record. I do not have a problem with that, but even when the person has given consent the solicitor general still has the authority not to disclose this information to the hiring body. It seems strange to me that a person can give consent for his pardoned record to be checked, after it has been confirmed that he is applying for a position of trust or care over children, and yet the solicitor general will not make it automatic that this group know the person's past. The government wants to continue to have the discretion to say that it will decide in every case whether it will release this information.

It is hard to understand why the solicitor general might choose not to release this information if the applicant himself or herself has already approved its release.

This concerns me. We have been pardoning pedophiles for 20 years and we have never released this information. There is a lengthy process involved to get it. It is so lengthy and cumbersome that most people do not even know it exists. We have never made any attempt to advise people that they could be bringing on board someone who has been pardoned of a sexual offence against children.

Will anything change with Bill C-69? We are still leaving the discretion in the hands of the solicitor general. If we know there is a risk, and the person has signed off on it, it seems to me that it should be automatic, as opposed to more red tape and more bureaucracy.

There is a real problem with this. Julian Fantino, head of the police association, said the police are put in a difficult position because of Bill C-69. An organization requests to have a record checked. The person signs off on information with respect to his pardon and criminal activity. They go in and find that there is a flag for a pardon. Under Bill C-69 the police could not tell the hiring organization that the flag is there because they would be violating the Canadian Human Rights Act for revealing that there is a pardoned record. It has to go all the way up the ladder and all the way back down, and they still may not be able to give the information if the solicitor general says no.

That puts the police in a very difficult situation. If the conditions are met, we should be releasing the information. That is one of the amendments we will be calling for and that is consistent with what is called for in Bill C-284 which is already before the committee.

In the same vein, Bill C-284 calls for an amendment to the Canadian Human Rights Act which would allow organizations which are looking after children, or other vulnerable individuals, to make a decision not to hire if they find that someone has a pardoned record for a sexual offence against children. They could make a decision not to hire and not be later dragged into court for violating someone's human rights because of making that decision based on the existence of a pardoned record.

As crazy as that sounds, the fact is that if people are not hired because of a pardoned record their rights are being violated. Therefore, we thought it necessary to include, as advised by legal counsel of the House, a clause in the Canadian Human Rights Act that would allow these organizations to make a decision not to hire and not be held accountable for breaching the Canadian Human Rights Act.

This has not been touched by Bill C-69 and I think that it opens up children's organizations to all kinds of new litigation and liability should they decide not to hire someone who has a pardoned record.

The government is again following Reform's lead by putting forward legislation which the solicitor general initially opposed. He opposed Bill C-284 when it was introduced. Now he has introduced a weaker sister, a look alike bill, under his own name, Bill C-69.

Part of the reason he has done that is because there has been such strong public support for Bill C-284, which has come in the form of letters and petitions. In fact, the whole reason the bill came to the House and was passed on second reading was because of a 25,000 name petition from parents and children's organization who were saying that they had to have access to this kind of information.

We have seen the government come forward with its own bill, Bill C-69. As it is presently worded, Bill C-69 only goes part of the way toward better protecting our most vulnerable. It puts too much discretion in the hands of the solicitor general, the same solicitor general who has held this information for 20 years and not revealed it to these same children's organizations. There is discretion all the way up in Bill C-69 as to whether or not these organizations will be informed of the pardoned record.

All the criteria has been met. A children's organization is hiring somebody to look after children. The person has agreed that his or her record can be checked including the pardoned record. But that record is still not going to be released without the solicitor general's okay.

By not requiring disclosure once the criteria is met and the consent is given, or specifying the type of crimes it is aimed at, Bill C-69 is much weaker than Bill C-284 which is at committee.

By not amending the Canadian Human Rights Act which I just mentioned, Bill C-69 opens up children's organizations and agencies caring for vulnerable individuals to liability and litigation by an individual who feels that he or she was discriminated against on the basis of his or her pardoned record.

