Justice committee  It's not a question of it not going far enough, sir. It's a question of it going backwards in a dramatic way and reversing well-established legal principles.

Justice committee  It's critical to differentiate between general and specific deterrence. The vast majority of social science literature that challenges deterrence challenges the notion of general deterrence. I can deter you by punishing Mr. MacDonald more severely, but the question of whether I can deter your behaviour or Mr.

Justice committee  Speaking only for myself--with the two heads nodding beside me--none of us are legislative drafters. We're practitioners who do this on the front line. I'd certainly be happy to give you my views on behalf of the department, but I'm not a legislative drafter; I'm a practitioner.

Justice committee  Two different kinds of considerations would apply when you are having a hearing to determine whether there is an adult sentence. When you are dealing with specific factual allegations--was this planned and deliberate; did you bring a weapon with you; had you been previously warned not to do this?

Justice committee  Yes.

Justice committee  It's a little bit more complicated than that. This is at page 4 of the paper, the second paragraph from the bottom on page 4. Essentially, the situation is this: if you're released on a very serious charge that you would be eligible for detention on but you're not detained, and then you commit another whole series of offences that fall below the threshold, so you can't be detained for those offences, the crown can bring you back and have the bail reviewed under section 524 to try to have your original release cancelled or revoked.

Justice committee  I have bits and pieces of the existing act.

Justice committee  Yes.

Justice committee  That is correct.

Justice committee  Aggravating facts relating to the offence or the offender...yes.

Justice committee  Certainly. First of all, it's not just me who says that, it's the Ontario Court of Appeal, the Alberta Court of Appeal, and the Quebec Court of Appeal.

Justice committee  Well, the decision of the Ontario Court of Appeal was. The decision of the Quebec Court of Appeal straddled D.B. So the Court of Appeal in Quebec decided prior to D.B. There was, however, a leave application to the Supreme Court of Canada after D.B., and the Supreme Court refused leave.

Justice committee  And the Alberta Court of Appeal was after.

Justice committee  I wonder if I could respond very briefly before my colleague. We saw that in the testimony of some of the witnesses. In fact, at least in Alberta, there is the same accessibility to treatment for someone in remand as a youth as there is for someone serving a youth sentence, so there is no difference in terms of what treatment and programming are available.

Justice committee  The difficulty is that we're not simply leaving it open. We're dramatically opening the gateway to that. We're opening it to a whole new range of offences where it's not currently available. The comparison between the youth and the adult sentences is difficult, because the duration of a youth deferred custody sentence is so short that really you can't get much meaningful treatment or rehabilitation in during that six-month window.