Bill C-25 (Historical)

An Act to amend the Youth Criminal Justice Act

This enactment amends the Youth Criminal Justice Act by adding deterrence and denunciation to the principles that a court must consider when determining a youth sentence. It also clarifies that the presumption against the pre-trial detention of a young person is rebuttable and specifies the circumstances in which the presumption does not apply.

Youth Criminal Justice Act

[Rob Nicholson, Conservative, Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada]

moved that Bill C-25, An Act to amend the Youth Criminal Justice Act, be read the second time and referred to a committee.

Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to rise today to begin the second reading debate on Bill C-25, which amends the sentencing and pretrial provisions of the Youth Criminal Justice Act.

The government has committed itself to respond to the concerns that Canadians have expressed about youth crime. Bill C-25 now before this House is an example of how we are going to meet that commitment. We are going to strengthen the youth justice system and ensure fairness and effectiveness in the application of the criminal law for young people. We are ensuring that society is effectively protected from violent and dangerous offenders. Young offenders, like adults, must face meaningful consequences for serious crimes.

In the last election we said we would make changes to the Youth Criminal Justice Act and last month in Halifax, accompanied by the former Nova Scotia minister of justice, I announced that the government would deliver on this promise and introduce amendments to the Youth Criminal Justice Act. This has been done with the tabling of this bill on Monday. It is not just Nova Scotia that has been requesting these improvements. Manitoba has been requesting them as well.

I have to refer to a couple of colleagues in my own caucus. For many years the member for Wild Rose has called for changes to the Youth Criminal Justice Act. I know he takes a great deal of satisfaction from the progress that he has made in a number of areas. The protection of 14 and 15 year olds definitely is one of the crusades that he has had and I very much appreciate that as well. The member for Crowfoot has been one of those individuals who has continued to encourage me and the government to move forward with these changes. I have received pretty good support right across this country from provincial attorneys general, but I am very appreciative of those colleagues of mine who have come forward and asked for these changes.

I should point out that the Nova Scotia request for change is in large part based on the recommendations in the Nunn commission report. Many of us are aware of the tragedy that was experienced in Nova Scotia where a youth with outstanding charges for automobile theft was continuously released prior to his trial. The individual stole another vehicle and again it resulted in a tragedy in which Theresa McEvoy was killed.

Nova Scotia has done great work in pushing for these changes. Yesterday I was pleased to see in a news release that the justice minister of Nova Scotia, Cecil Clarke, said he welcomes our Youth Criminal Justice Act amendments and he called on all members of the House to support this bill.

The pretrial detention provisions of Bill C-25 are also the result of consultations I undertook this summer with my provincial and territorial counterparts and various other stakeholders. We continued those discussions again last week when I was in Winnipeg at a federal-provincial justice ministers meeting in that city. They too shared with me their concerns about detaining dangerous youth prior to their trial.

I am confident that the amendments we have tabled in the House of Commons will address those concerns. The proposals now before the House provide new measures to protect communities from young people who pose a significant risk to public safety and to hold youth accountable for their criminal conduct.

It will amend the youth justice system by including as well deterrence and denunciation as sentencing principles and by making it easier to detain a broader range of young persons who pose a risk to public safety.

Currently under the Youth Criminal Justice Act, the purpose of a youth sentence is to hold the young person accountable through meaningful consequences and rehabilitative measures. The sentence must be proportionate to the seriousness of the offence and it must also be the sentence most likely to rehabilitate the young person.

Last year the Supreme Court of Canada ruled that the Youth Criminal Justice Act does not allow deterrence and denunciation to be considered by the courts as specific objectives of the courts when they are sentencing youth. These are important objectives we believe for judges to have when considering an appropriate sentence.

Deterrence means imposing a sanction for the purpose of discouraging the offender and others from engaging in criminal conduct. Denunciation refers to society's condemnation of the offence. My proposed sentencing amendment would allow courts to consider both deterrence and denunciation as objectives in youth sentences. Again, we appreciate the support of our provincial counterparts for the inclusion of both of these in the Youth Criminal Justice Act.

Many Canadians are concerned about youth crime and believe that changes to sentences can be very helpful. They want to stem the reported recent increase in violent youth crime and restore respect for law, so I am asking Parliament to move expeditiously in getting this bill passed.

For some time now, the government has been taking part in a comprehensive review of the pretrial detention and release provisions on the youth justice system. I have indicated as well to my provincial and territorial counterparts that I would like to have their input for a complete, comprehensive review of the Youth Criminal Justice Act.

This is an appropriate time, it seems to me, in view of concerns that I have heard right across this country with respect to youth crime and youth violence. I think it comes at an appropriate time inasmuch as this is the fifth anniversary of the Youth Criminal Justice Act, and indeed the 100th anniversary of a separate youth criminal justice system in Canada.

I indicated to my provincial counterparts, and I have indicated publicly, and certainly I will be getting input from my colleagues as to how to go about that so that we can bring forward comprehensive changes.

This is just one of the measures that we have placed before Parliament. I was very pleased as well to introduce the bill that has mandatory prison terms for people who commit serious drug offences. I saw on television a couple of academics who had some problems with that. I can say that they do not represent the majority of Canadians. Canadians want to see tough sentences when it comes to drug offences and they want to see changes to the youth criminal justice act.

I tabled a bill a few minutes ago on identity theft, and the tackling violent crime act has been reported back to Parliament. Bill C-25 should be seen in the context of a wide range of government initiatives, all of them designed to make our communities safer, to make our streets safer, to stand up for the innocent victims of crime.

One of my clients--one of my colleagues--I am not practising law anymore in Niagara Falls, although I was very proud to do that for many years. My colleagues have been very supportive of these initiatives because they know we are on the right track to help build a better and safer Canada.

[Brian Murphy, Liberal, Moncton—Riverview—Dieppe, NB]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased that the minister does not have clients within the Conservative Party. It might lead to more questions about what need they would have for the legal advice from one of Her Majesty's Queen's Counsel and the Attorney General of Canada.

Regarding the concept of sentencing in general, I want to hone in on the prospect in this bill of adding deterrence and denunciation to a youth justice bill. I want to ask him in general if he agrees with the proposition that in the Criminal Code of Canada when it comes to sentencing, all of the factors are tempered by section 718.1, which says that proportionality is the overriding principle of sentencing.

I say that because Supreme Court Justice Morris Fish recently opined from the bench, in a very interesting decision I was watching involving mandatory minimums, that section 718.1 oversees all of the other sentencing principles.

Does the minister agree with that with respect to the Criminal Code? More important, does he see that the concept of proportionality is actually in the Youth Criminal Justice Act itself?

[Rob Nicholson, Conservative, Niagara Falls, ON]

Mr. Speaker, it is obvious that proportionality is a part of every sentence that is handed down in the country. The Criminal Code, as does the Youth Criminal Justice Act, gives a wide range to judges to impose a sentence that is appropriate in each occasion.

However, we had to act in light of a decision by the Supreme Court of Canada, in 2006, with respect to the Youth Criminal Justice Act. It made it very clear that deterrence and denunciation were not part of the principles that a judge could take into consideration when sentencing a young person. Therefore, we have moved to remedy that and we have put that in the legislation.

Again, there is a wide range of principles and considerations that a judge can take into consideration to ensure that the appropriate sentence is handed down for that young person.

We are keenly aware as well that we cannot just sentence individuals in our system. We have to try to divert them and give them opportunities not to get involved in problems with the law in the first place. Therefore, ours is a comprehensive package, both for youth and for drug related problems. As we know, they can be interrelated, but ours has to be a comprehensive and a fair approach.

[Serge Ménard, Bloc, Marc-Aurèle-Fortin, QC]

Mr. Speaker, before he tables his bill, I would like the minister to tell us whether he knew that, for years now, the youth crime rate has been 50% higher in Canada than in Quebec? Again last year, while the youth crime rate was going up in Canada, it went down by 4% in Quebec.

Did he ever ask himself whether Quebec's approach was different from those of the other provinces? If so, is he starting to see why we have always achieved better results than Canada and, indeed, the rest of North America? Has the minister asked himself this question? Does he have any answers? Does he know why this reality exists and whether the rest of Canada could benefit from Quebec's approach?

[Rob Nicholson, Conservative, Niagara Falls, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am a big proponent of and a believer in everyone learning from everybody else in the country. The province of Quebec has good ideas that can and should be examined by other law enforcement agencies and those who work with young people. All of us can learn from each other.

I was very proud, for instance, to be with my colleague, the Minister of Public Safety, at an announcement in St. Catharines on Monday morning, when a group known as the Citizens Advisory Committee received a $1.7 million grant from the government to assist young people who are in trouble with the law or have the potential to get in trouble with the law. It will have a program where it can engage approximately 80 individuals at one time who can work with those individuals to try to ensure they do not get mixed up with the criminal justice system.

I look to a program like that. I congratulated the members for their fine work, which they have been doing for almost two decades now in the Niagara Peninsula.

Again, as the hon. member says, we can learn from each other, but we have to be united in our determination that bills like this have to be passed. We cannot say that, yes, a program is working somewhere and, therefore, we are not going to do anything any more. I have been coast to coast in the country and people all tell me the same thing: do something about the Youth Criminal Justice Act.

I am responding to what was said in the Nunn commission report. I am responding to my colleagues who have been hearing from their constituents, who have been saying that they want to see changes. We have heard from a wide range of people. I think there is a consensus that the changes we bring about in Bill C-25 are very reasonable and should have the support of everybody in the House of Commons.

[Jay Hill, Conservative, Secretary of State and Chief Government Whip]

Mr. Speaker, the new legislation, which the justice minister spoke about, albeit briefly, has elicited a great response, judging by how many of my colleagues from all parties are looking to ask questions of him. Therefore, I will try to keep this brief.

The reality I have often remarked over the 14 years I have been privileged to be a member of Parliament is that too often our justice system overlooks the victims of crime. More often than not, the victims of youth crime are youth themselves, and we do not want to lose sight of that.

I was very pleased to hear my colleague, the justice minister, remark that a real impetus for bringing forward the legislation is to try to bring greater fairness and justice to the victims of crime.

Could he elaborate a bit more on that? I hear this all the time, not only in northeastern British Columbia, but as I travel across our country.

[Rob Nicholson, Conservative, Niagara Falls, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased the chief government whip raised the question of the victims.

If members looked at the transcript of this Parliament and checked question period every day, they would see very few questions directed to the government from the opposition directly related to the victims and their rights.

However, I know it is a priority among government members and that is why I was very pleased earlier this year to have a press conference and announce that we would have the first federal ombudsman for the victims of crime, and why not? It was an excellent idea.

Most of us, when we came to government, we asked who was in charge, who looked after the rights of victims? Everybody else seemed to have somebody else lobbying or campaigning on behalf of their rights, but there was very little in the way of spokespeople who concentrated on the rights of victims. Therefore, it is very appropriate that the Government of Canada has initiated that new response to something very fair, which is looking after the victims of crime.

[Larry Bagnell, Liberal, Yukon, YT]

Mr. Speaker, I am glad the Minister of Justice is enthusiastic about helping fix the system. He used the word “comprehensive” in his speech. A program cannot be comprehensive if it does not deal with some of the major problems.

There are two major problems. First, people come to members of Parliament all the time about the overrepresentation of aboriginal people in the justice system. Second, people with FAS and FASD commit proportionally much larger numbers of crime per capita.

What is the minister doing to help fix those problems in the system?

[Rob Nicholson, Conservative, Niagara Falls, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I was very pleased to support the aboriginal justice strategy earlier this year and confirm there would be continued government financing of that program.

As Minister of Justice, when it was explained to me what we were doing in that, I liked the fact that we were getting results in this area and that it was a success. We want to build on success.

We know young people can get involved with drugs and we know this is a major problem in a number of communities. I was very pleased, therefore, when the Prime Minister announced in Winnipeg the national anti-drug strategy and said that two-thirds of the new resources would go into prevention and treatment.

Again, this is what I was talking about earlier. We want to have that comprehensive approach because we know it will work.

[Joe Comartin, NDP, Windsor—Tecumseh, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I know the minister will be in front of the committee. I want to ask him about dollars. He bragged about the $1.7 million he gave in his area of the country. I should point out that this was over four years, not one year.

The reality is the government has done very little with regard to preventive work. It put some money in the budget, but has not spent it since it was in power.

Could the minister tell us how much the government has allocated for prevention programs for youth in the current budget period?

[Rob Nicholson, Conservative, Niagara Falls, ON]

Mr. Speaker, just within the national anti-drug strategy alone, it took almost $64 million of new resources, quite apart from the resources that we already allocated to assist both youth and for drug treatment programs.

Quite apart from those, of the $64 million, two-thirds of that will go to prevention and treatment, and why not? These are good ideas and we know that. I have talked many times about the enforcement and the penalty side, but that can only be one part of it. We have to build a complete program. My colleagues and I are keenly aware of that.

Every time members have seen a federal budget, every time they have seen an announcement, they will notice that we watch and ensure that treatment and prevention programs are a part of every program with which we move forward. I am very proud of that and I am very pleased to have the support of my colleagues.

[Marlene Jennings, Liberal, Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Lachine, QC]

Mr. Speaker, it is an honour for me to speak to Bill C-25, An Act to amend the Youth Criminal Justice Act.

I received a letter from the minister on the day that he tabled the bill at first reading. His letter stated:

A copy of the Bill and accompanying news release and backgrounder are enclosed.

The Bill amends the Youth Criminal Justice Act by adding deterrence and denunciation to the principles that a court must consider when determining a youth sentence. Deterrence refers to imposing a sanction with the purpose of discouraging the offender and others from engaging in criminal conduct. Denunciation refers to society's condemnation of the offence.

The Bill also clarifies that the presumption against the pre-trial detention of young person is rebuttable and specifies the circumstances in which the presumption does not apply. This will make it easier to detain a broader range of youth who pose a risk to public safety.

I was astonished because Nova Scotia had recently conducted a major public inquiry. That inquiry was the result of the following incident.

On October 14, 2004, Theresa McEvoy, a 52 year old mother, was killed in a car accident by a 16 year old, whose initials are A.B.

A.B., who was joyriding in a stolen car at the time of the accident, was released on October 12, 2004, despite having 38 criminal charges against him.

On June 29, 2005, Nova Scotia called a public inquiry to look at how the charges against this youth were handled and other issues related to why he was released. The Hon. D. Merlin Nunn was named commissioner of the inquiry.

On December 5, 2006, the commissioner, Justice Nunn, presented his report, which included 34 recommendations: 19 recommendations on the need to simplify the administration of justice and improve accountability, 6 others on giving the Youth Criminal Justice Act more teeth, and 9 others on youth crime prevention.

I found out about this inquiry and this report through my colleagues and not through the Conservative government.

It was my colleagues from Sydney—Victoria, Halifax West, Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, Kenora, Saint Boniface, Winnipeg South Centre, Churchill, Cape Breton—Canso, Yukon, Moncton—Riverview—Dieppe, and Scarborough—Rouge River who brought the fact and the reality of the existence of this report to my attention.

I immediately got a copy of the report and began reading it. I have to tell the House that what the government has tabled is not in any way a comprehensive response to the six recommendations that Justice Nunn made in his December 2006 report.

Let me read the actual recommendations.

Recommendation 20 states:

The Province should advocate that the federal government amend the “Declaration of Principle” in section 3 of the Youth Criminal Justice Act to add a clause indicating that protection of the public is one of the primary goals of the act.

Recommendation 21 states:

--that the federal government amend the definition of “violent offence” in section 39(1)(a) of the Youth Criminal Justice Act to include conduct that endangers or is likely to endanger the life or safety of another person.

Recommendation 22 states:

--that the federal government amend section 39(1)(c) of the Youth Criminal Justice Act so that the requirement for a demonstrated “pattern of findings of guilt” is changed to “a pattern of offences”, or similar wording, with the goal that both a young person's prior findings of guilt and pending charges are to be considered when determining the appropriateness of pre-trial detention.

Recommendation 23, the fourth one that deals directly with the YCJA, states:

--that the federal government amend and simplify the statutory provisions relating to the pre-trial detention of young persons so that section 29 will stand on its own without interaction with other statutes or other provisions of the Youth Criminal Justice Act.

Recommendation 24 states:

--that the federal government amend section 31(5)(a) of the Youth Criminal Justice Act so that if the designated “responsible person” is relieved of his or her obligations under a “responsible person undertaking” the young person's undertaking made under section 31(3)(b) nevertheless remains in full force and effect, particularly any requirement to keep the peace and be of good behaviour and other conditions imposed by a youth court judge.

Finally, recommendation 25, the sixth recommendation of Justice Nunn's that goes directly to the YCJA, states:

--that the federal government amend section 31(6) of the Youth Criminal Justice Act to remove the requirement of a new bail hearing for the young person before being placed in pre-trial custody if the designated “responsible person” is relieved of his or her obligations under a “responsible person undertaking”.

There is a series of recommendations talking about the development and implementation of a public, comprehensive, collaborative and effective interdepartmental strategy to coordinate programs, interventions, services and supports to children, youth at risk and their families. All of the other recommendations were directed to the provincial government of Nova Scotia, but six of them directly called on the provincial government of Nova Scotia to advocate for and lobby the federal government for six precise changes.

Let us look at this to see what the government actually changed.

The government included, as the minister said, that the judge may now use the following criteria in determining the sentence that is appropriate for a young offender: “to denounce unlawful conduct” and “to deter the young person and other young persons from committing offences”. That is a big piece of Bill C-25.

The other piece of Bill C-25 addresses in part Justice Nunn's recommendations, but only in part. He had several recommendations regarding the pretrial detention, and the bill addresses some of those recommendations, that is, that the justice shall:

presume that detention is not necessary unless

(a) the young person is charged with a violent offence or an offence that otherwise endangers the public by creating a substantial likelihood of serious bodily harm to another person;

(b) the young person has been found guilty of failing to comply with non-custodial sentences or conditions of release, or

(c) the young person is charged with an indictable offence for which an adult would be liable to imprisonment for a term of more than two years and has a history that indicates a pattern of findings of guilty under this Act or the Young Offenders Act....