Even with the shortcomings of Bill C-69, Reform still supports its intent. However, we would much rather work with the current Bill C-284 at committee stage. It essentially proposes the same thing as the bill the solicitor general has belatedly introduced here. We have expressed our desire to work with both bills and to work with the solicitor general by accepting amendments to Bill C-284 in committee and combining them on the merits of both bills.

By co-operating at committee stage the House will not have to start at square one in the legislative process as the solicitor general is proposing with Bill C-69. After passing second reading it took four months to get Bill C-284 to its current committee stage. We can see what might be entailed in a potential delay of starting back at second reading of Bill C-69. It is good today that we are moving ahead to get both these bills in committee at the same time.

We hope the solicitor general will go beyond partisan politics and ensure prompt passage of strengthened legislation that will better protect our children from individuals who are predisposed to targeting and victimizing the most innocent of our society, our children. In the days ahead we look forward to bringing forward strengthening amendments to both bills in committee and coming back to the House with an improved package that will go through third reading quickly, then on to the Senate and eventually into law.

[Richard Marceau, Bloc, Charlesbourg, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak to such an important topic, all the more so with you in the Chair.

Such a bill, with the particular objectives it has, exemplifies how all members of this House can work together constructively. In fact, a comparison of Bill C-284 and Bill C-69 will be edifying.

Bill C-69 provides a mechanism for disclosing the contents of an individual's criminal record to the appropriate authorities in cases of sex offences. As my colleagues pointed out earlier, the purpose of this bill is to prevent serious repeat sex offences against children or other vulnerable members of our society.

What would this bill actually do? It would introduce a system to flag sex offences so as to limit the number of situations in which a person found guilty of a sexual offence, indecent assault or whatever, could again come into contact with or take up a position of authority over children or other vulnerable individuals.

Specifically, the purpose of this bill is to prevent a pardoned sex offender from becoming a care provider, a supervisor at a park or a children's recreational facility, or a day care worker, or being in any position where he could take advantage of the innocence of a child.

Bill C-69 could apply to special care facilities for the mentally handicapped or to support services to help them prepare for living on their own.

As a society, we have too often heard of cases of sexual abuse committed by repeat offenders who had officially been pardoned.

The purpose of the bill is to respond to requests by associations promoting the rights of victims of criminal acts and, more importantly, to ensure a safe environment, something we all want as a community, in which our children, our most valuable asset, may grow and develop.

The mechanism I spoke of at the start of my remarks is an indicator, a sort of warning light, that follows the pardoned record of a sexual offender and is activated when a security check is made on the reliability of the individual, who is seeking work that would put him or her in contact with children.

I can already hear the hardline libertarians railing against such a practice, given that a pardoned sexual offender is officially rehabilitated as an individual who respects the law and the ethics guiding our society.

To them, I would say, there are never enough ways to ensure the security and development of our children.

Naturally, Bill C-69 takes account of the guarantee of confidentiality inherent in rehabilitation and for this reason security checks must be done with the approval of the applicant. This check will be done in the national screening system under the Canadian police information centre by individuals duly authorized to consult the register.

Should the famous warning light come on, under the law the record and its contents would be sent to the solicitor general, who would ultimately decide on the relevance of removing the seal from the record.

Here the big question arises. It represents a major concern for the Bloc Quebecois. Should the solicitor general not be obliged to reveal the contents of the record that are of a sexual nature simply as a precautionary measure for children and society?

We think the minister's discretion could apply to the contents of the record where they apply to other issues, except those of a sexual nature. In simpler words, the minister, in the case of sexual offences, must reveal the content of the criminal record; he may do so for all other cases. He would continue to enjoy discretionary powers in all other cases.

If this means we might save a child, who would otherwise be a victim of sexual aggression, I think the bill would have served its purpose.

The wording of the bill indicates that the minister may inform the appropriate authorities of the contents of the record in question. We are, however, of the opinion that there is a moral obligation for the Solicitor General to disclose its contents when it includes a listed offence. As I have said, this moral obligation ought to be translated into a legal one.

