Justice committee  I said that I actually believe that putting the principles mandated by the Supreme Court of Canada into the legislation helps, for sure, non-lawyers. But section 3, as people have talked about, is already currently the balancing. It talks about long-term protection. It talks abou

Justice committee  I identified the three things the Supreme Court has ruled on. They affect more than three sections, because the presumption stuff occurs in different contexts, but that's for clarity, not for necessity. Indeed, the rest, in my view, would make things worse than they currently are

Justice committee  The evidence is really that the more intense the intervention in a young person's life—i.e., the more intrusive police are, the more frequently they're charged, the more court appearances they have, the longer sentences they have—the worse the outcome, the worse the recidivism, t

Justice committee  Oh, no, deterrence has no effect. Certainly general deterrence has no effect. What affects individuals is not actually the notion of the sentence; it's the likelihood of being caught. It's like the kitten or puppy, right? There's absolutely no point in swatting them on the nose,

Justice committee  Thank you very much for the opportunity to address you on legislation that affects the lives of all children. Justice for Children and Youth has been acting both for young offenders and young victims since 1978. Just as it says in the submission of the Canadian Bar Association,

Justice committee  The submission I sent says “Justice for Children and Youth's Submissions re: Bill C-4” at the top. It is the last sentence under the subtitle “Endangers or is likely to endanger the life or safety of another person” in a section entitled “Expanded Grounds for Pre-trial Detention”

Justice committee  Thank you very much. The first thing, substantively, that I wanted to say is that the Supreme Court of Canada has made findings about youth and their reduced moral blameworthiness and the principles of fundamental justice as they apply to youth. I would like to praise Parliament

Justice committee  I can't tell you of any studies either, and I certainly have no information about same-sex cultural norms. I can't tell you that. Again, I can tell you only the experience of our clinic. There I can tell you that many of our clients report more homophobic slurs, behaviour, and cr

Justice committee  This isn't a study, but I can tell you anecdotally that many of our clients—and I've read this and can't tell you where those studies were, but I know I have read it as well—many young people are very precise in what they consider or would disclose as “having had sexual intercour

Justice committee  Apparently. Perhaps that's where they learned. Let me use the opportunity to just say one other thing that rather concerns me and is the reason that pushed Justice for Children and Youth to look for a rebuttable presumption. That is that, while on the one hand one would hope tha

Justice committee  The source for our data is a 2003 study, so it may be—I don't know—that it's a different year. That's the source. Indeed, the notion of what constitutes sexual activity has broadened, and this study had as its purpose exploring the prevention of HIV/AIDS, so we were talking abo

Justice committee  And I certainly don't need to identify my own experience either. I believe that the age at which young people first engage in sexual activity is fairly culturally based. Young people often do what their peers do. They often— Well, here's an example that doesn't even occur in C

Justice committee  The presumption would be that for what is now absolutely in the bill a prohibition—it's not actually five years, if I'm right, but less than five years, so four years plus 364 days—if the age gap is larger than that, one would presume there is sexual exploitation. It is only th

Justice committee  You are understanding me correctly. I am saying that from the point of view of Justice for Children and Youth, a rebuttable presumption is preferable to an absolute rule, because we are all trying to prevent exploitation, and it's hard to get hold of, so we use age as a proxy, no

Justice committee  If I might point out, there are lots of kids in the same secondary school who are five years apart. I think it's important to know that especially people coming from different countries and different education systems may arrive at different grade levels and they may think of the