Finally, the bill states:

If the youth justice court or the justice finds that none of paragraphs 2(a) to (c) apply, the court or justice shall not detain the young person unless...satisfied that there is a substantial likelihood, having regard to all of the relevant factors including any pending charges against the young person, that the young person will, if released from custody, commit a violent offence or an offence that otherwise endangers the public by creating a substantial likelihood of serious bodily harm to another person.

That is great. That answers some of Justice Nunn's recommendations. It does not, however, answer Justice Nunn's recommendation on amending section 3, the declaration of principle, “to add a clause indicating that protection of the public is one of the primary goals of the act”.

It also does not address Justice Nunn's recommendation that the definition of “violent offence” found in section 39(1)(a) “include conduct that endangers or is likely to endanger the life or safety of another person”.

It does not answer and respond to Justice Nunn's recommendation that “the...government amend and simplify the statutory provisions relating to the pre-trial detention of young persons so that section 29 will stand on its own without interaction with other statutes”.

One of the main recommendations of Justice Nunn was that section 3 should be amended so that protection of the public would be a primary objective of the Youth Criminal Justice Act. For a government that beats its chest and beats the drums over and over again in its members' ridings, on the news and in its publications that it is there to get tough on crime, I cannot understand why the government chose not to amend section 3 and include protection of the public as a primary goal of the Youth Criminal Justice Act.

Is it because it is not really protection of the public that the Conservative government is interested in, but that this is more about punishment? Is that why? There is no other logical explanation.

Let me read a few quotes from the Nunn commission report. It noted:

--the [Youth Criminal Justice Act] has been highly successful in the manner in which the vast majority of youth is handled...The challenge is whether the [Youth Criminal Justice Act] in its present form is adequate to deal with that smaller number of repeat offenders that the justice system is concerned with on a regular basis.

Justice Nunn also said:

--it is important to state that not one of the parties with standing took exception to the philosophy behind the act or to the majority of its provisions. Rather, they identified a number of sections causing concern and recommended changes.

Unfortunately, the government again has chosen to cherry-pick among these recommendations. That is me talking, not Justice Nunn. I will return to the quotes:

--I can categorically state that the Youth Criminal Justice Act is legislation that provides an intelligent, modern and advanced approach to dealing with youth involved in criminal activities. Canada is now far ahead of other countries in its treatment of youth in conflict with the law....

That is on page 228, but Justice Nunn's next statement is even better:

This is not to say that there are not those who are opposed to the [Youth Criminal Justice Act], just as there were those opposed to the previous acts, the Juvenile Delinquents Act and the Young Offenders Act.

He continues, and I like this one, as he is spot on:

Many of these critics believe that jail is the answer: “There they'll learn the errors of their ways.” These critics pay little attention to contrary evidence, nor do they understand that with young persons jail for the terms they recommend does not correct or rehabilitate, but rather often turns out a person whose behaviour is much worse than it was. Others espouse the vengeful adage “adult crime--adult time”....

How many times have we heard that from Conservative members, those who were previously Canadian Alliance members and before that Reform members? Justice Nunn goes on to say:

--paying no attention to the fact that it is a youth crime and not an adult crime.

Such an attitude is in direct conflict with modern approaches to treating criminal behaviour. Most of the adherents of these views refuse to accept that youth should be treated differently and separately from any adult system.

Nevertheless, they are entitled to the views and opinions they express. Unfortunately, in the present state of our youth criminal justice system, they are unable to make any contribution to reform, even when some reform is not only reasonable but desirable.

I would like to continue the quotes. How much time do I have left, please?

[David Tilson]

None.

[Marlene Jennings, Liberal, Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Lachine, QC]

Oh, those members are endorsing the Nunn report. I heard some of them calling out Nunn.

That quote was from pages 228 and 229. The next quote is from page 230:

The witnesses and counsel for all parties in this inquiry have indicated full support for the aims and goals of the act while recognizing, at the same time, a need for a number of amendments to give flexibility to the courts in dealing with repeat offenders, primarily by opening a door to pre-trial custody and enlarging the gateways to custody. Such amendments would give greater credence to and public support for the act, a much-desired result.

The judge made it clear that the overwhelming majority of people who testified before him, who were witnesses before him, supported the aims of the Youth Criminal Justice Act. Those aims do not include adult sentencing principles: deterrence and denunciation.

Allow me to quote Deputy Chief Christopher McNeil of the Halifax Regional Police service, who said:

The [Youth Criminal Justice Act] is premised on the belief that the vast majority of young offenders, with proper guidance and support, can overcome past criminal behaviour and develop into law-abiding citizens. This is true for the vast majority of young people. However, the YCJA is ineffective in dealing with the small percentage of young people from whom the public needs protection.

The YCJA fails to recognize that there is a small group of incorrigible young people whose activities pose a risk, and that the criminal law must provide mechanisms to protect society from their behaviour. The YCJA is highly prescriptive legislation and restrictions on the use of custody in the YCJA have been interpreted as a virtual bar to detention or custody in certain cases. These restrictions pose a risk to public safety.

He went on to talk about the need to put protection of the public in the primary goal in section 3, the declaration of principles of the act.

Why would the government not follow that recommendation? One can only believe that the government is not interested in effective policies that actually do work and will in fact protect the public, because if the government were genuine in its claim that, as the minister just stated in this House, it is “responding to what was said in the Nunn report”, it would have done so.

I am sorry. He is only responding to a small part of what was said. He is not responding to all of the recommendations dealing with the YCJA. Shame on him.

He should stand here in this House and say, “I read the Nunn report. There are six recommendations dealing with the YCJA. I am only going to deal with two of them. The other four? Maybe in the future”. He should at least show that integrity. Shame on him.

I met with the brother of Theresa McEvoy when the member for Halifax West organized a meeting, a round table. There were two other families there who also had members of their family, one was a child and the other was a sister, who were murdered.

Not one of them asked to have deterrence and denunciation put as a criteria for determining sentencing for young offenders. What they all asked for was to have protection of the public put into the declaration of principle, section 3 of the YCJA. They asked that all of Justice Nunn's recommendations dealing with the YCJA be implemented by that Conservative government. Unfortunately, that Conservative government has done what it always does: cherry-picks.

[An hon. member]

It's getting it done.

[Marlene Jennings, Liberal, Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Lachine, QC]

Mr. Speaker, it is not getting it done. It cherry-picks.

The Conservative government will not provide the kind of effective justice system for our young people as it is claiming because if it were interested in that, it would have implemented all six recommendations of Justice Nunn in Bill C-25 and they are not all there. Shame on the government.

[Kevin Sorenson, Conservative, Crowfoot, AB]

Mr. Speaker, since I have been elected to this House of Commons seven years, my constituents have been asking for the Attorney General of Canada, the Minister of Justice, to introduce legislation that would provide for new measures to protect communities from young offenders who pose a significant risk to public safety.

The hon. member across the way said in her speech that it does not list protection of society as a guiding principle.

For seven years, we stood in this House, when the Conservative Party was in opposition, and asked the Liberal government to add protection of society as a guiding principle. Its arguments back were that the rehabilitation of the offender was the guiding principle, that reintegration was the guiding principle.

What this bill would do, among a number of other things, is amend the Youth Criminal Justice Act to ask the courts to consider deterrence as part of the sentencing structure.

Obviously, the Minister of Justice, when he introduced these amendments, also announced that in 2008 there would be a comprehensive review of the Youth Criminal Justice Act. It would be done to address the other concerns and criticisms regarding the Youth Criminal Justice Act that the Liberal government put in place. At that point in time, the Youth Criminal Justice Act would be five years old.

Would this member tell this House today that she, at the time of that review in 2008, next year, will be a strong advocate for the protection of society being the guiding principle of the Youth Criminal Justice Act and to depart from the old Liberal way of reintegration back into society as being the guiding principle? Would she assure the House today that she would support those measures in the upcoming review in 2008?

[Marlene Jennings, Liberal, Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Lachine, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I was here when the debates were going on to replace the Young Offenders Act with the Youth Criminal Justice Act. I participated in those debates. I do not recall one member sitting across that side asking for protection of the public to be part of the primary goals.

What I will say--

[Kevin Sorenson, Conservative, Crowfoot, AB]

Shame on you, Marlene.

[Marlene Jennings, Liberal, Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Lachine, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I said I do not recall. I do not recall that. I would like to see the transcript.

However, I would like to say that our party has called for a full implementation of Justice Nunn's recommendations that are directly related to the Youth Criminal Justice Act. Therefore, that includes adding protection of the public in section 3 of the act, declaration of principle, as one of the primary goals of the act. That is one.

Second, we are also calling on the government to not wait until the end of 2008 to conduct the review. The government can begin the review today if it wishes. We are calling on this government to begin the review of YCJA immediately. Do not wait a year. Do not wait six months. Begin it immediately.

[Myron Thompson, Conservative, Wild Rose, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I listened to the member's speech and I do not exactly understand her definition of safety to the public.

I have a difficult time debating with lawyers at the best of times because I am not one. They seem to use legal jargon to a great extent and I just cannot comprehend a lot of it. Mr. Speaker, I am sure you could share that with me with your background.

I quite often hear about reports from a person by the name of Nunn and other reports from the member and other members of her party, usually concerning the legal aspects. I wonder if the Liberals have ever taken a serious look at some of the reports that come in from victims of crime.

I remember the late Chuck Cadman, a member of my party, who passed away recently. He was here because of his son who was murdered by young offenders, which was a terrible tragedy. I remember how hard he worked, the great suggestions that he brought forward, and the reports he presented from the victims' points of view and not the legal quarters. It was ignored. I have a hard time understanding that.

I also have a hard time understanding when the Liberals talk about prevention. There is no one who wants to see crime prevented more than me. It may not come across that way and I will have to do a little better job of communicating that maybe, but I do not understand it when members say we should get to the cause of crime.

Without a doubt, one of the biggest causes of crime are drugs and alcohol, particularly alcohol. How does alcohol get into the hands of young people under the age of 18? It is against the law. When is the last time we have heard of anybody being arrested or charged for providing liquor to a minor? When is the last time we saw police break up a block party or a house party that was full of booze and people under the age of 18?

When it is mentioned in committee or to witnesses that it is a major cause and ask what we are going to do about it, the Liberals do not want to go there. They want to talk about poverty being a major cause. I guess they do not realize that rich kids get into trouble as well. There are excuses for avoiding the real causes of crime and our penitentiaries are full of adults for the very same reasons.

They do not want to hear it and I do not understand. They do not want to hear any real, solid points of view from the general public, from the victims on down. They like to hear the points of view of the legal beagles and they need to change their attitude.

[Marlene Jennings, Liberal, Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Lachine, QC]

Mr. Speaker, the issue of the Nunn commission report was raised by the member's own colleague, the Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada. When he made his speech in the House on second reading, he raised the issue of the Nunn commission report. That is the first thing. I suggest if the member for Wild Rose has some issues, he might want to raise them with his own colleague, that is if he is allowed to talk in caucus.

The hon. member raised the issue of whether I as a member of Parliament or even before I was a member of Parliament have ever had any dealings with victims. The answer is yes, I have. I have had dealings with victims and families of victims through the years, both on a personal level and on a professional level. So yes, I do know what many of the issues for victims and families of victims are.

It was in part because of my advocacy and that of many of my colleagues here that the previous Liberal government brought in measures and moneys to help victims. We created a secretariat within the Department of Public Safety, gave moneys to Correctional Service Canada, and changed the Criminal Code amendments so that victim impact statements could be made. There were changes and improvements made. We can always continue to improve. Always. The member's own government can continue to improve.

Possibly the member for Wild Rose was not in his seat when I spoke about why the Nunn commission report came out. It came out of the death of Theresa McEvoy, 52 years old. It came out as a result of her death. Her death can be mirrored across this country. She is not the only one.

Justice Nunn's recommendations as to the Youth Criminal Justice Act have been endorsed not just by the Government of Nova Scotia. The Government of Manitoba, for instance, and the premier of Manitoba asked this government to implement all six of Judge Nunn's recommendations. Other attorneys general and victims groups have asked that as well and the government has not done what they have asked. Unfortunately, this government has again cherry-picked. It is most unfortunate.

[The Deputy Speaker, NDP, Bill Blaikie]

The time for questions and comments has now expired.

It is my duty pursuant to Standing Order 38 to inform the House that the questions to be raised tonight at the time of adjournment are as follows: the hon. member for Rimouski-Neigette—Témiscouata—Les Basques, Seasonal Workers; the hon. member for Madawaska—Restigouche, Employment Insurance; the hon. member for West Nova, Airbus.

The House resumed consideration of the motion that Bill C-25, An Act to amend the Youth Criminal Justice Act, be read the second time and referred to a committee.

[Réal Ménard, Bloc, Hochelaga, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to begin by calling for calm, just as you did. I do not think that it is useful to shout insults during a debate on this subject.

I was in this House in 1999, when three ministers of justice—Anne McLellan, Allan Rock and Martin Cauchon—introduced the early amendments to what was then the Young Offenders Act, which had been in place since 1907 and is now the Youth Criminal Justice Act.

I am sure that members of this House have fond memories of our colleague from Berthier, who is now putting his talent and experience to work on the bench, and who was in charge of this issue for the Bloc Québécois. At the time, we introduced some 2,700 amendments, which led to changes to the Standing Orders to limit opportunities to introduce amendments in committee at the report stage.

At the time, there was a broad coalition that included the Government of Quebec and hundreds of youth services groups that were concerned about the fact that young people aged 14 or 15 could, in some cases, be tried in adult court and sentenced as adults. That was at the heart of the reforms proposed in 1999.

At the National Assembly, youth justice stakeholders criticized elements that contradicted established practices in Quebec. Not only did the province believe in rehabilitation, its watchword for intervention practices was “the right measure at the right time”. That was our slogan. That means that when intervention is necessary, rehabilitation should be the first choice. We were supposed to abide by that slogan. Quebec's National Assembly and stakeholders in the province have never denied the fact that in some cases, under specific circumstances, pre-trial detention, incarceration and even other penalties may be necessary.

When the minister made the bill public, some of the government members were quick to draw parallels with street gangs. The Bloc Québécois is not complacent. We do not have an idyllic or unrealistic view of youth. We know that young people are involved in crime, and I will talk more about this later. We also know that sometimes tougher measures are needed. However, we must stop comparing action taken under the Youth Criminal Justice Act with the issue of street gangs.

Street gangs are a real phenomenon in all large Canadian cities. Montreal, where my constituency is, is no exception. Neither is Quebec City or other cities, such as Vancouver, Toronto and Halifax. As recent statistics show, individuals involved in street gangs, or at least the well-known leaders who might find themselves in court, are not 12- or 13-year-olds.

My colleague from Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Lachine sat on the justice committee with me when the Bloc Québécois introduced a motion to invite Randall Richmond, a civil servant in Quebec City with the Organized Crimes Prosecution Bureau, also known as BLACO, who has thoroughly examined this issue. He told us the average age of individuals who had recently been arrested and brought before the court. At the time, there was much talk about the Pelletier street gang in Montreal and the arrest which first established a link between street gangs and criminal organizations. The average age of these individuals was 19 years and 2 months.

That said, the Bloc Québécois is very concerned about this bill and will not support it. We will use our energy to speak out and take action to show the public that the government is on the wrong track. We have two main concerns.

First of all, in the 1999 reform, we wanted to amend this legislation, which we had criticized. We disagreed with one of the provisions, namely, the widespread use of pretrial detention.

Once again, we are not saying that pretrial detention should never be used. Section 515 of the Criminal Code already set outs circumstances in which adults must be detained before their trial. First there are the serious offences listed in section 469 of the Criminal Code: murder, attempted murder and the most serious offences. Of course, an offender is remanded for pretrial detention when it is believed that he or she may not report for their trial, that evidence could be destroyed or when the offender is not a Canadian resident.

In some situations, pretrial detention is of course necessary in order to ensure the proper functioning of the legal system and the administration of justice. This is also true for young offenders. We understand this.

I was speaking with my colleague from Pointe-aux-Trembles earlier about the consultation paper. Last night, I read the consultation paper released by the Department of Justice in June 2007, which gives an overview of the situation since the act was proclaimed in 2003. The document indicates that, before 2003, under the Young Offenders Act, police and other law enforcement agencies incarcerated young offenders before their trial in 45% of cases. When we look at the most recent statistics available, under the Youth Criminal Justice Act, pretrial detention has risen to 55%. Thus, a trend that we wanted to reverse is actually increasing.

Why is widespread pretrial detention not desirable as a general rule? As we all know, this is the period before sentencing and before the trial. The presumption of innocence must therefore apply.

Yesterday I was talking to Mr. Trépanier, a leading expert in Quebec, who has studied this issue the most. He is a professor in the criminology department at the Université de Montréal. I was talking to him about statistics. He has, by the way, been contracted by various government departments to study this issue. He told me that pretrial detention is not desirable. First, because even if that detention could offer some form of support, youth will never engage seriously in treatment and rehabilitation, or measures that could help them become better citizens. Second, there is the presumption of innocence. Third, there is the whole machinery that is reluctant to invest in resources before the final status of that youth is known. It is therefore wrong to want to see this principle used more widely.

Of course, in the bill, which has just two clauses, we are looking at a reverse onus of proof. Should we not be worried about this tendency toward more widespread reliance on the reverse onus of proof?

The Bloc Québécois has accepted that this is for the toughest criminals. I am thinking, among other things, of the former Bill C-27, which was incorporated in Bill C-2. We are talking about dangerous offenders—not even 500 people across Canada. These are people who have committed serious crimes.

In section 753 of the Criminal Code there is a very specific definition. We have accepted it, even though it flies in the face of a principle important to the Bloc Québécois when it comes to the administration of justice, and that is not to reverse the onus of proof. We realize that in some situations, there are people who are a true threat to public safety.

In my opinion, even though three paragraphs in the first part of Bill C-25 suggest reverse onus of proof, and although they are serious, they are too general. I am anxious to see what the experts will say about this in committee.

Obviously, we are talking about a young person who is charged with an indictable offence for which an adult would be liable to imprisonment for a term of more than two years and who has a history that indicates a pattern of findings of guilt. However, you will agree that the list of potential offences is extremely lengthy. I have even heard some people say that in Bill C-25, reverse onus was even more in evidence than in Bill C-27. This first issue makes us extremely skeptical about this bill.