Of course, this security check poses a threat to children or other vulnerable individuals. With this adjustment, the government might better attain the objective of its bill. It might even, I believe, benefit from the unanimous support of this House, even that of my colleagues in the Reform Party, who are somewhat unenthusiastic about Bill C-69.

The government would also have to continue to heed our recommendations and proposals, including those the Bloc Quebecois will bring to the committee.

I would like to return briefly to the verification system itself. As I said, these checks would be done via the national screening system administered by the Canadian Police Information Centre.

In an article in this morning's Ottawa Citizen , journalist Jim Bronskill describes the technological obsolescence of the CPIC's data bank computers.

This is, in my opinion, an unacceptable situation, and it is the responsibility of the federal government to ensure proper funding for this body, which provides frontline information to some 13,400 police forces all across Canada.

Early this year, in March, we MPs had the opportunity to learn more about this matter from the Canadian Police Association at its annual legislative conference, held right here in Ottawa. I had an opportunity, as did several of my colleagues in the House, to discuss the issue with Yves Prud'homme, the president of the Fédération québécoise des policiers et policières du Québec, and to actually meet in my office with police officers from all over Quebec and Canada.

The Bloc Quebecois sees Bill C-69 as one more step along the road to ensuring our children's safety, but we must make sure that we have reliable records in the national screening system so that we can implement this political and collective wish.

This brings me to another point. Do we have real and effective guarantees regarding the turnaround for analysing files submitted to the CPIC that could eventually end up in the solicitor general's office?

There is the matter of the time it takes for a file to make it all the way up to the solicitor general's office and back down again. Bloc Quebecois members have some questions and concerns about the speed with which files could be processed.

There is nothing in the bill right now to allay our concerns. However, I hope that the government will take note and introduce specific provisions so as to prevent any loopholes that would threaten the safety of our children.

After this brief overview of the bill, I urge Liberal backbenchers as well to pressure the solicitor general to put more teeth into Bill C-69 and make it more consistent with the problems we are actually facing.

The Bloc Quebecois therefore supports this bill so that it can be referred quickly to committee for consideration. As I said at the very beginning of my speech, a comparison with Bill C-284 will be edifying. Finally, a positive response to our concerns would help to ensure speedy passage of this bill to ensure the well-being and safety of our children and vulnerable members of our society.

[Peter Mancini, NDP, Sydney—Victoria, NS]

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to follow the hon. member for Charlevoix with whom I have had discussions on this bill and who sits on the justice committee with me.

It is also a pleasure to say that for the second time in two days we see the beginning of some co-operation between all parties in this House on a particular measure that is important to the people of Canada.

Yesterday we had an opportunity to discuss in this House the unanimous report of the justice committee dealing with victims of crime. The speeches yesterday reflected the commitment of all parties to ensure that those people who are victims of crime have a role to play in the criminal justice system.

For those who are watching on CPAC and for those who read Hansard it is important to know that government sometimes can work together with others. That is not to say there are not some areas in this bill that need addressing and they have been raised by other members in the House.

We in the New Democratic Party will ensure that this important legislation gets to the justice committee as quickly as possible. It deals with protecting those who are most vulnerable in our society, children and adults who may be vulnerable.

This has always been the commitment of the New Democratic Party. It is why we have always pushed for inquiries into child poverty. It is why we have always ensured that the disabled are protected under human rights legislation. We in the New Democratic Party recognize that the strength of our society is measured in the way it protects those who are most vulnerable.

We applaud this piece of legislation. It is important to know that it did come forward in another bill, a private member's bill which is now before the justice committee. Recognizing that there was mounting support for that, the solicitor general drafted his own legislation and introduced it to the House a few days ago and it will now go to committee.

That legislation does a number of things. It attempts to protect children from pedophiles. The mechanism by which it allows that responds to those many groups that have been mentioned by other speakers, the boys and girls clubs, the YMCA.

I was the president of the board of directors of the YMCA in my own community. We had to deal on an ongoing basis with hiring people, with volunteers who came in to work with children. We had to ensure that we were not submitting the children to any kind of risk.

I also recall in my own riding when an organization through no fault of its own did find itself subject to litigation. One of its volunteers was found to have abused children in the care of that organization. The community was concerned. That organization, which had good principles and laudable goals, was set back many years.

Those organizations will be pleased to see this legislation come before the House today.

It would be remiss if we did not say that for a long time in this society we did not recognize that children and vulnerable people could be the subject of criminal actions of a sexual nature. It is to the credit and strength of character of the many people who have come forward in the last few years. The Sheldon Kennedy organization has been mentioned. Children and adults have come forward to expose what has happened to them. Whether it was at Mount Cashel, residential schools, hockey rinks, it takes tremendous courage to come forward. Today, by the passage and examination of this legislation, I think we are responding to those needs in our society.

I echo the comments I made yesterday. It is important to recognize there has to be a balance. Where we have to be careful with this legislation is in the protection of human rights and the protection of privacy. This bill makes an effort and we will examine it very closely in committee to ensure that it meets all the qualifications so that privacy is protected.

One of the good things in the bill and one of the things we pushed for in the private member's bill was that the individuals who apply to work with children in an organization be notified. They have to give their consent to the searching of their records to see if they have been pardoned for any kind of sex offence against children. By ensuring they have to consent to that, we allow them to withdraw their names if that is the way they want to go, or to allow them to know this check is taking place.

The member for Calgary Centre spoke to this and raised some very good questions. I think they are questions we will examine in committee. I expect he, our party, the Bloc and the Progressive Conservative Party will bring forward amendments to the legislation to ensure that it meets both of those needs. The member made some good points but there are some other points I have to raise in response to what he said.

The hon. member discussed what pardons were and how many people receive pardons. It is important to note that 97% of those who receive pardons never reoffend. There is some indication that those who receive pardons are deserving. We are a human system. There are those who do reoffend and perhaps they ought not to have been granted a pardon. A 3% error rate is not perfect, but it does justify that the pardon is appropriate for the other 97% who have not reoffended.

Many pardons are granted for things other than sexual offences. It is important for people to understand that the vast majority are for shoplifting offences that occurred 20 years ago, or a disturbing the peace charge that happened when someone was in university. They may have been minor incidents but they provide those persons with criminal records for the rest of their lives. When they apply for a position where they have to be bonded, where they cannot have a criminal record, they may lose that job for that kind of thing. The pardon is there for a purpose.

My colleague from Calgary Centre talked about the recidivism rate of pedophiles. He is right. We are right to be concerned about that. When we talk about pardons, it is important to understand that in order to receive a pardon, one must have been clear of any reoffence for at least eight years. If there is a high rate of recidivism among pedophiles, one would hope they are not getting pardons. Clearly if that reoffence happens in four or five years, they are not going to receive that pardon. That being said, we can never be too cautious when it comes to protecting the innocent and the vulnerable.

Some of the sections of this proposed law we support strongly in the New Democratic Party. We think it is important there be measures to ensure that the criminal records of pardoned sex offenders seeking positions of trust are available for screening purposes by placing a flag on the records of the sex offender so that police can be alerted and that a sealed pardoned record exists and that the police can request that record and request from the solicitor general authorization to open it. It is important for those organizations and for the protection of the children that those amendments be made to the law.

As I have indicated, it is important that the individual be advised that that is going to happen. They can then disclose to the organization themselves that such a record exists, or they will know at least that it will be brought forward. If they have nothing to fear, then they have nothing to fear.

There are questions however and some of them were raised by other speakers. In the interests of time I will not go through all of them. There is some question as to discretion and why the discretion would be permitted to the police to notify the organization or not. I question why that discretion exists. As a member of the justice committee, it is one I look forward to debating at committee.