There is a second issue, which is the most important. Do we believe that at 13, 14 or 15, an individual can be treated as an adult? Do we believe that the life of a youth of 12, 13 14 or 15 can be the same as that of a person of 38, 39, 40 or 45? This was the logic behind the call for a criminal justice system tailored to young people. Such a system recognizes that people are entitled to make mistakes and calls for individualized treatment.

Once again, we in the Bloc Québécois are not soft on crime. We know that some young people commit crimes that are so serious that they need to be isolated from society. We agree with that. But we should be guided by a basic principle: treatments and help for young people must be available as early as possible and for as long as possible.

That is why, until this bill was introduced, this sort of obligation was not among the principles in section 3 of the Young Offenders Act. The act does not call for deterrents, which set an example for others. Such penalties tend more toward incarceration. Why does the act not call for such an approach? I cannot provide a better quote than the one I found in a judgment of the Supreme Court, which had heard two cases. As you know, the full names of individuals under the age of 18 are never given; offenders are always identified by their initials. Consequently, the Supreme Court had handed down decisions in Her Majesty v. B.W.P. and Her Majesty v. B.V.N. An aboriginal youth had killed another person. These young people had committed a serious crime. I am not denying that. The court handed down a unanimous decision, and Judge Chars, on behalf of the majority, wrote the following:

The application of general deterrence as a sentencing principle, of course, does not always result in a custodial sentence; however, it can only contribute to the increased use of incarceration, not its reduction. Hence, the exclusion of general deterrence from the new regime...

This refers, of course, to the Youth Criminal Justice Act. Continuing on:

The exclusion of general deterrence from the new regime is consistent with Parliament’s express intention—“Parliament” referring to us, and I was also a member in 1999—to reduce the over-reliance of incarceration for non-violent young persons. I am not persuaded by the Crown’s argument that the words of the preamble referring to the public availability of information indicate that Parliament somehow intended by those words to include general deterrence as part of the new regime.

I do not wish to repeat all the arguments presented by the Crown, but I think it is worth noting that the Crown basically wanted to restore the principle and logic that existed in the Criminal Code, but through the back door. Anyone can consult section 718 of the Criminal Code and see that deterrence is one of the objectives pursued by judges during sentencing. There are other as well. I would also remind the House that there is a specific provision for aboriginal offenders, when it comes to sentencing.

To sum up, this government is making a very serious mistake and that is the subject of the second clause. The bill before us is such a small one, but so very important, given its devastating potential.

Clause 2 of this bill seeks to amend section 38 of the legislation in order to include, in matters of youth criminal justice, the principles of denouncing unlawful conduct and deterring the young person.

Clearly we cannot go down this path. When any sentence is handed down—in Quebec's case in the youth court component of the Quebec court—the judge naturally bears in mind that it is desirable that the individual not reoffend. However, the desire to set down, to codify, in a bill the principle of deterrence, promotes pretrial detention and assigns secondary importance to the principles of treatment, rehabilitation, assistance, significant individuals, or community involvement, in other words, a philosophy of intervention that Quebec has adopted.

This move by the government is even more surprising given that its discussion paper, which I read yesterday, provides some very conclusive figures. They indicate how far we are, despite the 2003 amendments to the Young Offenders Act, from achieving this objective.

I would also like to say that in reading the department's document, I discovered some very interesting facts. A study of police discretion examined how law enforcement officers, thus police, who are peace officers and the first to come in contact with youth, behave when arresting youth. This study revealed three reasons why the police do not release adolescents and detain them until the hearing, that is until the trial.

The first reason is law enforcement, that is to establish the identity of the offenders and to ensure they appear, as I stated earlier. Once again, according to the code, there are situations where releasing an individual is not an option. The second reason—and I find this surprising— is that detention is for the good of the youth. The study gives the example of a police officer who arrests a homeless prostitute or other homeless individuals who do not give the impression that they will find shelter. According to this study, the police officer's usual practice is to hold them for trial. The third reason is to use detention as a means of repression.

The document states that two of these three types of reasons are illegal. Under the reform of the Youth Criminal Justice Act, it is prohibited to detain an individual for these reasons.

So the government has reinforced an undesirable practice. It has supported police officers or law enforcement agencies who tend not to release youth. Yet according to the Quebec code, it is much better to remand young people to youth centres so they can receive institutional support. The bill provides for the possibility of not necessarily releasing them to their parents, but to responsible adults.

Since my time will soon expire, I would like to tell the government how disappointed I am; it would have been much better to address other problems. For several months the Bloc Québécois has been calling for a review of the parole system and accelerated parole review. We would have helped the government if it had been interested. Instead, it is ideologically driven to please its voters and it encourages and promotes prejudices that are not supported by statistics or reality.

Again, the Bloc Québécois will do everything it can to ensure that this ill-advised bill never receives royal assent.

[Brian Murphy, Liberal, Moncton—Riverview—Dieppe, NB]

Mr. Speaker, I have a lot of respect for the Bloc Québécois member's opinions and his experience in the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights and in this House. As I understand it, he and the Bloc are completely opposed to clause 2 of the bill, which would add deterrence and denunciation to the principles to be considered in the Youth Criminal Justice Act. I understand his position on the issue.

I want to ask a more specific question. As we all know, the principles of deterrence and denunciation are in the Criminal Code. Section 718 of the Criminal Code includes a number of other principles. Section 718.1 sets out the crucial principle of sentencing proportionality.

I asked the minister if this bill included a principle of proportionality. He said that it did. Does the Bloc Québécois member think that the bill before us includes a principle of sentencing proportionality?

[Réal Ménard, Bloc, Hochelaga, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his question.

I absolutely agree with his comments. The Criminal Code does set out a number of principles, the most important being the principle of proportionality. There is no trace of this principle in this bill. On the contrary, the bill promotes denunciation and deterrence. Once again, why is this not desirable?

It is significant that from 1907 to date, including the 1999 reform, we have never made the principle of deterrence part of the youth justice system when we have studied it. Deterrence is not the prime objective. Once again, this does not mean that a judge—in the case of Quebec, we are talking about a judge of the Court of Québec’s Youth Division—will not ensure that the offender receives treatment so as not to reoffend. Preventing the offender from reoffending is always the goal of the judiciary and the stakeholders. However, we do not believe that deterrence should be part of this bill, because it will only lead to increased incarceration.

[David Tilson, Conservative, Dufferin—Caledon, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I have heard this debate many times before. I was in this place when it was taking place with respect to the change from the Young Offenders Act to the Youth Criminal Justice Act.

Maybe in my neck of the woods it is different from Quebec, maybe it is different from Hochelaga, but in my neck of the woods, many people have lost faith in the justice system, particularly with young offenders. That is just an observation. We are talking legal principles here.

I have heard young offenders say, “I cannot be touched. Nothing is going to happen to me”. The member for Hochelaga may disagree that the public in his community has lost faith in the justice system, but I bet that if he listened to a few people in his neck of the woods, they would agree with me that the public has lost faith in the justice system with respect to young offenders.

We look at the principles of deterrence, rehabilitation and penalties. My question for the member is, has too much emphasis under the Youth Criminal Justice Act, which most people say is worse than the Young Offenders Act which was a piece of mush, been put on rehabilitation as opposed to deterrence and penalty?

[Réal Ménard, Bloc, Hochelaga, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague for his question.

I am not denying the fact that some of our fellow citizens have lost faith in the justice system. I think that the way to renew that faith is to address parole. Does it make sense that when a court, a judge, hands down a sentence, when the principles of natural justice prevail, a person can be paroled after serving one sixth of his or her sentence? I am much more worried about the fact that a person can be paroled after serving one sixth of a sentence than about the possibility of pretrial detention for a 13, 14, 15 or 16 year old under the conditions set out in the bill.

We know that this is justified in certain cases. We are not denying that. However, I do not think that we need a bill like the one the government has introduced to achieve the goals we all want to achieve for the administration of justice.

[Harold Albrecht, Conservative, Kitchener—Conestoga, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I listened as well with interest to the member's speech. He seems to have some disagreement with the principle of pretrial detention. I am wondering if he would agree that it would be reasonable for a person who has been charged with and is guilty of committing a violent crime which may have resulted in the death of another person to be held in custody prior to trial.

[Réal Ménard, Bloc, Hochelaga, QC]

Certainly, Mr. Speaker, but I would hope that my colleague understands that pretrial detention means that sentencing has not yet occurred.

I would repeat that the Bloc Québécois supported Bill C-2, which included the provisions that were previously introduced in Bill C-27 concerning dangerous offenders.

An individual cannot be declared a dangerous offender until after sentencing. That is not the issue here. The reversal of the burden of proof is extremely broad in paragraphs (a), (b) and (c).

We will see what people have to say in committee. However, I hope that my colleague understands that the bill before us deals with the period prior to sentencing.

[Larry Bagnell, Liberal, Yukon, YT]

Mr. Speaker, one of the most passionate debates in the House I have been involved in was at the turn of this century when the Liberals modernized the youth justice act. I was sitting on the other side, across from where the member is now, and day after the day the Bloc member passionately objected to the improvements.

I would like to know if the member thinks that the bill before us is going to exacerbate the problems that the Bloc Québécois had with that act. Is it going to make them even worse? I would ask him to list the major reasons that this would not improve the safety of Canadian citizens and could ultimately make Canada a less safe place.

[Réal Ménard, Bloc, Hochelaga, QC]

Mr. Speaker, my colleague is right to point out that we are a great party and a passionate party.

That said, in 1999, we were opposed to subjecting 15-year-olds, for example, to adult penalties. We denounced this, and the act came into force in 2003. We were afraid that preventive detention would be used.

If my friend read the document the justice department prepared in order to consult Canadians and Quebeckers on pretrial detention, he would see that under the former Young Offenders Act, law enforcement agencies used pretrial detention in 45% of cases. Under the new legislation, this figure has risen to 55%.

I therefore believe that Michel Bellehumeur, my colleague at the time, who was concerned about this trend, was a visionary and was right to mobilize the Bloc Québécois as he did.

[Joe Comartin, NDP, Windsor—Tecumseh, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to address the House on Bill C-25 which has two, two and a half or three amendments to the Youth Criminal Justice Act, depending on how we read it and interpret it.

This is another attempt, a very feeble one on the part of this legislature, to assess the usefulness of the criminal justice system we have developed with regard to youth crime and how best to deal with that within a legislated structure.

When I first saw the bill the other day, I must admit I was a bit taken aback because of all the chest thumping and macho speeches that we had heard from the Conservative government and its members on getting tough on crime. Then the bill came out with only a few sections, and quite frankly, a good deal of which is probably not necessary beyond a very limited scope.

In terms of trying to put that in context, we have to appreciate where we are at.

The thrust of the government has been to get tough on crime at least in both its ideology and its verbiage in response to a bit of a hysteria that it to a great extent has created. Again, we need to put this in context.

The reality is that for the better part of about 150 years, and certainly 125 years, the common law jurisdiction based on the English common law and the criminal law that grew out of that has always treated youth differently, although how we define them has varied from decade to decade. We stopped treating all crime by all age groups and by all citizens differently back around that time. This included bringing into our criminal justice system a recognition that youth, because of their youth, did not have the same capacity to make decisions as adults did. We do the same with people of limited intelligence or suffering serious mental health problems and who do not have the capacity to make conscious decisions at the same maturity level as adults do.

That has been an underpinning of our criminal justice system now for at least 125 years and probably close to 150 years. It has ebbed and flowed over that period of time.

When I first started practising, we had the Juvenile Delinquents Act, which was amended and changed into the Young Offenders Act, youth in conflict with the law, and now the Youth Criminal Justice Act.

The principle that we treat youth crime differently than adult crime has remained throughout all that legislation.

I think it can be argued accurately that when we passed the Youth Criminal Justice Act in 1999-2000, we somewhat expanded those principles and again looked at what was the best way to deal with youth crime. The emphasis clearly at that time, without any doubt, was they would be treated differently than adults, that the courts would have as their overarching philosophy that youth were to be looked at in terms of whatever we could do to rehabilitate, to treat and to bring them back into line so they would be exemplary citizens.

There is in my mind, again a serious attempt in the verbiage we get from the Conservative Party to undermine that principle, that we should in fact begin to treat youth as no different than adults when it comes to crime. Other than ideology, we could argue it is being driven by the spike in youth crime.

I do not think any member in the House, who has studied the rate of crime in the country, would deny that we have seen an increase in youth crime, particularly in the last three or four years, but in a very specific area. Unfortunately, that area is one of serious violent crime involving the use of guns almost always in a gang setting. This means the gun was acquired and used in circumstances that benefited by the fact that the individual was part of a youth gang or a street gang.

The statistics come out in May or June of each year. The initial reports I am getting back at this point is we may in fact be seeing a slight drop in serious violent crime committed by youth. I am not sure what the position of the Conservatives will be at that point if that in fact occurs.

Anyone who has studied the pattern of crime knows that we periodically have a spike. It is quite clear that legislation does nothing to deal with this spike. That is it does not make it go down. It does not allow it to increase. It does not have that kind of effect.

I want to make the point that we do not know why we have these spikes. We saw one in the adult murder rate in Canada in 2005. Then we saw it drop back a bit in 2006. We do know that the adult murder rate has dropped quite dramatically over the last 20 to 25 years based on a per capita rate of incidence.

Because of a number of the enforcement steps that have been taken in some of our major cities, and I think of Toronto as being somewhat the model of this simply because of the number of efforts that have been undertaken there by the police services and Chief Blair in particular, I expect we probably will see a similar reduction across the country, minor and then hopefully more dramatic over the next few years.

Whether we do or not, it is quite clear in my mind that we do not motivate ourselves to change the criminal justice system, and I am referring specifically to the Youth Criminal Justice Act, which has had the effect of lowering the crime rate among our youth since it came into effect.

In terms of dealing with those spikes, we deal with them by way of enforcement and maybe other social programs, which are badly needed in the country, particularly for youth, and which are not properly funded by the government. In some cases they are not being funded at all. That is the methodology we have to use and not amendments to the legislation, if in fact it is functioning.

As an aside, I want to acknowledge the work being done in the province of Quebec. Before the Youth Criminal Justice Act came into effect, Quebec had led the country in moving into a number of programs of a restorative justice nature; that is taking the accused person and the victim out of what is basically an inhumane system and treating them in a much more humane way.

It is interesting that just this past week I, the member for Ottawa Centre and the member from the Liberal Party, the member for Yukon attended a session at city hall in Ottawa on restorative justice.

Just this past week I, the member for Ottawa Centre and the member from the Liberal Party, the member for Yukon, attended a session at Ottawa city hall on restorative justice.The new chief of police, Chief White, is a very strong proponent of restorative justice. During his address, he told us he had been a strong proponent for 22 years in various communities where he served, first as an RCMP officer and then as chief of police in other communities before he came to Ottawa.

He made his point of the inhumanity of our criminal justice system, particularly for youth and for their victims. He kept emphasizing the importance of restorative justice, of not using penalty, of not seeing a court system that is not humane, as the best methodology for dealing with this. He has a master's degree in criminology and has some done some major research on this. One of the points he made was that the use of restorative justice had the effect of reducing the recidivism rate by very substantial numbers and with youth, almost cutting it in half. That can be done across most crimes, if not all of them.

When we hear people stand in the House and before the media and parrot really what are U.S. methodologies and proclaim that it is the be all and the end all, it flies in the face of the reality that penalties and severe sentences do not work. They increase the rate of recidivism. Looking at alternative forms of dispensing justice works much better.

The province of Quebec started into this process earlier than any other province and more effectively than any other province. In spite of the fact that the Youth Justice Act incorporated a number of those concepts used already in Quebec, Bloc members opposed it. They felt the legislation, and I think they were somewhat accurate as we heard from my colleague from the Bloc earlier, would impede some of the progress they had made in fighting youth crime, and fighting it successfully.

In any event, although they opposed it, they continued their programs as best they could and much more successfully than the rest of Canada. The rest of Canada has been playing catch-up. I think over 30 years ago, I was involved in a diversion program that was not authorized by any law. It was poorly funded, but it was successful in spite of the lack of support from government at the time.

Although there were projects like that scattered across the country, the overall approach, the umbrella approach that the province of Quebec adopted early, has had a very beneficial effect. In fact, to this day, the youth crime rate and adult crime rate for serious crime in Quebec is lower on average than it is in the rest of the country.

Let me come back to Bill C-25. With the first part of the bill, I have to take some issue with my Bloc colleague when he says that the government is introducing a reverse onus with regard to pre-trial custody for youth who have been charged with a crime. I do not interpret the sections that way. In fact, this part of the bill is simply codifying what we are seeing across the country. I expect the bill will go to committee and when we hear evidence, this will be the message that will come from practising lawyers, Crown attorneys and defence bar across the country. It will not do anything to change the practice in our youth courts across the country. All it will do is confirm what our judges have been evolving over the last decade.

One might ask why we would bother doing it or why would we support doing it. My answer would be that we always have. A few judges may say that they will not do it because it is not in the legislation and that they will meet the criteria that they have. By putting it into the law, for those few judges who may not be following the pattern that I see all the other judges following, it will make it necessary for them to do that and they will feel comfortable and authorized to do that.

Basically, it simply says that if the young offender is faced with this criteria having been met, then we are not likely to release him or her from pretrial custody.

There is a presumption in the act that stays in the act, in spite of these amendments, that says, generally speaking, there is a presumption that a youth would be released pending his or her trial on the charges that he or she is confronted with. The judge would then take that into account and, if the judge felt comfortable, the youth would be released but, if the judge did not, the judge could keep the youth in custody and the judge had the authorization to do that.

I do not have any problem with that and would support the government's approach on it. Again, I do not think it will change very much but it will help in a few cases.

The second part of the bill, though, is much more problematic. I believe this part of the bill was driven by a Supreme Court of Canada decision that came down about a year and a half or two years ago where a lower court judge had tried to introduce the concept of deterrence when he was sentencing an individual. That went through the appeals court and then to the Supreme Court of Canada which said that it was not in the Youth Criminal Justice Act as a criteria to be taken into account. It stated that since it was rehabilitation and treatment and that it was moving the youth back into society as quickly and effectively as possible, deterrence was not a principle to be applied.

What the government is trying to do is to bring that into the legislation by way of amendment to the Youth Criminal Justice Act.

I want to make two points. The deterrence is both, with regard to the individual, what we call specific deterrence and also general deterrence.

We know, I suppose from studies all over the world and from criminologists, sociologists, psychiatrists and psychologists, that a great deal of youth crime is as a result of youth not being mature enough to make proper decisions and acting so often on impulse. When I say “acting so often on impulse”, almost invariably acting on impulse which results in them committing a crime, and sometimes a serious violent crime.

Deterrence, faced with that psychological reality, is of absolutely no use. Deterrence only works if one meets two criteria. One criteria is being aware of the penalty, and the vast majority of youth are not.

I was doing a seminar this summer at one of our drop-in centres for youth in the city of Windsor. We had a round table discussion with youth aged 15 to 18. I was amazed how overwhelmingly ignorant most of these youth were, and I mean that in the classic definition of the word ignorant, in not having any knowledge of the law. They were making all sorts of assumptions. Some thought the penalties were very severe and others thought there were no penalties at all. I think that group was a very accurate reflection of the individuals who form our youth in this country.

When we take that we can say that they have no any knowledge of it so they will not even stop to think about the deterrent factor because they do not even know what it is. Secondly, they will not stop to think at all because they are acting on impulse. It is not a conscious decision they are making in the vast majority of cases. Therefore, deterrence has no impact.

What we, as a party, are proposing to do with this and with the denunciation, which, quite frankly, I have no sense at all as to why the government would put that in, is to support this at second reading and when it gets to committee we will be looking to alter that part of the bill to take into account some valid changes in the sentencing principles but not these two.

[Harold Albrecht, Conservative, Kitchener—Conestoga, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I recognize that the previous speaker is an expert in legal matters, and I do not profess to be one, but many times throughout his speech he attempted, in my opinion, to polarize this very important issue. I believe that is very unfortunate.

He gives the impression that the only thing our government is doing to address youth crime is to put in these two measures. He did acknowledge that youth crime is on the rise, so it is pretty obvious to all of us in this House and it is certainly obvious to people in my riding that something needs to be done.

Our government has invested over $22 million in programs that address prevention and rehabilitation measures, and we are not discontinuing restorative justice programs. In fact, I had the privilege in my riding of meeting with people who are working on restorative justice initiatives and they are doing great work. However, even those people recognize that restorative justice systems do not work in every case.

Why would we take away one of the tools, which will have an impact on reducing crime, and simply place it in a total toolbox of resources that will be helpful in addressing this issue, when over 12,000 of my constituents, one on one, through emails, through forums I have conducted or even on-line forums, have asked for some significant change to the Youth Criminal Justice Act? Why could we not use all of these methods and really address the issue?

[Joe Comartin, NDP, Windsor—Tecumseh, ON]

Mr. Speaker, if there has been any polarization on this issue, it certainly has not come from my party, but much more from the Conservatives.

I have two quick answers. The bill does not do anything at all to add a tool to the toolbox of our police or our judges. Deterrence does not work, particularly in youth crime, so why put something in that will not work?

In terms of the ability of the people who work in the system with regard to restorative justice and those methodologies which underline, to a great degree, the act as it is now, the chief of police of this city would say to the member that restorative justice can in fact work in every case. That has been his experience, even in serious, violent crime.

I want to make a final point with regard to this. There is not an overall increase in youth crime in this country. There is in a very small area. It is a very significant and troubling area, but the answer to that is better enforcement.

With regard to the $22 million that the member said would be spent, when the Minister of Public Safety and the Minister of Justice were in front of committee about a year ago, shortly after the Conservative government was elected, they promised to spend $10 million. They had no idea where they would spend it but they had begun to spend a little bit of it at that point.

However, the analysis that my party did in advance of the 2006 election, speaking to the people who were working in the field, including the police, criminal justice experts, people working in restorative justice and in corrections, was that we needed $100 million a year. In our platform we said that was the amount we needed to spend if we were to have meaningful programs.

[Brian Murphy, Liberal, Moncton—Riverview—Dieppe, NB]

Mr. Speaker, I sense that my colleague on the justice committee was about to go further into why denunciation and deterrence, actually the second part of this bill, are not efficacious. I would ask him briefly why he thinks the government cherry-picked one recommendation from the Nunn Commission report and ignored all the others.

One of those other recommendations from the Nunn Commission was to put in the declaration of principles, section 3 of the Youth Criminal Justice Act, a clause indicating that the protection of the public is one of the primary goals of the act, which would give government members the teeth that it requires through its consultations with the public, but would also protect, I believe, the principle for rehabilitation and integration, which are paramount for our youth, and would protect that more than simply deterrence and denunciation, which appear in the Criminal Code.

In other words, why do we have a Youth Criminal Justice Act if we are just going to import the exact same concepts as are in the Criminal Code?

[Joe Comartin, NDP, Windsor—Tecumseh, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to expand a bit more on the use of deterrence and denunciation. They just simply do not have any place in the framework of this act or how we deal with youth. As I have repeated now about a half dozen times, deterrence does not work. It is of absolutely no use for youth crime.

The denunciation allows the court to, in effect, say that the crime was so heinous that it will add some more time on. It is really not necessary, especially when we look at what the principle is here, which is to ensure the individual, hopefully before he or she turns into an adult, will be rehabilitated.

It is all about getting proper treatment, not about having youth spending more time in custody. Many of these cases involve drug abuse, alcohol abuse and substance abuse generally, or serious mental health problems that have not been captured when the person was younger and perhaps, as a society, we would have been able to deal with it much more easily.

I have one final point. With regard to the point that was made earlier today by the member from the Liberal Party on what came out of the Nunn report on this need to change the sentencing provisions in the Youth Justice Act that would incorporate the concept for a judge to take into account sentencing with regard to the principle of protecting society, that is very much one of the amendments I would like to be able to support when it gets to committee.

[David Tilson, Conservative, Dufferin—Caledon, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the member for Windsor—Tecumseh seems to be prepared to reluctantly support the first amendment but not the second. I gather from what he is saying is that young people today know not what they doeth. I say that they do know what they are doing and they do know what the penalties are. The problem is that they know no one can touch them. The police cannot touch them. The lawyers cannot touch them and, more important, the judges cannot touch them.

He does not like this philosophy. I understand that and I respect him for saying that. However, what would he do as an alternative? Whatever we are doing now is not working.

[Joe Comartin, NDP, Windsor—Tecumseh, ON]

Mr. Speaker, just to be blunt, the member is wrong.

We have dropped the youth crime rate in this country over the last 20 years by roughly 12% to 15%. The system as it is now has had that effect. That moved away from exactly the kind of system where we used incarceration much more extensively. It was a training ground for people to come out better criminals than when they went in.

The member is wrong when he says that it is not working. He is also wrong when he says that the youth have serious knowledge. We can find, in any community, particularly in our big cities, the odd individual who will say that he or she will be treated more leniently because he or she is a youth and not an adult. That knowledge is in a very small group and usually within the gangs.

They know that but how do we deal with it? We do in fact. People can be incarcerated under the Youth Criminal Justice Act for up to 10 years. We do have the penalties in those more extreme cases and our courts are using them. The problem is not there.

The problem is that we do not have enough police officers. The government has not complied with its promise to the Canadian people to put 2,500 more police officers on the streets. It has not put one new police officer on the street. If the government had done that, it probably would have driven down the youth crime rate, especially the serious, violent ones involving gangs.

[Keith Martin, Liberal, Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca, BC]

Mr. Speaker, if I were to say that there is a program that would reduce youth crime 60%, members would probably take it, particularly since it would save the taxpayer $7 for every dollar invested. That program is the headstart program, which the government should be adopting and supporting.

On the issue of drug dealers, the low level drug dealers are themselves addicts and users. The incorporation of a more comprehensive drug reduction strategy would be far more sensible based on fact, not on ideology. What does the member think about that?

[The Acting Speaker, Conservative, Royal Galipeau]

The hon. member for Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca burned the whole minute, but I will allow the hon. member for Windsor—Tecumseh a short moment to respond.

[Joe Comartin, NDP, Windsor—Tecumseh, ON]

I am not quite sure, Mr. Speaker, but I think the member was addressing the other bill that is coming tomorrow or the next day on the drug issue.

There is no question that the use of diversion, the use of restorative justice and the use of treatment facilities have a higher rate of success than simply incarcerating people and throwing the key away. The ratio of incarceration in the United States--

[The Acting Speaker, Conservative, Royal Galipeau]

Resuming debate, the hon. member for Kitchener—Conestoga.

[Harold Albrecht, Conservative, Kitchener—Conestoga, ON]

Mr. Speaker, it is of particular significance to me that I have the privilege of joining this debate on the government's proposed amendment to the Youth Criminal Justice Act.

Over the past two years I have had the opportunity to meet hundreds of youth within the riding of Kitchener—Conestoga and many other parts of Canada, including right here in Ottawa. I have been impressed with the character and integrity of the young Canadians I have met.

The overwhelming majority of youth in Canada today are contributing so much to the high quality of life that we enjoy. Many of them are excelling in their studies and achieving extremely high marks in their academic pursuits. At the same time, many of these same youth are participating in sports, both for their school teams and on community based hockey, baseball or soccer teams. Still others volunteer hundreds of hours helping out with children's programs, seniors' activities, camping trips for those with disabilities and many other worthwhile projects.

The past two years have provided me with some of the most positive experiences of my life as I have had the honour of representing the people of Kitchener—Conestoga. I have had the pleasure of visiting a number of schools where I have met energetic youth who are eager to learn, eager to serve, and eager not only to talk about how they can improve our world, but actually take concrete action to accomplish those ideas for improvement.

I have attended sports and music events, cultural and heritage events, and in every case there are solid upstanding young people who are engaged in positive community building. Many of them are serving sacrificially, volunteering time and money to help disadvantaged kids or isolated seniors, shovelling sidewalks for residents unable to keep up with the maintenance demands of owning their own homes.

I have had the chance to formally recognize and honour hundreds of these young people by presenting them with certificates or congratulatory notes for their accomplishments. I will gladly use every possible opportunity to applaud these great Canadian youth. They deserve the thanks of every Canadian for the difference they make for all of us.

As I have indicated, the overwhelming majority of our youth contribute very positively to their communities and to our country. Unfortunately, a very tiny minority continues to leave a black mark that is a terrible blight on our society.

My involvement and interest in bringing this much needed change to the Youth Criminal Justice Act is rooted in a desire to protect youth. This very small minority of youth who currently encounter conflict and eventually end up being charged with criminal offences need earlier intervention. If the propensity toward criminal activity is intercepted at an earlier time with meaningful direction to custody and treatment options, I believe that many of Canada's youth would be spared from spiralling into deeper criminal activity.

Mr. Speaker, it is very unfortunate that my time is up.

[The Acting Speaker, Conservative, Royal Galipeau]

It being 5:30 p.m., we must now adjourn the debate on Bill C-25. The hon. member for Kitchener—Conestoga will be pleased to know that his time is not up and when we return to the study of Bill C-25, he will have 17 minutes left.

The House resumed from November 21 consideration of the motion that Bill C-25, An Act to amend the Youth Criminal Justice Act, be read the second time and referred to a committee.

[The Speaker, Liberal, Peter Milliken]

When the matter was last before the House the hon. member for Kitchener—Conestoga had the floor. There are 17 minutes remaining in the time allotted for his remarks, therefore, I call upon the hon. member for Kitchener—Conestoga.

[Harold Albrecht, Conservative, Kitchener—Conestoga, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Speaker, for allowing me the privilege to conclude my remarks on this very important and timely bill.

As I indicated yesterday in my opening remarks, the overwhelming majority of our youth contribute very positively to their communities and to our country. Unfortunately, a very tiny minority continues to leave a black mark that is a terrible blight on our society. My involvement and interest in bringing this much needed change to the Youth Criminal Justice Act is rooted in a desire to protect youth.

This very small minority of youth who currently do encounter conflict and eventually end up with criminal charges against them need earlier intervention. If this propensity toward criminal activity is intercepted at an earlier time with meaningful direction to custody and treatment options, I believe that many of Canada's youth will be spared from spiraling into deeper criminal activity.

Of course we need to provide meaningful options for recreation for youth to form positive relationships and other opportunities to develop life and work skills which will reduce the risk of becoming involved in crime. There are many worthy projects which provide good prevention and rehabilitation options.

One such group locally in the Waterloo region is Ray of Hope. Ray of Hope has 40 years of experience operating juvenile detention centres. Hope Harbour and Hope Manor are an open custody and a closed custody centre in the Kitchener-Waterloo area. Oasis is a city core, safe drop-in centre providing a safe place with meals, showers, laundry facilities, indoor recreational space, food hampers, clothing, training, and personal support through volunteer and friendships.

Ray of Hope also operates two retail coffee shops called Morning Glory Cafés. These cafés provide training opportunities to assist youth in preparation for gainful employment and fiscal independence.

Ray of Hope goes on to state in its mission that it is reaching out to people of all ages and faiths who are marginalized in society, rendering guidance and assistance to people facing personal challenges, as those caused by but not limited to such things as criminal behaviour, addictive behaviour, social ineptness, abuse, poverty, loneliness and mental illness, through establishing and maintaining safe places such as drop-in centres, incarceration facilities for youth in conflict with the law, treatment and training centres, vocational programs, and counselling support for reintegration with family and society.

The track record of Ray of Hope is a strong one and it is programs like these that offer hope to youth who find themselves in conflict with the law or vulnerable to addictive behaviour.

Programs like this need our continued support and investment, and our government is delivering. Pro-active, prevention action will spare the unneeded waste of many valuable lives in criminal activity and in fact, may also spare grief to families who have been victimized by crime.

After being elected to represent the people of Kitchener—Conestoga, one of the early constituent calls I received was from a family member of a young man from Kitchener. He told me about 14 year old Dustin who was known among his friends and family as a comedian and an entertainer. He loved the outdoors and was gifted at drawing and athletics. Dustin possessed all the dreams, hopes and ambitions of a boy his age.

On March 13, 2006 those dreams, hopes and ambitions ended suddenly, tragically, and irrevocably when he was murdered by a young offender. The young offender was charged and later sentenced. He will be out on the street before his nineteenth birthday, a birthday Dustin will never see.

Many young offenders realize the current Youth Criminal Justice Act has very little to do with justice. They continue their criminal activities fully aware that they will also continue to enjoy their freedom.

In fact, I remember all too well the day that a young man sat in my office and told me that it was a well accepted fact among his peers that older youth took advantage of the leniency of the Youth Criminal Justice Act and actually farmed out the dangerous drug deals and the like to youth who fell under the jurisdiction of the Youth Criminal Justice Act.

Canadians deserve better than this. Those of us in this chamber who have been elected to represent the citizens of Canada owe it to the countless victims of crime to ensure that young offenders who commit serious crimes are held accountable to their communities and to their victims.

Meaningful consequences will hold young offenders accountable for serious crimes. We must work to instill in our youth a sense of responsibility for their delinquent actions and criminal behaviour. Along with this we need to give them better opportunity for rehabilitation so they do not reoffend.

When Dustin's relative called me, he was not looking for revenge. He was not angry. He just desperately wanted to know how we could keep what happened to Dustin from happening to others. His hope and mine is that we can protect our citizens from becoming victims of youth crime and prevent other young people from perpetrating violent crimes.

Just yesterday, I received an email from Dustin's mother. His family has already raised over $10,000 to help local programs in the Waterloo region. Clearly, their hope is that other youth can be helped through early intervention.

The government has begun that process of intervention by providing over $20 million for communities to help prevent youth crime, with a focus on gangs, guns, drugs and youth at risk. Not only has this commitment been made in our budget, but many communities in Canada have already benefited from specific investments in groups that are working on the ground in prevention and rehabilitation initiatives.

There is one key element that is missing from our current approach to youth crime and that is the matter of deterrence. We need to denounce this behaviour in order to deter these and other youths from entering a life of crime.

When youth of today understand that there are no meaningful consequences to negative actions, they continue blindly down a path of self-destructive behaviour until far too often it is too late. When one or two youths turn to violence, too often the youths around them are intimidated and have no alternative but to also turn to weapons for protection.

A firm message needs to be delivered, indicating that society will not accept this violent behaviour. If violence is denounced as quickly as it occurs and meaningful sentences are given, there will be a resultant deterrent effect.

There are two key principles in this bill. One is to change the pretrial detention provision and the other is to allow judges to impose sentences with the objective of deterring and denouncing serious offences.

Deterrence as a principle of sentencing involves a sanction with the objective of discouraging the offender and others from engaging in criminal conduct.

Denunciation refers to society's condemnation of the offence in sending a firm message that this criminal behaviour is unacceptable.

There is a tremendous need to instill a sense of responsibility in young offenders for their behaviour and to give young people better opportunities for rehabilitation.

Dustin's family created an online petition on the subject of the current Youth Criminal Justice Act and the need for reform. That petition currently has almost 12,000 signatures on it. The message is clear. The current legislation needs to be fixed.

I would like to quote from just a few of the comments from the thousands received, comments from youth workers, from law and criminal justice majors, and from teens just like Dustin.

The first comment reads:

I am fourteen myself, and I think that anyone my age is responsible for what they do. Murderers are murderers, whether they are fourteen or forty. They know what they did, they knew it was wrong, and they chose to do it anyways. They need to be punished for what they did.

Another comment reads:

The Law today teaches youth to live life without consequences. It is an absolute insult to victims and their families.

A further comment reads:

Enough is enough. We're not a simple society anymore and these kids know right from wrong. Is there any deterrent where there is either no punishment or just a slap on the wrist? Please, law makers, it's time to give the law abiding youths their rights and stop protecting criminals.

A parent wrote:

My son is currently a victim of a young offender, and it seems as though the offender has more rights than the victim. Something has to change!

Another comment reads:

As a teen I see too many violent offences like this that are not taken seriously enough! Acts of violence are becoming too common! I want laws like this one to be changed so I can finally feel safe in my school and community.