I am struck that perhaps that discretion ought to be there in case of an error, but I cannot imagine that this type of check would result in an error. One would hope it would not. Even if there were three John Smiths who applied for a position with an organization dealing with children and one of those John Smiths had been pardoned for a sexual offence, one would hope that there would be a way of distinguishing that person from the others.

These and other questions have to be raised in committee. They will be. I think there is broad based support for this legislation among all parties. I hope and expect at the justice committee that the amendments will be brought forward in the same way and accepted in the same way. I have to say that in my experience on the justice committee, for the most part that is what happens and it results in legislation like we had the other day.

If we can work together on this in an all-party fair manner in the interests of our children and those who are vulnerable, it may well bring forward in a timely fashion legislation to protect our children. We in the New Democratic Party are committed to that and that is the spirit in which we will approach this legislation.

[The Acting Speaker (Mr. McClelland)]

Is the House ready for the question?

[Some hon. members]

Question.

[The Acting Speaker (Mr. McClelland)]

Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[The Acting Speaker (Mr. McClelland)]

I declare the motion carried. Accordingly the bill stands referred to the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights.

(Motion agreed to, bill read the second time and referred to a committee)

The House resumed from April 15 consideration of the motion that Bill C-68, an act in respect of criminal justice for young persons and to amend and repeal other acts, be read the second time and referred to a committee; and of the amendment.

Youth Criminal Justice Act

[Jack Ramsay, Reform, Crowfoot, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to speak to Bill C-68, the youth criminal justice act.

Before I proceed, I would like to take this opportunity to commend my colleague from Surrey North for his prompt and critical review of this long awaited piece of legislation. As stated in an earlier speech, my Reform colleague lends credibility to this debate based on a personal tragedy that hopefully none of us here will ever endure. That was the murder of his son.

In December 1995, more than four years ago, I undertook a preliminary review of the youth justice system. My initial findings were circulated among my colleagues in the Reform Party. I would like to share with the House some of the content of the opening paragraphs of this paper which began with a historical overview of our youth justice system.

The Juvenile Delinquents Act enacted in 1908 created a juvenile justice system separate from the adult system. The Juvenile Delinquents Act was distinctively child welfare oriented with a guiding philosophy behind the act defining “a child having committed delinquency not as an offender but as a person in the condition of delinquency”.

The Juvenile Delinquents Act created an informal system of justice with little emphasis on legal rights. A range of justice officials, including judges, probation officers and correction officials, had very significant discretion in dealing with young offenders. With this treatment rather than punishment orientation, sentences were indeterminate to be served until rehabilitation was effected.

The discretionary nature of the Juvenile Delinquents Act and the rehabilitation objective caused very substantial interprovincial variations in the implementation of the act.

Recognizing that the exclusively welfare oriented focus of the Juvenile Delinquents Act was not appropriate and to reduce judicial discretion, the process of reforming the Juvenile Delinquents Act began in the 1960s. It was not however until the early 1980s with the introduction of the charter of rights and freedoms that major juvenile justice reform became inevitable.

The Juvenile Delinquents Act was inconsistent with the emphasis on due process in the charter. According to a 1994 Ottawa Law Review, the provincial disparities in treatment of juveniles permitted under the Juvenile Delinquents Act was considered to be contrary to section 15 of the charter that came into effect in 1985 which guaranteed equality before the law.

The Young Offenders Act enacted in 1984 gave youth very significant legal rights and established a uniform age jurisdiction of 12 to 18 years. The Young Offenders Act also provided determinate sentencing and formal alternative measure programs to divert less serious cases from youth court.

The new youth criminal justice act will effectively re-enact that contentious portion of the Juvenile Delinquents Act, the portion that wrongfully promoted an inequitable application of the criminal law. This new act provides far too much discretion to the courts in the sentencing of young offenders. The only real direction provided to the courts is to order the less restrictive sentence.