The final comment I would like to share this morning is this one:

I am a Criminal Justice major at Nipissing University in North Bay. I have also graduated from the Correctional Worker Program at Canadore College. I have studied the YCJA at great lengths and heard both sides of why it's good to have things the way they are and why it is bad. As a parent of 4 kids I understand the need to strengthen the accountability that young persons face after committing a violent criminal act. It's my opinion that in these cases of violent offences, and in this case a fatal offence, regardless of the age of the parties responsible...they need to be held accountable for what they did. Dustin's family and society need justice for this crime. We also need to give trained professionals...the opportunity to intervene at this point in the offenders' lives. Currently, the punishment for the crimes doesn't match the act. It isn't acting as the deterrent it should, nor is it providing the justice to the families of the victims or to society as a whole. My condolences to Dustin's family.

From these comments, it can be seen that ordinary Canadians are speaking out. Youths themselves are speaking out. Victims are speaking out. These Canadians are asking us to wake up and take the necessary steps to correct a system that is failing them.

Not too long ago, I spoke with a mother in Kitchener—Conestoga who was actually hoping the judge could send her son to jail for a theft charge. Her hope was that there he would get the help he needed to overcome his serious drug addictions and he would be kept from more serious crimes. She feared his addictions would ruin his life or, worse yet, he would end up dead. But the judge said the Youth Criminal Justice Act, which focuses on finding alternatives to jail for youth, would not allow it. His crime was not serious enough and he did not have a long enough criminal record.

Did members hear that last statement? He did not have a long enough criminal record.

When he appeared again in court several months later, he was restrained in a straitjacket due to drug-induced psychosis. At that point, finally, his record was long enough to merit addiction treatment.

What are we thinking when we wait and wait and watch someone spiral into a pattern of violence until finally he has gotten in so deeply that only then do we take action? Something is desperately wrong with this picture.

As I have said, my commitment to changing the Youth Criminal Justice Act is rooted in a desire to protect youth. I am going to read for members a few quotes from an email I received from a constituent. She states:

I am writing to you again on the topic of youth violence. Two weeks ago my 16 year old son...was beaten by six guys carrying a machete and two baseball bats. He was a target, with the beating ordered by his ex-girlfriend. She had warned him that if he 'broke up with her' she would have him beaten up. He was walking with a friend and soon realized what was about to happen. He and his friend ran in different directions. My son was unarmed, had no one there to help him, no one to call for help. They terrorized him with the machete, then proceeded to hit him with the bat, kick him and punch him several times. He ended in the Emergency Ward with a fractured elbow, injured jaw, black eye, concussion and several contusions and scrapes. I urged him to talk to the police but he was told that if he contacted anyone, they would beat on his brother twice as bad. So, he fears for his brother and remains silent.

In addition to this, my other son encountered an attack just a week earlier. He was walking the path behind a local mall, heading to a friend's house while listening to his iPod. Four guys from another school jumped on him to steal his iPod. They pounded on his head repeatedly and laughed at him. He fears more violence if police are involved. (Two years earlier, my other son was beaten up for his cellphone and endured a fractured jaw). My son is a good kid. He plays on the Rugby and Football teams and participates in Track and Field. He is clean cut, respectful to his peers and teachers at school, has never smoked, done drugs etc. He likes being a healthy athlete and is often ridiculed for his ethics. Regardless, he is a good kid that didn't deserve to experience this. It robbed him of something that can't be put back and I'm not referring to the iPod.

This parent continues:

Something has to be done to urge these kids to speak out. More and more teens are turning to weapons as they can't help but feel the need to protect themselves. There are more weapons than the school cares to admit/realize.

As a parent, envisioning the beatings that took place, it causes me a great deal of pain, hurt and anger. My kids are not gang members yet my younger son feels a slight draw to join a gang. He stated that if he'd been a gang member, 'it would have all been taken care of'. Violence leading to more violence....

She continues:

I share this with you because I know you have a voice. I know you can share these stories with others that have the power to make changes.

The members of the House all have the power to make changes and it is our responsibility to do so. This power has been entrusted to us by the citizens we represent and it is a responsibility I take very seriously as the lives of our youth hang in the balance.

I would encourage each of us to consider that trust and to do everything within our power to protect Canada's youth. I would appeal to my colleagues on both sides of the House to support this important legislation for the youth at risk, for the families of the victims, and for Dustin.

[Keith Martin, Liberal, Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I listened with interest to the member's speech. There is no question that there is a nub of youth criminals who are a constant source of terror and are certainly an aggravation to the police forces, and they have to be dealt with in much sterner terms.

However, the legislation that the government is putting forth in this bill is going to have wide ranging implications and in fact is going to make our streets less safe.

I want to ask the member a couple of questions.

First, in regard to putting low level drug dealers in prison, those low level dealers are in fact users themselves and their addictions are driving their dealing. We should be putting a lot more emphasis on the organized crime gangs that are parasitizing off people's addictions.

Second, does the member know that 60% of the people in jail have fetal alcohol syndrome or fetal alcohol effects? The average IQ of somebody with FAS and FAE is 78. These people have enormous difficulties in learning. These kids fall through the cracks. Teachers are unable to handle them. Many of them go into a life of crime.

Lastly, I want to ask the member why his government killed the early learning program when the headstart program reduces youth crime by 60% and is the most effective preventative tool in reducing youth crime.

[Harold Albrecht, Conservative, Kitchener—Conestoga, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I have not been in this House very long, but in the time I have been here I have heard the opposition member refer to this 60% reduction through early start programs. I can only assume that he is referring to the Ypsilanti study, which showed that dramatic drop in crime, but if we look at all the facts surrounding the study, it becomes very clear that it would be totally impossible for us to replicate the conditions within that study.

I am sure he is aware, as a former medical practitioner, that many of the research studies done have a certain control over the methodology within those studies. It has been shown that it would be impossible for us to replicate the kinds of small class sizes that were indicated in that study. Also, the study has not followed those kids for the long term, so to quote the 60% I think is somewhat misleading.

To go back to his point about the fact that we are just dealing with one part of criminal activity here, that we are not dealing with the guns, the gangs and the drug dealers, I want to point out that this act, Bill C-25, does not stand in isolation, nor is this part of what we are doing to the Youth Criminal Justice Act the whole package of what our government intends to do.

The minister has promised that in 2008 there would be a total comprehensive review of the Youth Criminal Justice Act. I am looking forward to those improvements. In addition to that, just recently all of us here in this House have seen the committee pass the bill to tackle violent crime. Canadians have been asking for this for some time.

Certainly in my community I have heard from hundreds, if not thousands, of constituents who are applauding these measures to get on with the protection of our youth especially, but of all Canadian citizens, and I urge our opposition colleagues to let us get on with this and do what Canadians have been asking for, for a long time.

[Mario Silva, Liberal, Davenport, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the purpose of the legislation, as my colleague was outlining, is basically to have young people held accountable, with meaningful consequences for their actions, and the legislation adds the issues of deterrence and denunciation to the sentencing principle that the courts must consider when determining the sentence for someone under the Youth Criminal Justice Act.

I should also mention that certainly in my city of Toronto there have been a lot of issues in dealing with youth and youth violence. At the same time, we know as a society that this act is only one small part of the equation. There are many other issues at play. Certainly my other hon. colleagues in this House have talked about the issues of marginalized youth, racism, and youths who have lost all hope in our society, yet there are no programs or assistance there for them.

It is an incomplete package when we cannot, as a society and as legislators, deal with these very complex issues in a meaningful way. Just acting tough on crime will not reduce crime, as we have seen in many ways in the United States, for example.

[Harold Albrecht, Conservative, Kitchener—Conestoga, ON]

Mr. Speaker, my colleague referred to the fact that this was not a complete package. Maybe he slipped into the chamber while I was part way through my speech but I was very clear in the early part of my comments that restorative justice, rehabilitation programs and prevention programs are a big part of the equation. However, even the people who work in those treatment facilities and so on will admit to us that these restorative programs and rehabilitation programs are not universally successful.

I am not suggesting nor is our government suggesting that all we do are these two measures. These are part of what we are already doing. I mentioned a number of announcements that we have made and the $22 million that we invested in prevention and rehabilitation programs.

It is very important that we do not polarize this issue and suggest that all we are doing is being tough on crime. We are not suggesting locking people up and throwing away the key. We are saying that we need to get these people intercepted at an earlier point, when the indicators are there that these people will enter further levels of crime. We need to intercept them and avoid that further step in crime.

I hope that every member in this House is committed to protecting the youth of Canada.

[Laurie Hawn, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of National Defence]

Mr. Speaker, I do not think there is a member in the House whose constituents have not raised a concern about this. I know justice is the area of most concern to my constituents and, within that, youth criminal justice is the most important part.

Before I get to my colleague from Kitchener—Conestoga, I want to point out to my colleague from Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca that every low level drug dealer dreams of becoming a high level drug dealer.

I want to highlight two cases in my own riding. On Sunday, I will be officiating at a soccer game in memory of a young man named Evan who was cut down on his birthday by youth criminals. There was also a premeditated case in Sherwood Park. Youth obtained weapons, went to a young man's home, called him outside and beat him to death. The three young offenders received a one year suspended sentence, which means a curfew.

I would like my hon. friend's comment on that as a form of deterrence, treatment or anything else.

[Harold Albrecht, Conservative, Kitchener—Conestoga, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I would challenge every member of this House to answer the question as to whether they have heard from numerous constituents in their ridings begging us to take meaningful steps to strengthen this act.

On the matter of house arrest or conditional sentences, I am not sure of all the legal technical jargon, but when people in my riding recognize that someone who has committed a violent act receives a sentence that does not fit the level of pain that he or she has inflicted on the victim, they cannot believe it.

I want to point out again that we are not talking about revenge. There is nothing that will bring a murdered child, a young person or an adult back. That is not the point. What we are trying to do here, as has been stated a number of times, is intercept in the lives of youth who have the markers that they are on this trajectory of criminal behaviour before they take the steps that will get them into such deep criminal activity.

[Keith Martin, Liberal, Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I have a couple of corrections for my colleague. The Ypsilanti program ran for 25 years, a very large sample size.

I have a couple of questions for the member. The low level dealer generally does have an addiction problem. If we throw that person in jail, what will happen? It will turn out to be a law of unintended consequences. The problem will be tougher at the end of it.

At the end of the day we need to get tough on those who are committing violent crimes. We need to strengthen the laws to help the courts to apply laws against organized crime.

Again, on the head start program, the police asked for an early learning head start program. Will the member's government support a national head start program for children which will reduce youth crime?

[Harold Albrecht, Conservative, Kitchener—Conestoga, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to stay on the topic that we are discussing today, which is deterring youth criminal activity.

We have heard from many members of this House that deterrents do not work. We know that deterrents work. They are part of everyday life. They deter us from potential negative consequences.

Every parent and grandparent in this room knows that deterrents work. My seven year old grandson knows that deterrents work. In fact, I remember very well--

[The Acting Speaker, Conservative, Andrew Scheer]

The hon. member for Moncton—Riverview—Dieppe.

[Brian Murphy, Liberal, Moncton—Riverview—Dieppe, NB]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to take this opportunity to say a few words about the justice system.

As a member of the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights, I am familiar with a number of bills introduced by this government and I have noticed that it is resubmitting the same bills, given the Prime Minister's decision to prorogue the previous session of this Parliament. It occurred to me that we are examining many of the same bills a second time. There are also some new bills and we always have the same comments.

This government is introducing bills that are drawing a great deal of media attention. However, as these bills are examined in committee, in this House and, eventually, in the Senate, it becomes clear that little work has been put into them.

As the father of three young girls enrolled in a French immersion program in New Brunswick, the only officially bilingual province in the country, and as a resident of Moncton, the first officially bilingual city, I know how much homework my children do every evening. The fact remains, however, that these three beautiful little girls are children and I expect certain things from them.

We expect more in the way of homework from the government than from school girls in Moncton. Yet it appears that the government has done its homework much less diligently and with much less attention to detail than my three little girls do in Moncton.

All of the bills that we in the permanent justice committee have had occasion to look at seem to be lacking in homework and in scope.

When we talk about the criminal justice system, it is an organic system or an organic process. It is a sculpting of new facts and new facets of our evolving society to the Criminal Code and its ancillary acts, in this case, the Youth Criminal Justice Act.

I want to start from the point that all of the acts are lacking in an overall or universal vision about criminal justice, from prevention to detention, so to speak, the whole scope, and this bill is no exception.

However, we must tell the Canadian public and members of the House that there is a Youth Criminal Justice Act. Before that there was the Young Offenders Act and prior to that the Juvenile Delinquents Act. For some time now, I believe 50 years, the Parliament of Canada and the courts interpreting Parliament's intention have recognized that there ought to be a different system for youth offenders.

It troubles me when I hear speaker after speaker, headline after headline, news release after news release and the two minute sound bites of Mike Duffy Live talk about youth criminal justice with the same language and in the same terms as adult justice.

That is not to suggest that we are sitting here as a party and as parliamentarians not concerned with public safety, not concerned with turning our youth into productive members of society. It is to say that as a statement of first principle, and I wish I had heard it from the Minister of Justice yesterday or any of the speakers who I listened to from the government side, I wish I had heard that there was a separate regime for the youth of this country for the different considerations because that is the fact.

I am concerned when I hear what members like the member for Kitchener—Conestoga said. I will get back to my student metaphor. I never taught anything but I have written a number of tests. One cannot simply write the first page of a test, the first paragraph or the first 10 questions and do well. One has to go to the finish line and get the B or B+ that all parliamentarians probably got in school or as good as one can get.

It seems, however, that the government and its members strive for the peaks of mediocrity and try to get a C or C-. However, they do start off good sometimes. The member for Kitchener—Conestoga started off talking about a head start program and prevention. If I had ever been a teacher, I would have thought that this was starting off well and that it would be a good result for that parliamentarian.

However, we then delved into crime, payback and teaching those punks something. As we know, there were two parts to the speech, the two did not go together and the member succeeded in getting a C-.

The bill does the same. Bill C-25 starts out very well. It starts out doing one thing that is very important. We give a lot of credence to the Nunn Commission report, which was commissioned as a result of a very tragic incident involving Theresa McEvoy, which happened not that far from where I live. It was not a Maritime thing. It was a national thing. The recommendations from the Nunn Commission and eminent jurist, Merlin Nunn, should be the starting point for our thoughts about what we are going to do with this separate regime for youth criminals in the Youth Criminal Justice Act.

However, we need to start with the recognition, which should be the first principle, that there is a different regime and importing holus-bolus the whole adult regime to the youth regime means that we may as well get rid of the Youth Criminal Justice Act. I will get to that when I talk about the second part of the bill.

I commend the Minister of Justice and the speakers who spoke in favour of the first part of Bill C-25, clauses 2 and 3 in particular. I will not belabour it, but perhaps we should have a happy moment and say that most parties are in agreement with this bill. We have a happy moment where one of the many recommendations of the Nunn report was followed by the government.

It is a complaint of prosecutors across this country. It is a complaint from parents. It is a complaint from victims. We stand on all fours in accepting that the revolving door that is in effect for young offenders who offend while on an order to return to the court for trial or sentencing is unacceptable. It is one of the major flaws in the Youth Criminal Justice Act as promulgated, and this is progress.

As we can see, there is in the act a presumption that detention is not necessary for a young offender accused of an offence and he shall remain free. Essentially, that was the presumption. Judges across this country applied that presumption, unless they could find other reasons, such as protection of the public, the overarching principle to keep the young offender as accused in detention. This bill recognizes that if a young person is charged with a violent offence that endangered the public by creating a substantial likelihood of a recurrence, that presumption is rebutted, yet the judge still takes into account the normal principles of detention pending trial.

The second principle, and this is really the most egregious part of the Youth Criminal Justice Act without the gap, is that while a young person who is out waiting to come back to court is found guilty of failing to comply with non-custodial sentences, or this is in fact after the imposition of a plea, that person should be considered as having given up that presumption against detention. It makes perfect sense.

The other provision in the bill is that if a young person is charged with an indictable offence for which an adult would be liable to imprisonment for a term of more than two years and the young person has a history that indicates a pattern of findings of guilt, then that person should lose that presumption.

That is a long way from going to adult principles for sentencing, which the second part of the act imports. The second part of the bill imports straight Criminal Code principles of sentencing with respect to denunciations and deterrence. The Minister of Justice and many speakers say that these needed to be imported because they are not there, but I beg to differ, if we look at the Youth Criminal Justice Act as it is.

Certainly in an effort to bind all parliamentarians together with a common view, there can be no one in this House who can seriously stand up and say that each parliamentarian is not in favour of more public safety, of having safe communities and of ridding our communities of crime. This has to be a common goal of every parliamentarian. What is happening is that we have a different point of view on how to get there.

All of us want the acts before Parliament, in this case the Criminal Code of Canada and the Youth Criminal Justice Act, to be effective. The question really is whether these amendments will be effective. I have already said that the first one will. It will keep the communities of Canada safer. I am going on to argue that the second part of this bill will not necessarily keep communities safer.

I will also elicit many of the other recommendations from the Nunn commission report which were not seized upon by the government when they were there for the taking. Somebody has already done the work. Somebody has already reacted to an outlandish shocking of the public example of how small changes to the Youth Criminal Justice Act could be efficacious to make society safer. That was the Nunn commission. He made many recommendations, yet only one of those recommendations was seized upon by the government.

It is not that there was not enough ink and paper. This is a very short bill. It is designed, I submit, to have newscasts and media stories say that we are tough on crime and that we are importing concepts of unlawful conduct and deterrence and we will get tough.

Really, the first part of the bill will do so much more to make communities safer than the second part. There are so many other recommendations in the Nunn commission report that would have made our communities immediately safer and would not have had any opposition from this side, yet the government chose not to seize upon them.

It is remarkable. It is either a hurried attempt to get another headline, or it is a deliberate attempt to draw out in a piecemeal fashion the Conservatives' law and order agenda with multiple bills, each bill a new headline, each bill one little step forward in their view toward making our communities safer. I might suggest that is almost wilful conduct preventing the distribution of the tools that the justice enforcement people need, prosecutors in particular, or it might just be sheer negligence in not knowing what they were doing.

I have to comment on some of the remarks that were made by a person whom I consider to be a dean on the issue of public safety. I virtually never agree with this dean with respect to how to get there, but I have no doubt that this dean, the member for Wild Rose, wants to get there and has made a parliamentary career out of wanting to get there. He talks incessantly against lawyers. We all have thick skins and we can take that, as the small legal community in the House of Commons knows every day it is not popular to be a lawyer. But I want to tell everyone in this House it is not always popular to be a politician too, so there we go. Being both makes me sort of a victim in a way.

Seriously, the member for Wild Rose talks about lawyers, that they talk legalese. Unfortunately, we are making laws here. If we were making pizzas, I would talk about dough, but we are making laws, so I have to talk legalese. That is the way it goes with all due respect to the member for Wild Rose.

The second point that he brings up is that there is no mention of victims. I hear that a lot from the other side. We hear it at committee. Frankly, victims are what we as parliamentarians are all about. This year is the 25th anniversary of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. We respect individual rights and liberties. We respect the legal rights against false detention and the right to have counsel and all those legal rights for people accused. Those are foundation elements, but people should realize that the overall arching concern of the Charter of Rights in section 1 is to protect the public.

The funny thing is, if we look at every act of Parliament, we find that the public safety aspect is primordial, and the Youth Criminal Justice Act is no exception. It says:

WHEREAS communities, families, parents and others concerned with the development of young persons should through multi-disciplinary approaches take reasonable steps to prevent youth crime by addressing underlying causes to respond to the needs of young persons and to provide guidance, this act should be enacted.

It also says:

AND WHEREAS Canadian society should have a youth criminal justice system that commands respect, takes into account the interests of victims, fosters responsibility and ensures accountability [in our youth]--

These sentiments are already in the Youth Criminal Justice Act. Judges read this act and they take from the preamble and the declaration of principles in section 3 what the act means.

In fact, it states in section 3(c), “within the limits of fair and proportionate accountability, the measures taken”--that is, the sentences or the detention aspects or the immediate ultimate measures meted out by a court--“against young persons who commit offences should (i) reinforce respect for societal values, (ii) encourage the repair of harm done to victims and the community”.

Later on in section 3(d) it says, “victims should be treated with courtesy, compassion and respect for their dignity and privacy”, and “victims should be provided with information about the proceedings and given an opportunity to participate and be heard”.

It strikes me that without putting the exact words of denunciation and deterrence in this act, we have as guiding principles for justices the protection of the public and at least a code for victims' rights when it comes to aspects of youth criminal justice.

The Nunn commission report puts out a few very easy recommendations that the government could have adopted without opposition from this side. Principally it is very important because we hear about public safety and the protection of the public and consideration for victims.

Justice Nunn, in his considerations, felt it was a bit shortsighted for the act to talk about the long term protection of the public as set out in these principles in section 3. By inference a judge would say that that does not involve the short term protection of the public.

Some of these rebuttable presumptions on detention, which will be tempered by the first part of this act, speak to that. More specifically and to be clear, so that there is no misread between the principles in section 3 and the first part of the act as amended, we will be curious to see if it would be within the scope of the bill on amendment at committee to add a new phrase in section 3, the principles. It would add to section 3 a clause indicating that protection of the public is one of the primary goals of the act, which is from the Nunn report on the Youth Criminal Justice Act.

It certainly should just say protection of the public. Perhaps for greater certainty it should say long term and short term, but if we say protection of the public, I presume that means all the time. Protection of the public is one of the principles of the act.

I believe, as the member for Windsor—Tecumseh said yesterday, and he is a person who has been around these issues a lot longer than I have, the evidence he has gathered, which no doubt we will go through at committee, would lead to the conclusion that in fact the changes in the first part of Bill C-25 have in fact been put into place by judges across the country.

Therefore, all we are doing is putting into law what is actually happening in practice, or codifying the practice. That may be a good thing, but it does make me wonder whether the government read all of the Nunn commission report. Maybe in a cooperative effort when we take this matter to committee, if the scope of this bill is to make society safer, the government will be open to amendments, including that recommendation and many others from the Nunn commission to make this a better law.

I want to close by saying that although we agree with the first part of the bill, the second part of the bill might make it seem that we are importing holus-bolus the Criminal Code of Canada. If that is the case, the Minister of Justice should know that the Criminal Code already provides, in certain circumstances, for youths to be tried as adults.

If those provisions are known of, if that transition is known of, and they are importing holus-bolus these concepts, why have a Youth Criminal Justice Act at all? Let us all live under the Criminal Code. Is that where the government is going?

[Jean-Pierre Blackburn, Conservative, Minister of Labour and Minister of the Economic Development Agency of Canada for the Regions of Quebec]

Mr. Speaker, I listened to my hon. colleague's statements, and I would like to remind the members of the two primary goals of this bill.

First, we do not want a young person who has committed a violent crime to be allowed back into the community while awaiting trial. This kind of thing has happened before. I am thinking of the case in Nova Scotia that someone mentioned where young people who had committed violent acts were allowed back into the community, where they committed more violent crimes. Innocent bystanders were killed or seriously injured by these youths, who were not detained while awaiting trial. That is what we are addressing. We want to make sure that judges have the power to order pretrial detention.

Second, we want judges to take two things into account when sentencing young people who have committed violent crimes.

The first is deterrence. We want to ensure that the youth understands what is going on and that other youths who might be considering committing similar acts—crimes of violence against the person—will be discouraged from doing so. We want judges to take this into account when determining a sentence.

The second is denunciation. We want the sentence to show that society disapproves of the acts committed.

We want judges to use both elements of this framework when handing down sentences in order to protect our seniors and society in general.

I am thinking of those news reports about youths committing violent acts on buses against people who were just minding their own business.

That is what we hope to accomplish with our bill.

[Brian Murphy, Liberal, Moncton—Riverview—Dieppe, NB]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the minister for his comments.

I completely approve the first part of what he said. Clearly, detention pending sentencing poses a problem. We are in favour of detention if a young offender commits a new offence after serving a sentence.

We also agree with the second part of what he said: protecting the public is crucial.

Why do the Minister of Justice and the whole Conservative team not take into account the recommendations made by Judge Nunn and amend section 3 with a view to simply protecting the public?

[Jean Crowder, NDP, Nanaimo—Cowichan, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I think most members of the House would agree that appropriate enforcement and punishment is very necessary, but we also know that significant work has been done which shows punishment is not enough.

The MacGuigan subcommittee stated:

Society has spent millions of dollars over the years to create and maintain the proven failure of prisons. Incarceration has failed in its two essential purposes—correcting the offender and providing permanent protection to society. The recidivist rate of up to 80 percent is evidence of both.

Could the member comment on the fact that the Conservative government has not seen fit to invest in youth, in terms of looking at closing the poverty gap, adequate housing, education programs and drug treatment centres?

[Brian Murphy, Liberal, Moncton—Riverview—Dieppe, NB]

Mr. Speaker, clearly we heard today from the member for Kitchener—Conestoga that all is well, that a huge announcement has been made, that he will support the objectives of families and youth, that it will be full of intervention and that there will be a head start on every corner. I guess all our problems are solved.

Lest people did not get my thin wedge of sarcasm, the problem with the government is it does not invest the money it announces. We are still waiting for police officers. A thousand RCMP officers were promised, but we know the RCMP is a thousand people behind in its recruiting.

I agree with the member when she talks about other concepts like restorative justice, which is about ensuring a community is not divided. To reduce crime to make communities safer, a community must be willing to do the work required to solve the problem together.

[Maurice Vellacott, Conservative, Saskatoon—Wanuskewin, SK]

Mr. Speaker, as the member opposite has made reference frequently to the Nunn Commission, I will ask him specifically on a matter that he skirted around, when asked by my colleague just moments ago.

As the member opposite knows, in December 2006 the Nova Scotia Nunn Commission of Inquiry expressed concern that pre-trial detention provisions under the Youth Criminal Justice Act were too restrictive, making it very difficult to detain young persons who pose a risk to public safety.

As the member also knows, the changes before us today, the proposed amendments to the YCJA in the area of pre-trial detention, will make it easier to detain before trial a broader range of young persons who pose a risk to public safety. This would include those who have committed an offence that creates a danger of causing serious bodily harm or who have breached previous conditions of release.

Could the member respond to that? Does he not at least agree that this then follows through with respect to the Nunn Commission and that we have now a serious amendment to take into account the suggestion from the commission with respect to detaining young persons who pose a risk to public safety?

[Brian Murphy, Liberal, Moncton—Riverview—Dieppe, NB]

I want to apologize, Mr. Speaker, to the member, to the House and to the viewing public. Perhaps I was not clear when I said, three times, that we agree to the first part of the bill. The recommendations regarding detention and ensuring that the presumption against detention should be removed in three very serious cases, as outlined in the first part of Bill C-25 and as recommended by the Nunn Commission. We feel very good about those amendments and will work to ensure they pass through the committee.

However, it does not explain why the government imported all the concepts of the Criminal Code with respect to the sentencing principles. The minister seemed unsure yesterday about whether proportionality, which is the key pillar of sentencing in section 718.1 of the Criminal Code, is still a key pillar in section 38(2) of the Youth Criminal Justice Act.

We will see where the government goes on this. I am worried that we are turning youth criminal justice into Criminal Code governance. If that is the case, the government should be clear on it.

[John McKay, Liberal, Scarborough—Guildwood, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I thought the speech of the hon. member was excellent.

I want to ask him a very technical question about the section we agree with; that is the first part of the bill about detention. There is a presumption against detention unless it is a violent offence or failing to comply with non-custodial sentences.

The third part of the bill is about findings of guilt. In other words:

—the young person is charged with an indictable offence for which an adult would be liable to imprisonment for a term of more than two years and has a history that indicates a pattern of findings of guilt under this Act or the Young Offenders Act...

Yet Justice Nunn talks about not just a necessary pattern of findings of guilt, but a pattern of offences.

Could the hon. member comment on that? It seems that Justice Nunn is asking for a more rigorous standard. In effect he is saying if an individual has a whole string of offences, not necessarily findings of guilt, that should be taken into consideration.

I am interested in the hon. member's comments on whether there is some significant difference between those two concepts. If so, should that be subject to potential amendment?

[Brian Murphy, Liberal, Moncton—Riverview—Dieppe, NB]

Mr. Speaker, that is the hardest question. We do not often expect the most difficult question to come from our own side, but it was an excellent question nonetheless.

Justice Nunn made it very clear that patterns of findings of guilt might catch young offenders on a rapid crime spree and better wording might be a pattern of offences, or similar wording. However, I think this is something that can be fixed at committee. It is wholly within the scope of the bill.

We will take the member's comments to committee and work on them there.

[Mike Lake, Conservative, Edmonton—Mill Woods—Beaumont, AB]

Mr. Speaker, to start, I would like to recognize some families from the Edmonton area that banded together on this important area of youth justice: the families of Dylan McGillis, Shane Rolston, Nina Courtepatte and Josh Hunt, all of whom lost their lives as a result of the actions of other youth in the last couple of years.

These families are part of a club of which none of us would ever want to be a part. Yet because of the way they have chosen to respond, it is the most important club of which they could ever be a part.

We cannot listen to the stories of parents without feeling compelled to act. Because of the tireless efforts they have made, and the efforts of other parents across the country, Canadians are paying much more attention to the issue of youth justice.

We cannot also listen to these parents without feeling compelled to ensure we say an extra “I love you” to our own kids before they go to bed at night. To these families, and on behalf of all Canadian parents, I thank them for not hiding their pain. I thank them for stepping out of their comfort zones and for using their grief, not as a weapon but as a motivation to ensure that other parents do not have to go through what they have gone through.

For almost 100 years, Canada has provided separate laws and procedures applicable to youth who commit crimes. The crimes themselves range from ill-conceived pranks to acts of incomprehensible violence. The alleged offender can be the child next door or a nearly adult gun-carrying gang member with a significant criminal record. The law must provide a wide range of responses to adequately hold them all appropriately accountable for the offences they commit. The sentences must be consistent with their degree of responsibility and, more important, in a manner that protects the public.

Since the Youth Criminal Justice Act came into force almost five years ago, there has been a steady decline in the number of young people charged with offences and winding up in custody. Some argue that the de-incarceration of youth has gone too far. Some believe that youth who pose a threat to the public have not ended up behind bars when they should and therefore more must be done to ensure that violent young offenders receive custodial sentences.

The government is committed to protecting communities and tackling crime committed by adolescents. In the October 16 Speech from the Throne, “Strong Leadership. A Better Canada”, our government vowed to strengthen the Youth Criminal Justice Act to ensure that young offenders who committed serious crimes were held accountable.

Bill C-25 begins the promised strengthening of our youth justice laws. The bill focuses on deterrence, denunciation and detention. Those familiar with sentencing principles for adults know that denunciation and deterrence are sentencing principles contained in the Criminal Code. It is important that society's degree of abhorrence for an offence be reflected in the severity of the penalty so the offender's conduct is denounced. Moreover, we want the penalty to send a message of deterrence to the offender and to others.

The quantum of the sentence should signal to the offender that he or she ought not commit further offences. This is known as specific deterrence. The penalty should also signal to others that they ought not to commit such offences. This is known as general deterrence.

The Youth Criminal Justice Act in its present form does not include deterrence or denunciation among its sentencing principles. The Supreme Court of Canada recently confirmed that those principles should not be read into the act, and this was an express choice made by parliamentarians.

Our government is now asking Parliament to reconsider and to make these important sentencing principles apply to youth as well as adults. The Minister of Justice has confirmed today in the House that attorneys general from across the country support these amendments. I believe these sentencing provisions will encourage the public to have greater confidence in the youth justice system, by allowing judges to apply fair and proportionate sentences that reflect these principles. This has been a part of the government's agenda for some time and we are pleased to support these proposed reforms to the sentencing principles.

Another area of the Youth Criminal Justice Act requiring immediate amendment are provisions relating to pre-trial detention of those youth who pose a danger to the public. The Nunn Commission and others have raised concerns about the adequacy of the existing provisions to deal with potentially dangerous youth who may not have a serious record but are “spinning out of control” and may well cause harm to someone prior to their trials.

The Minister of Justice spoke earlier today about the tragic death of Theresa McEvoy in Nova Scotia, a death that has sparked the Nova Scotia government to do something about out of control and dangerous youth. As the justice minister mentioned, Nova Scotia has been working hard to implement changes in its youth justice system based on the recommendations of the Nunn Commission. Some of those recommendations include lobbying the federal government for changes to the Youth Criminal Justice Act in relation to pre-trial detention provisions.

Bill C-25 is evidence that the justice minister has listened to the people of Nova Scotia and Manitoba as well. In late September the justice minister met with a delegation from Manitoba, including Manitoba justice minister Dave Chomiak, and various Manitoba police and community representatives.

The delegation brought to the minister's attention five justice issues of critical importance to the people of Manitoba. Topping the list was the issue of auto theft as Manitoba has been experiencing an explosion in joyriding and car theft by troubled and out of control teens.

The list also included toughening penalties for youth involved in serious crimes, especially motor vehicle theft. The justice minister has been listening to concerns expressed all across this country and has responded to them.

The amendments proposed today are only the beginning of a larger process of reform in this area that will hopefully do justice to the thoughtful advice received from important stakeholders in the youth justice system over the summer and fall. The longer term reform process will further strengthen and clarify the youth justice system.

I believe there is a shared imperative in all parts of this country to detain youth who pose a danger prior to their trials. The proposals in Bill C-25 are measured responses, which empower the courts to detain dangerous youth regardless of their alleged offence or criminal history.

Courts can look at all relevant factors when assessing that detention is needed, including outstanding charges that might indicate a youth is spinning out of control and posing a danger. These proposals address the concerns raised through Nova Scotia's Nunn commission and will lead to safer communities.

Canadians know all too well that people at risk can adopt a criminal lifestyle and engage in the violence and drug use that go along with that lifestyle more often than not. They want young people who commit violent crimes and threaten communities to be given sentences that reflect the seriousness of their crimes.

These communities want us to do something to prevent young people from committing these violent crimes.

It is more than evident from this government's crime agenda that we on this side of the House take the safety of Canadians extremely seriously. We fully recognize that it is important to be vigilant in safeguarding the fairness and effectiveness of our justice system, but it is equally important, if not more important, to ensure that the fundamental principle of our justice system is the protection of society.

I applaud the justice minister's announcement that this government will launch a comprehensive review of the Youth Criminal Justice Act in 2008. I understand that the review is specifically being done to address concerns and criticisms regarding various provisions and principles of the Youth Criminal Justice Act and to ensure that our youth criminal justice system fairly and effectively holds young offenders accountable for criminal conduct.

I urge my fellow parliamentarians to support Bill C-25, which proposes amendments to the pre-trial detention provisions and adds deterrence and denunciation as sentencing principles under the Youth Criminal Justice Act.

In my opinion, these amendments will strengthen our youth justice system, allay public concerns that dangerous youth are not being dealt with appropriately, and result in safer communities.

[John McKay, Liberal, Scarborough—Guildwood, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate that the hon. member was quoting favourably from the Nunn commission report, but he seems to want to pick and choose. This is a fairly innocuous bill, the first section of which is generally agreed on by pretty well everyone and the second of which will have a little more controversy.

What I want to know from the hon. member is why his government, which prides itself on getting it done, does not actually take the comprehensive approach by Justice Nunn and incorporate the recommendations into a bill.

Recommendation 20 states:

--amend the “Declaration of Principle” in section 3 of the Youth Criminal Justice Act to add a clause indicating that protection of the public is one of the primary goals of the act.

Why does this bill not have that in it?

Recommendation 21 states:

--amend the definition of “violent offence” in section 39(1)(a) of the Youth Criminal Justice Act to include conduct that endangers or is likely to endanger the life or safety of another person.

Why is that not here? It was suggested that there be a change from “patterns of findings of guilt” to “patterns of offences”. Again, why is that not here for the issue of appropriateness of pre-trial detention?

There were other recommendations with respect to responsible persons and all that sort of stuff.