I turn now to lines 22 to 25 of the preamble of the youth criminal justice act which read “take reasonable steps to prevent youth crime by addressing its underlying causes, to respond to the needs of young persons”.

The justice system cannot address the root causes of crime, causes that cannot and should not be used as excuses for committing crime. The justice system must deal and deal effectively with an offender after a crime has been committed to provide the necessary public protection regardless of the offender's background.

Forces outside the justice system must deal with the causes of crime through the design and implementation of crime prevention policies and programs, programs such as the headstart program sponsored by my hon. colleague from Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca.

The justice system was not designed to deal with dysfunctional families, nor was it designed to address the economic hardships that often led to family breakdowns and to juvenile crime. The current and past governments' failure to recognize this simple fact has diluted the purpose and strength of our justice system, particularly in the area of youth crime to the point where young criminals are somehow not responsible and therefore not accountable for their delinquent behaviour.

This fact is reflected in many of the lenient sentences that have been and will continue to be handed out to young offenders.

Two years ago this April, the Standing Committee on Justice and Legal Affairs tabled a comprehensive report containing 14 recommendations for amending the Young Offenders Act.

The report was a result of six months of extensive consultation and travel throughout the country at an expense of almost half a million dollars. Over 300 people representing various sectors of the youth justice system and society in general testified before the committee. That testimony was incorporated into the committee's report.

On April 22, 1997, on behalf of the Reform Party I published a minority report containing 17 recommendations and proposing a comprehensive three pronged approach to deal with the complexities of youth crime and the contributing factors, including early detection and intervention as an effective means of crime prevention, community based resolution and sentences in cases of minor offences, and strengthening the Young Offenders Act through significant amendments.

Two years after the Reform Party proposed such a plan the Liberal government introduced a youth criminal justice act. We are obviously pleased the minister incorporated some of our proposals, and of course not all, into the new act. In particular we fully support, as we recommended years ago, the use of early detection and intervention and the diversion of non-violent and minor offenders to community formed justice groups such as the very successful programs in Sparwood and Maple Ridge, British Columbia.

We also support providing police officers with the necessary discretion and power to deal with non-violent offenders informally. I recommend however that this discretion not be taken away from parents, teachers or any other person in a position of authority.

Currently there is a movement under way spearheaded by a Liberal senator to repeal section 43 of the Criminal Code which protects those in a position of authority if they use reasonable force in the correction of a child. We do not however accept the minister's checkerboard approach to justice that appears to be the crux of the new youth criminal justice act.

This act, as stated earlier, provides far too much discretion to the youth courts. This will result in an inequitable application of youth criminal law across the country, which was a major motivation for changing the old juvenile delinquents act in the first place.

We also do not accept the minister's outright rejection of what I consider to be the two most important recommendations of the standing committee. The minister has refused to accept the committee's recommendation to lower the age of criminality to encompass 10 and 11 year olds in limited circumstances, and she has rejected publishing the names of all violent offenders.

The first and guiding principle of the new youth criminal justice act should be the protection of society. The only way to ensure the safety of our children and grandchildren is to provide parents with the names of all violent and dangerous offenders, which in my opinion include drug traffickers. This category of offender has wrongly been missed in the new legislation.

With regard to lowering the age of criminality to 10 years, Professor Nicholas Bala of Queen's University summarized the work of a 1992 Statistics Canada survey of 27 police forces in Canada. The data indicated that offending behaviour by children under 12 was a significant problem. The study further indicated children under the age of 12 committed about 5% of all youth crime. Despite this fact, authorities are powerless to hold these children legally responsible for their crimes. Although a number of provinces do have a child welfare system that can and does deal with these children adequately, many provinces do not.

Repeatedly witnesses told the standing committee on justice that in the case of violent offences a welfare response is inappropriate. Lowering the age to 10 years does not mean there would be a large influx of 10 and 11 year old children being drawn into the court system. The system can divert most children of this age away from any formal response, in particular with support for alternative measures and community based justice committees.