Why not simply take Justice Nunn's recommendations, incorporate them into the bill, and put them before the House instead of this cheesy exercise of dropping one little section at a time? One has to start to think that there is some sort of public relations exercise going on, which is far more important in the eyes of the government than actually doing the job properly.

[Mike Lake, Conservative, Edmonton—Mill Woods—Beaumont, AB]

Mr. Speaker, as the hon. member knows and as I mentioned in my speech, the justice minister has indicated that there will be a further review of the Youth Criminal Justice Act in 2008.

In response to the comments of the previous speaker who talked about the fact that he liked the stuff at the beginning of the bill, but that he did not like the second part of the bill, I would speak to the fact that this bill is referring to young offenders who have committed serious and violent crimes. They are dangerous to society.

I find his comments unacceptable. He talks about cheesy. I would say what is cheesy is the Liberal attempt, since the election of 2006, to consistently delay and obstruct virtually every piece of crime legislation that comes before the House.

[Brian Pallister, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of International Trade and to the Minister of International Cooperation]

Mr. Speaker, I want to congratulate the member for Edmonton—Mill Woods—Beaumont for his speech and for his efforts in the French language as well. He deserves our encouragement.

I must take exception, while I have the chance, to the reference made by the member for Scarborough—Guildwood and using the phrase “doing the job properly”. The previous government had 13 years to do the job properly. It stood quietly by while circumstances got worse in respect of juvenile violent crime.

Do the members of this House assume that this is an urban problem exclusively? I represent chiefly a rural riding. My largest community has about 13,000 people. A couple of weeks ago I concluded a 50 town tour of my riding where we gathered and listened to the concerns of constituents across the length and breadth of the riding.

The reality is that the number one issue that concerned the people of that rural part of the country was crime. It is almost unbelievable the degree to which crime has changed the fabric of rural communities, not only in my riding but from talking with other members representing rural ridings in their ridings as well.

People really felt that the number one attribute of their riding was safety and who rarely locked their doors do now. They are buying security systems and many of them are telling me that they are living in fear.

We had events this past summer, including a couple of murders. One was gang related and was one not. We had the case of a 13-year-old female driver who with a couple of friends stole a vehicle and drove into the centre of Portage la Prairie on a Sunday morning. The driver lost control of the vehicle and crashed into a family going to church. There were four people seriously injured, of course in the non-offending vehicle. These are the kinds of things that are happening. These are serious crimes and they should have serious consequences.

I want the member to address the issue of deterrents. I am curious as to why this was removed from the sentencing provisions years ago under the Liberals. Would the member address that particular issue as to how important he sees the restating of a judge's parameters on sentencing?

[Mike Lake, Conservative, Edmonton—Mill Woods—Beaumont, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I concur with the hon. member who spoke about talking with the people in his riding. Crime is the number one issue in my riding when we knock on doors. Crime is the number one issue that people talk about.

In my correspondence the number one issue brought forward is related to justice issues of many different kinds. Youth crime is specifically singled out on a regular basis.

I want to speak about deterrents for a second. One thing I do want to point out is that the vast majority of our youth are fantastic kids who are not committing crimes. We are talking about a small proportion of the youth who are causing problems. I would point out that the majority of the victims of these youths are kids themselves. They are our own kids and our own families.

In terms of deterrents and in terms of consequences, I would say it is vitally important that we start to take the term consequences seriously. The connotation does not necessarily need to be a negative one. Kids quickly learn as they are growing up that without consequences they have no boundaries or boundaries mean nothing. Without the boundaries they do not have order. Quite honestly, it leads to chaos in the lives of some of these kids.

We have talked a little bit about preventative measures and some questions have come up. I think one of the most important preventative measures that we can undertake is to establish a culture of responsibility among our youth, that violent crime of any kind is absolutely unacceptable. Solid criminal justice policy in this area is crucial in fostering that culture.

[Serge Ménard, Bloc, Marc-Aurèle-Fortin, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I come from Quebec, and I took a special interest in youth justice when I was a minister and also in my law practice. I am not an expert in this area, and I do not claim to be.

Nevertheless, I would like to explain what has been done in Quebec and why we take such a different attitude from the rest of Canada. I would also like to explain why the architects of our youth justice system do not understand why the rest of Canada has never taken note of the success we have achieved and used Quebec as a model when drafting new legislation on young offenders, instead of looking to American models. Ours are based more on European models, but also on models suggested in the United States by people who study criminology and psychology.

In 1998, I attended a meeting of ministers of justice in the midst of an election campaign. I went to talk to the ministers of justice in the middle of an election campaign because I had something to tell them before they changed the legislation. At the time they were discussing a bill introduced by Ms. McLellan.

Canada had a juvenile crime rate at the time that was 50% greater than the rate in Quebec. That was not purely by chance. The political parties of all stripes in power in Quebec over the previous 30 years had always taken very seriously this primary concern with the rehabilitation of young offenders. An entire profession was created to deal with it called psychoeducation.

Rather than spending our money to build institutions, we put most of it into the training and treatment given to young offenders and the training provided to judges. I can recall the chief justice of the youth court in Quebec summarizing in a few choice words the attitude of the Quebec courts: the right measure at the right time.

This is a very subjective process, of course, but it is objectively justified. When dealing with adolescents, we are dealing with people who will soon be adults. They have to be induced to act not out of a fear of punishment—because this fear cannot be maintained very long—but out of a genuine acceptance of society’s rules, an understanding of them, and a responsible attitude.

I am sure we can all recall our own adolescence and some of the friends we had. We know very well that adolescence is quite a difficult time when we emerge from the body of a child to become an adult. It is also a time when we like to test limits, and not everyone does this in the same way. I remember some of the young people I knew, when I was young myself, who did some really foolish things. Now they are very respectable people who are very respectful of the law and extremely responsible. I am sure that nearly everyone here knew some young people like that—or maybe not. In any case, I think it is a generally accepted fact that some very responsible adults today went through some pretty turbulent times in their youth.

If we are concerned about a safe society, it is important when dealing with adolescents to do all we can to ensure that they eventually become responsible adults who do not always have to be frightened into controlling themselves, especially as I do not think that fear is a very effective way to deter them from committing crimes.

Something rather significant has happened in Quebec in the past few years: we have placed so much importance on prevention and rehabilitation that we are achieving good results.

Earlier I was talking about the results I saw in 1998, but I will read some more statistics from Juristat: “With the exception of Quebec, which saw a 4% decrease, all the provinces reported increases in the youth crime rate”.

Quebec has created something else that will achieve long-term results and will probably start to have an impact. I am talking about early childhood centres. We no longer talk about daycares in Quebec—except for maybe when we are out of breath. From an institutional point of view, there are no daycares in Quebec, but we have the best system of early childhood centres, where working parents can leave their children at a very early age.

These early childhood centres employ professionals. They are not babysitters; they are professionals trained in early childhood education. There are no hard and fast rules, but often early childhood professionals can recognize the signs of a young offender when the child is very young.

We have professionals who know. They know how to recognize it and intervene early on. Let me say, they do not put these children in prison; the children might be given a time out from time to time and given individual attention so as not to have problems in the future.

That was how Quebec saw things. That is what Quebec has done and people should know about the results we have achieved.

We did not much like Mrs. McLellan's bill. Nonetheless, I am sure that many people who adopted Mrs. McLellan's bill at the time are surprised at its results, namely a lower youth incarceration rate.

There is a reason we criticized it at the time. I know it was drafted by people familiar with Quebec's experience. They drafted it the way they did because they felt there was too much reliance on incarceration. They developed an extremely objective system, but when it comes to handling young offenders, many things should be left open to interpretation.

I will give some examples that I have often used. I will look at two extreme cases. A youth has just shoplifted a popular singer's CD and is arrested. He arrives at the police station and does not want his parents to be called because he is embarrassed. His parents come to get him anyway. He is ashamed, and so forth.

[An hon. member]

Oh, oh.

[Serge Ménard, Bloc, Marc-Aurèle-Fortin, QC]

Excuse me, I was distracted.

I have to speak to you, I prefer to speak to you. I need human contact, especially to talk about these things. Right? You can see that there is no need to intervene with this youth or to take him before a court.

Let us take another example. A youth steals some jewellery, tools or something else that he will probably sell. Even if it is the first time, we must know how to intervene. If you have a tiered system, where you speak of a first offence and then a second offence, that is not the right system.

A youth commits a crime: you have to know how to interpret this sign. In the first case, you would let him go. In the second case, even if it was a first offence, I believe that you would have to intervene.

Let us go to the other extreme and look at murder, which is much more serious. A youth, together with two or three others, steals from some seniors and beats them to death.

We will definitely take a very tough stand with these youths.

In another case, a young person has an alcoholic father who beats his wife, does not look after the children and even beats them. The youth ends up killing his father. This is serious and it will be taken seriously, but the approach will be completely different. It is the same crime, but each requires a different solution because the youth's circumstances will be taken into consideration as well as the fact that one day this youth will be an adult and he will have to function in society.

I remember that, at the time, of the 35 young people who had committed murders in Quebec, none had become repeat offenders. Only one committed other crimes later. Good results were obtained thanks to the competence of the judges, the training and the system in place.

However, what I am hearing from the minister worries me a great deal, and it will be even worse for the future. The word “prevention” is missing from his remarks. He makes no reference at all to the principles of psychology or of criminology, and I know why. It is because he believes that the principle of criminology is to put them all away, right? It is not that at all. It is a matter of knowing how to take the right measure at the right time. To that end, it is necessary to allow a great deal of discretion to the judges who try these cases and who must be able to direct these young people to various institutions.

I also hear a great many remarks that demonstrate to me that the purpose of this legislation is not to ensure that young people, when they become adults, will no longer be a danger to our society. Rather, it is legislation that responds to perceptions, because people perceive that there is an increase in criminal activity.

As politicians, what should we do if we know that those perceptions are wrong? I know that other people in my riding also think that criminal activity is on the increase. Yet it has been decreasing on a regular basis for the past 25 years. Criminal activity decreased until last year, especially among young offenders.

Those perceptions are rather normal, given that the statistics are not emphasized. Regardless, in general, since 1990 criminal activity among young offenders has decreased in Canada. It would be hard to persuade the majority of that, they will not believe it. Why? Because the statistics are published in the newspapers, once a year, beside the obituary notices. In contrast, whenever a serious crime is committed by a young person, unfailingly, it makes the headlines.

Public perception in relation to crime is based on the headlines that we read every day. Thus, it is consistent. People always believe that crime is increasing, even when it is decreasing.

However, I want to respond to the challenge issued by the member for Kitchener—Conestoga, who thinks he can challenge anyone in this House. I would ask him to confirm for me whether he is not almost harassed by his constituents who tell him that young offenders should be more severely punished.

For my part, I am not harassed by my voters. It must be said that the worst of the United States also rubs off on Quebec. Sometimes, people say to me that a certain punishment is terrible, and so forth. I answer them calmly and explain to them a little of what I explained earlier. I tell them that we still get good results and, above all, that we must not follow the American example.

This shows me something. I am a sovereignist. But I was not born a sovereignist, I did not grow up in a sovereignist environment and there were not many sovereignists around when I was a teen.

I supported the Rassemblement pour l'indépendance nationale, but really, my ideas fit in with the Mouvement souveraineté-association. Because of our history, the country I love the most, besides Quebec, is still by far Canada, because we have things in common. Yet I still remember my ideal as a teenager, which was to live in a great country in which there were two important nations, with the contribution of the aboriginals and others. I thought that since we came from two great European countries that had made so many contributions to science, the arts and so forth, this would be a good combination and we could enrich each other.

However, once again, I can see that most people are unable to see something good when it is right in front of them. One thing we should at least do with Quebec is to go back to the old way of dealing with young offenders, which was very successful. This just proves to me that we would truly be better off to live separately—we would remain neighbours—and to enjoy sovereignty.

That is why the Mouvement souveraineté-association appealed to me the most. Even so, back when I joined the movement, I thought that there were some things we should definitely have in common, such as criminal law. We do agree on that. People in Quebec are not very keen on the French criminal law system. We prefer the basic principles of the adversarial system and so on.

Nevertheless, what I have been hearing from the other side is giving me more and more reason to doubt. I am becoming, astonishingly, more of a separatist than a sovereignist. This is a good example of why. Why is it that westerners are always trying to copy the United States? Why not look for a solution right here at home?

In a way, I understand. I was looking at the crime statistics, which are a little scary. Take crime rates, for example. In Quebec, that rate is 5,909 per 100,000 people, but out west, in Manitoba, it is 11,678; in Saskatchewan, it is 13,711; in Alberta, it is 9,000; and in British Columbia, it is 11,000. I can see that members on the other side of the House have the perception of problems. Still, perhaps they should look eastward for better solutions. After all, Quebec's homicide rate is a lot lower than Canada's.

The last thing that I do not understand is this: some members of the government are from Quebec. Are they aware that our way of dealing with young offenders is a good model? I am not saying it is a success, because success would imply that there is no juvenile delinquency, which will never be the case. However, if we compare Quebec's success rate to those of Canada and the United States, it is a model. Why can those members not persuade their government to consider the Quebec model?

Once again, this shows how limited Quebeckers are in federal government. Our party's founder himself discovered those limits. Just like me and many others, he proposed full sovereignty for Quebec with close ties and strong friendship between our two nations.

[Meili Faille, Bloc, Vaudreuil—Soulanges, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would first like to congratulate my colleague for presenting the Bloc Québécois position so well. I wish to ask him a question.

Recently, in Quebec, in my riding, a young driver killed little Bianca, whose family lives in Île-Perrot. Citizens of the area mobilized to demand that the youth was incarcerated until the case was heard. However, as a youth, he had undertaken to appear in court.

I would like to hear what my colleague has to say about this case. I would like to know how the Bloc's position would help this youth. His companions, his friends, the people around him could also support him. Can the member tell us why it would be detrimental for his future for the government to make an example of this youth?

[Serge Ménard, Bloc, Marc-Aurèle-Fortin, QC]

Mr. Speaker, this is not a case where the young person would be affected by the bill. In the cases presented here, the individual must be accused of a violent crime. In your example, if I am not mistaken, it is the youth's first offence. Thus, he is not a repeat offender and is not subject to any conditions. It appears very likely that he will observe the conditions. I think that the law, as it is currently applied, would be no different in his case.

[John McKay, Liberal, Scarborough—Guildwood, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I want to ask my colleague a fairly technical question with respect to proposed paragraph 29(2)(c) of the bill, which states:

the young person is charged with an indictable offence for which an adult would be liable to imprisonment for a term of more than two years and has a history that indicates a pattern of findings of guilt under this Act....

When Mr. Justice Nunn did a comprehensive review of young offenders' bills generally, he made a suggestion that instead of a pattern of findings of guilt there be a pattern of findings of “offences”. I wonder whether this would be appropriate for review by the committee and whether the hon. member has an initial reaction to changing a pattern of findings of guilt to a pattern of findings of offences.

[Serge Ménard, Bloc, Marc-Aurèle-Fortin, QC]

Mr. Speaker, first of all, if it involves one of the circumstances proposed in paragraph 29(2)(c), generally, the judges I know would keep that young offender in custody. Once again, this does not change things much.

An important point that I wanted to emphasize and I will continue to emphasize is that young offenders must be sentenced and dealt with on a case-by-case basis. I understand that, in this instance, it is before he or she is convicted, that it is a question of bail, but all decisions must be on a case-by-case basis. It also depends on the young offender's family situation and the family support involved, the circumstances in which the crime was committed, and so on. The major flaw in Ms. McLellan's reform was that the legislation is too objective.

I had prepared an argument, but I did not have the time to discuss it. I remember one judge I know well, a classmate of mine, telling me about a young offender who appeared before her for trafficking in a small amount of drugs. He already had a previous conviction for something else and he had complied with his conditions. He wore designer clothes; he had an apartment, a car, a cell phone, and she knew very well that, in all likelihood, if he was trafficking in small quantities, he was distributing it for others or he was in contact with other dealers. He was seventeen and a half and she therefore had only six months to do something with this young man. Under the McLellan legislation, since he had complied with the conditions that had been imposed and since it was a small quantity of drugs, she was forced to release him, although she would have liked to send him elsewhere.

It must be understood that, when referring to a good system, it is not a question of whether the system is slack or tough, severe or lenient. The system must be appropriate, with the right measure at the right time.

[Serge Cardin, Bloc, Sherbrooke, QC]

Mr. Speaker, first allow me to congratulate my colleague on his speech concerning this bill.

He made reference to sovereignty and sovereignty-association. I remember how in recent months, and even in recent years, there have often been discussions in which people found us a little laughable when we talked about the Quebec model.

I have the impression that in this case it is actually essential to demonstrate that there is a Quebec model, on which the government and the people in this House could base a policy that would be much better for youth and for young people who have committed petty thefts—some of them more serious than others. Under such a policy, young people would have an opportunity to be rehabilitated. We must not try to do things that will place young people in either a too permissive or a too restrictive situation.

We know that some people want to improve society. If they want the social system to perform like an Olympic athlete, they have to become acquainted with the best models. It would therefore ask my colleague why the government would not now want to adopt a model like the one in Quebec, which would mean that our young people would be better protected in future.

[Serge Ménard, Bloc, Marc-Aurèle-Fortin, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I can answer in one word: ignorance.

Obviously they are ignorant of Quebec’s success, and what it results from. I suggest that the member read the answer the minister gave me when I put the question to him. I laid out the figures we had in front of him. I have been unable to determine whether it was still the case, because it is the McLellan legislation that applies. In 1998, however, before it came into force, the juvenile crime rate in Canada was 50% higher than in Quebec. He did not dare to contradict me then, and I certainly felt that it was because he did not know this.

The rest of his answer obviously showed that he did not know how we had done this. He did not know the institutions we have developed, the professionals we have hired, or the training they are given.

It is ignorance, and that is what makes me say, because we are such very distinct societies, that we should lead our own lives, separately.

This is one more argument for sovereignty. Because we speak a different language from the rest of America—obviously, we are aware that we are influenced by it—we therefore have a tendency to look toward Europe and elsewhere to solve our problems. Essentially, that is how we developed our system, in Quebec, while in the rest of Canada there is a tendency to be always looking toward the United States.