By amending the age we will have in those very few cases of violent offences the means to provide these young children with the rehabilitation they need. As it stands now the minister has abandoned 10 and 11 year olds who by committing criminal acts signal they are in need of help. The minister has abandoned these children to the provinces that do not have the constitutional authority to legislate against criminal acts.

I want to sum up my concerns about the bill by pointing out the most unacceptable portion of it. The minister has attempted to create the impression that she has listened to the people and mandated in law the changes they have been asking for in the Young Offenders Act. This is not the case.

All the minister has done is provide the courts with the discretion to do so. Many courts may not share the same concerns as the majority of Canadians and, through the exercise of their discretion provided for in the bill, refuse to mandate what the people have asked for. It is the people through their elected representatives who should determine the law, not the courts.

For years Canadians have asked the government to make specific changes to the Young Offenders Act. These changes include the publication of names of all violent offenders, and particularly repeat violent offenders. They wanted the mandatory attendance of parents in court with their children. They wanted the lowering of the age of criminality to include 10 and 11 year olds, as I mentioned earlier, and the application of adult sentences for all serious crime. In each and every case the courts should be mandated to impose the sentences for which the people have asked and with which the minister has indicated she has complied.

Under the new act the courts have not been mandated. Instead the minister has given the courts the discretion to implement these changes or ignore them. This is wrong. Canadians should make the law through their elected representatives. The courts should interpret and impose that law so that the will of the people of the country is reflected through the decisions made within our courts and by the sentences imposed by our courts.

The bill falls far short of this simple democratic principle. It leads to the very serious concern in some groups in the country that there is a great deal of judicial activism which, if I could just touch on it for a moment, I believe is unfortunate.

The blame should not be placed at the feet of our judges but rather on our legislators for providing open ended legislation which allows the courts to make decisions that are not supported by the majority of Canadians. Over the last number of years and certainly since I have been in the House, the people of Canada have asked for changes within the Young Offenders Act.

I do not know if it has been deliberately done or not, but the minister through this bill has created the unfortunate perception that the wishes and the cries of Canadians for the last number of years have been adhered to and that those demands for changes have been implemented in the bill. They have not been mandated at all. They are there, but we will see the status quo maintained because in too many cases the courts will not embrace the same concern for some of these offences as reflected by the Canadian people. Therefore the courts have the discretion either to implement an adult penalty for some of these offences or simply impose the penalty under the Young Offenders Act or this new act.

Very few if any of the changes the people of Canada have been asking for are mandated. In other words we have not told the courts what we want. We have not instructed the courts about the kind of sentence we want for a offence such as murder, serious assault, manslaughter and so on. Even those offences must be tried in the youth court system. Then the crown must apply for an adult sentence to be imposed. The defence can speak against it, but it is left to the discretion of the judge as to whether or not an adult sentence is imposed. The bill is deficient in that way.

Inasmuch as it may have fooled the people, it is a very serious matter that the government may have brought forward a bill which has led people to believe the government has listened to their cries for reasonable changes such as the publication of the names of all young offenders who commit a violent offence or have a series of violent offences on their records. That again is left to the discretion of the courts. It is not mandated that the names be publicized.

My final point is on the appearance of parents or legal guardians in court with their children. That is not mandated. Again it is left to the discretion of the courts.

What do we have in the bill? We have the perception of change where there may be no change at all. We will have to wait and see. Some of the attorneys general of the provinces have already expressed dismay over the principle contained in the bill, that is the enormous discretion which will allow judges to make varying decisions across the country. We think that is wrong.

We should not be going back to the checkerboard type of legislation we had under the old juvenile delinquents act where there was a varying of sentencing and adjudication from province to province. We have gone back to that. There is not a standardized form of sentencing implied within this statute.

It is deficient in that way, which I think is very unfortunate. When the bill reaches committee stage and the clause by clause amendments come forward, we hope the government will take a serious look at the amendments we will be bringing forward to close some of the loopholes we think the people will be dismayed to see exist within the bill.