[Derek Lee, Liberal, Scarborough—Rouge River, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I wish to advise you that I intend to split my time with the member for Halifax West.

What we have here is a new initiative, which is really not that new, in evergreening and updating the Youth Criminal Justice Act. It is not the first time we have seen an amendment to the Youth Criminal Justice Act and it probably will not be the last.

There will be amendments made to the Criminal Code and criminal justice legislation many times as we work our way into the future. This is because society changes, society's values change the way we deal with social issues, and problems change.

Some have asked why we have a Youth Criminal Justice Act anyway. Why do we not just treat all offenders the same? Some people say that if the government is into setting up mandatory minimum penalties all over the place, so many that we can hardly keep track of them, why do we not just make the sentence for every crime five years or ten years? Then everyone would understand.

Most Canadians realize that this would be crazy. It would not work. We would fill the prisons and we would not accomplish anything.

Why do we have a separate Youth Criminal Justice Act? The answer probably is because it makes a whole lot of sense and this is how we have always done things as Canadians.

Before I was born, which is quite a while ago, there existed the Juvenile Delinquents Act. Then it became the Young Offenders Act. Now it is called the Youth Criminal Justice Act. We have always in this country had a separate youth criminal justice system because society has believed and continues to believe that youth need to be treated differently than adult offenders. The current statute does that and does it quite well.

In case Canadians think there is something radically wrong with the statute, we can refer them to the recent report of Mr. Justice Nunn in the province of Nova Scotia, who did quite a thorough reworking and studying of the act. He found in his report, which is publicly available, that the act actually works quite well overall. He did mention one or two small areas that could be modified. One of those areas is contained in the bill.

The bill does two things. I know that this has been mentioned on the record earlier, but the bill will broaden the scope of circumstances in which pretrial detention of a youth may be considered, including instances where a violent offence has occurred. This is the part that reflects the report of Justice Nunn in Nova Scotia following his commission of inquiry.

The other thing this statute does is add into the principles of sentencing in the Youth Criminal Justice Act the principles or objectives of deterrence and denunciation. There may be a place for that. That is what we are considering here.

I, for one, recognize that these principles were not put into the original Youth Criminal Justice Act because there did not seem to be a need. In other words, the objectives of dealing with youth under the YCJA did not require advertence or reference to principles of deterrence or denunciation because there was a whole constellation of principles that seemed to fill the need.

I would say for those who want to fix this, if they think something is broken--and of course there is an adjustment needed in the statute--and if they think we can fix things by shouting louder or complaining longer or praying harder so that we just keep changing laws by increasing sentences, it does not work. It never has. It never will. What we have to do is be rational in how we are doing this.

The myth out there, and this probably is not just my own view but the view of many, is that by tweaking sentences and changing sentencing we somehow reduce crime.

We have heard the phrases “getting tough on crime” or “getting harder on crime” around here so often it is getting boring. The offences have already been written. The code already exists. We are not, generally speaking, around here in the last while making new criminal codes, new sentences. All we are doing is changing the sentencing.

I am pretty sure that if I went out on Wellington Street or out on Shepard Avenue in my riding of Scarborough—Rouge River, I would not find anyone who would actually know how we have adjusted the sentences up or down. If I were to ask them what the penalty was for stealing a magazine from a convenience store, I do not think they would have any idea whether it was a mandatory sentence, a jail sentence or a fine.

The reason I say that is because the whole criminal justice system has recognized that the real deterrence for those who would commit a crime is not the actual sentence they might get, because before they commit the crime they do not know what they are going to get. They do not even think about it. The deterrence almost always lies in the prospect of getting caught and having to deal with it. It is getting caught that is the deterrent component in the criminal justice system. Whether or not they go to jail, whether or not they pay a fine, whether or not they are embarrassed or whether or not they lose their job, getting caught is the most important part, which is why police enforcement and resourcing our police is so important. They must be able to keep up a reasonable effort at catching those who do criminal acts.

I just wanted to debunk the myth that by ratcheting up sentences and changing the way we sentence we will reduce crime.

I will ask the question one more time. If we were to increase the sentence for a bank robbery by three years, does anyone really believe that there would be fewer bank robberies in this country? I do not think so because the guys committing the robbery do not think they will get caught. If they do think about getting caught, they know they will do time. However, when they are planning to do whatever they are going to do to break the law, they do not get out a calculator and do the sentencing math. Almost all of these people are not actually very intelligent. I am sorry to treat them as a class of people, but they actually are not smart enough to go through that exercise. They are into a lifestyle that reflects, perhaps, an absence of thought, an absence of consideration.

I want to now deal with the sentencing principles that are contained in this bill. First, I want to refer to the sentencing principles that are contained in the Criminal Code, generally. As I said earlier, they do not actually apply directly to the Youth Criminal Justice Act but they are contained in the Criminal Code. This House legislated them in the year 1995. That was a first for Canada because it was the courts that generated the principles.

At committee we will consider the sentencing principles of deterrence and denunciation being added in the bill. Those principles exist in adult sentencing. However, I want to point out that there may be a conflict between those principles being inserted into the statute and sections 38(2)(c) and 38(2)(b) of the Youth Criminal Justice Act, which say that proportionality and similarity of sentencing between different youths committing similar crimes need to be there.

If we begin inserting denunciation and deterrence in a particular case, judges may have some difficulty making that fit with the other sentencing principles that already exist within the Youth Criminal Justice Act.

If this bill gets through second reading, I look forward to reviewing it at committee.

[John McKay, Liberal, Scarborough—Guildwood, ON]

Mr. Speaker, there is almost nothing in my hon. colleague's speech with which I disagree. His analysis is right on.

What is troubling about this particular piece of legislation, as is the myriad of pieces of legislation that seem to flow through this House, is that it is like a bits and pieces approach. It is an emphasis on trees rather than the forest.

I would be interested in my hon. colleague's comments on Mr. Justice Nunn's report, which is actually a comprehensive report, a road map on the changes that do need to be made to the Youth Criminal Justice Act. I invite his comments on why, in heaven's name, we are dealing with picayune pieces of the justice's report rather than dealing with the forest, so to speak, of changes that need to be changed in that act.

[Derek Lee, Liberal, Scarborough—Rouge River, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the inquiry by Mr. Justice Nunn took place following, what so often happens, a tragic series of incidents, in this particular case involving a young offender. The part that Justice Nunn reflected on here is that if the youth court can see a pattern of violence, if violence has occurred and there is some prospect of it continuing if the youth is released, the judge involved should have some statutory ability to maybe flip the thing over a little bit, move the goal posts in a way that is more likely to protect society.

That is like having twenty-twenty hindsight in advance. The judge does not have it. No one has it. However, in cases where the judge sees a pattern of violent behaviour and has a sense that it might continue if the youth is not restrained in custody, then the judge would have an ability to do that.

According to Justice Nunn, that was a conspicuous piece of the YCJA that was missing. All the procedures in the act that were intended to help deal with youth were working quite well except for that one small piece. It is a one-off and I think Mr. Justice Nunn appreciated that it was kind of a one-off, filling in a little gap in the current statute, and it was given in that spirit.

[Larry Bagnell, Liberal, Yukon, YT]

Mr. Speaker, the member is a very knowledgeable member of both the justice committee and the legislative committee so he has a lot of experience in the justice program.

I wonder if he would comment on the program in general starting with the basis for this bill and the fact that crime is going down, which everyone knows, but there are quotes of some serious offences, which no one disagrees occurs, but the problem is that we have had legislation that does not address that and programs that do not address that in general.

Going down the road, the reason we are in so much trouble and it has been such a mess and so much change had to be made or the bill stopped was that no one had the answer for reducing crime. In fact, as many experts said before committee, some of the changes would have actually lead to more crimes and a less safe society.

Could the member go below the surface a bit, below the gut reactions and get to the science and the evidence of people and the victims who are really on the ground, and tell us what would really help and whether this bill is part of that solution?

[Derek Lee, Liberal, Scarborough—Rouge River, ON]

Fortunately, Mr. Speaker, as a society, we know the causes of crime. We have itemized them and studied them. A parliamentary committee published a report that itemized the causes of crime.

This particular piece of legislation, and some of the others before the House, actually does not address any of those causes. It only attempts to deal with sentencing. I mentioned the myth that tweaking the sentencing will reduce the causes of crime but it will not. This pattern of activity, the increasing of sentences, does not help solve crime. It is a massive employment program for prison constructors and correction officials.

The myth of public protection is attached to it but it is actually a massive federal-provincial download because most of these mandatory minimum sentences we are talking about now will need to be dealt with by the provincial reformatories, not the federal prisons.

We are mandatorially sending all these people into provincial correction institutions and the provinces need to pick up the tab. That is a federal-provincial downloading exercise, one of the biggest ones I have seen.

All of this debating and tweaking of sentencing will not reduce crime because it does not address the real causes.

[Geoff Regan, Liberal, Halifax West, NS]

Mr. Speaker, my hon. colleague's comments were very thoughtful. I know he is very knowledgeable on issues related to justice, including youth justice, and I certainly enjoyed listening to his views and comments, as well as those of the members who asked questions and added their thoughts to his.

The issue of youth justice and of the Youth Criminal Justice Act is one of concern in Nova Scotia, particularly after the very sad and tragic death of Theresa McEvoy, a teacher who was killed by a young offender out joyriding.

My hon. colleagues referred to the Nunn commission which followed that event. Justice Merlin Nunn of Nova Scotia was asked by the provincial government to look at the whole situation, the administration of youth justice, the act itself, and the services provided for youth in a variety of manners, particularly youth at risk or youth who may be involved with the justice system, and recommend a series of changes.

Justice Nunn, as we have heard, made a lot of recommendations relating to the programs that should be available for rehabilitation, dealing with the issues of poverty and other matters of that sort. He also said that the Youth Criminal Justice Act works very well. He praised it and said that in the vast majority of cases, in relation to the great number of young people who come in contact with the law, the act works extremely well. However, in cases of repeat offenders, particularly with serious crimes, there is a need for changes.

Unfortunately, while the government addresses a little of that, it does not address most of the recommendations that Justice Nunn brought, not just in relation to the whole range of issues but in relation to amendments to the act.

He had a series of recommendations for changes to the act, and I will get to those in a few minutes, which the government has completely ignored. I hope that when this goes to committee as I think it will, members will consider amending it to provide for the kinds of changes that Justice Nunn has very wisely recommended.

This became an issue following the McEvoy case and other occurrences that have happened in Nova Scotia, particularly in the Halifax area. I, like other members, have received emails and phone calls related to issues concerning crime. In fact, in my fall householder, the mail-out to people who live in my riding, I placed a short survey so that I could hear from my constituents about their concerns on this issue.

There was a really significant response from the community. People were very eager to share their thoughts and feelings on what should be done by the Government of Canada to help to mitigate crime in our country. The overwhelming response was to change the Youth Criminal Justice Act, but also to fight poverty and get at the underlying social problems that, as Justice Nunn said, are so often the root causes of crime.

When I hosted my 78th “Let's talk” meeting, a series of local meetings that I hold in my riding, at the beginning of this month I had guests from a variety of areas of the criminal justice system, including the Halifax regional municipality's chief of police. I was very pleased that he could attend. There were defence lawyers, a retired police officer, probation officers, members of families of victims of crime, including, very sadly, three families who have had loved ones murdered.

It was very powerful to hear their words and concerns. It was interesting to note they were not just saying that we should lock up young criminals and throw away the key. They were certainly concerned that the system should function well, that there be good investigation and prosecution of crimes, and proper systems of punishment, deterrence and rehabilitation.

However, these same people were also concerned that we address the causes of crime, such as poverty and other kinds of social problems in our country, whether it be fetal alcohol syndrome, as an example, that are other causes of crime.

I remember that the parents of Jonathan Reader, who tragically was found murdered on the corner of Lacewood Drive and Dunbrack Street in my riding, were present and argued that the first thing we have to do is to be good neighbours, to be aware of what is going on in our neighbourhoods, to keep an eye on things, to know who our neighbours are and be in touch with them. W must be more aware of what is going on, so that we have more of a texture and fabric of a society that will be strong, will prevent these kinds of things from arising, and prevent people from going in the wrong direction as much as possible.

We also heard at this meeting that the role of the federal government, in their view, was to integrate the expertise and research that has been done on so many of these areas, and to get different levels of government working together in a much better way.

People are certainly impressed with the knowledge and research that has been done in relation to crime and youth crime. I saw that they were clearly frustrated with the weak cooperation they found between the different levels of government, between the administration of justice, the police, the crown prosecutors and the people who make the laws, the Department of Justice, the drafters of the laws in Ottawa, that do not always respond to the reality on the ground or on the street, so to speak. That was clearly a concern. Also, the need to support the kinds of community groups that provide programming for youth that is so important in getting kids off the streets and keeping them active and worthwhile, and in meaningful activities where they are growing and learning and developing in a positive way.

There is no question that I also heard that youth need to be held accountable for their actions through meaningful consequences, through rehabilitative change, and through rehabilitative programs. I do not disagree at all that there needs to be changes to the Youth Criminal Justice Act as Justice Nunn has recommended, particularly to deal with those youths who are repeat violent offenders, the more serious offenders.

One of the problems I see with this bill is it does not address an absolutely key recommendation of Justice Nunn's commission and his report, which said that we have to amend the definition of violent offender. At the moment the act treats violent offenders differently than other offenders, and with good reason. The majority of youth are not involved in serious violent crimes and should not be treated as if they are.

Where they are it is a different matter and should be treated seriously. The problem in the case of Theresa McEvoy was that the young joyrider had stolen a car and was driving the car. That was not treated as a violent offence, but clearly what happened to her was violent and reckless. It should be treated in a very serious manner.

I think Justice Nunn had a very good point in relation to how that should be changed. We do not see any sign of that in this bill and that is very disappointing.

Also, enhancing measures for pre-trial detention. It is important that those be paired with the enormous increases in the resources available to the courts to deal with these young people. Currently, they can wait for up to a year and longer for sentencing.

If they are on remand and being held waiting for a trial and they have not even been found guilty yet, that is a problem. That is why judges want to have them left with a responsible person, such as their parent for example. What the government has again failed to do is deal with recommendations that Justice Nunn made in terms of what happens, for example, when a responsible person such as a parent says, “Look, I agreed back in court a few weeks ago to be responsible for this person and I made an undertaking to look after this and make sure he or she does not get into trouble, but now I've got a problem. I can't control him or her and I want to give up. I want to be released from my undertaking”. There is not a good system now for when that happens.

The judge recommended that system be put in the act but the government has failed to do so. Again, another failure of the government to respond to the recommendations by Justice Nunn.

I do not see why the government could not understand what was being recommended and see that those were good recommendations, reasonable, sensible changes to this act which would have made a real difference and helped to prevent another death such as Theresa McEvoy's.

One of the things we heard from a retired police officer at the meeting I had was that “young people involved in crime are victims of their lives”. It is the nature of their lives. This is about poverty which I mentioned earlier.

In fact, one of his main concerns, and he is a retired police officer who has worked with people and crime all his life, was that the underlying issue of poverty remains unresolved. Although there was a good understanding that people living in poverty are not the only people involved in crime, they are a big proportion of the people who are involved. That is why I am so pleased that our leader, the Liberal leader, has come out with a whole series of recommendations and a platform proposal in relation to dealing with poverty.

I am sure many members in this House will agree that we have to address this problem in our country. We can do better in this regard. I think the plan that our leader has put forward is a good measure in that regard. I also think that we need to make changes to this bill to improve it along the lines of what Justice Nunn has recommended.

If we do that and combine it with real efforts to fight poverty, we can make real progress.

[Chris Charlton, NDP, Hamilton Mountain, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I listened with great interest to the comments just made by my colleague. I certainly would agree that one of the biggest and best predictors of success for children is linked to poverty rates.

We all know there is a need for a solid foundation, whether it comes from education programs or skills development programs through recreation. There also needs to be support for parents because we know that children are not poor, that it is their parents who are poor. So by examining things like living wage programs, programs for affordable housing, and making sure that jobs are available to those parents, we can really make a difference in the lives of children.

Yet, I note with interest also that the member from that party sat down when we had the debate on the budget and, more importantly, the vote on the budget, where we gave away $190 billion of fiscal capacity to address the very issues that the member spoke about with respect to the need for addressing poverty.

I wonder whether the member could explain to us why his party chose to sit that out to allow the corporate giveaways to go to the oil and gas industry instead of going where they should have gone, which is to help children in our communities.

[Geoff Regan, Liberal, Halifax West, NS]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate parts of the hon. member's question which I thought were important to hear and I appreciate the comments she had.

However, when people watch the House of Commons, one of the things that frustrates them so much is that they look to us to be deliberative in the nature of our discussions. Unfortunately, we are all guilty from time to time of being political, when we should be deliberative.

We all know that question period is the time when the government is to be held to account. We also know that the only way to get it held to account effectively is to put pressure on government members by being effective and strong in our questions and getting media coverage so the public will be concerned and put pressure on the government as well. We recognize that and it is not surprising that question period will be a time when we have that kind of heightened atmosphere.

I do not think it is reasonable, unfortunately, to expect a deliberative process to take place during question period, but I would think that more and more we should look for it in debate here in the House on bills, for example. We should try to be more deliberative.

To get into the question about why we voted or did not vote on the question of the mini budget, for example, I think we know the answer to that. That is clearly trying to be political. It is making a political attack, a partisan attack, and my hon. colleague knows full well that in the past there have been times when the NDP has not voted to avoid an election.

We also know, we have seen the polls, that the likely result, if the polls are accurate lately, would mean a very similar House. We would have $300 million spent at taxpayers' expense to have an election to have basically the same result.

I would not be all that surprised if Canadians said that they have all kinds of reasons to be unhappy with the government, and being reminded of that in an election, they might make a change, but the chances were at that time that we would have the same results.

My hon. colleague is being unreasonable and being a little bit partisan and political when it is an appropriate moment for us to look at the bill, to look at how it can be improved, and focus on this very important issue of youth justice and how we can work at it. That is the key here, not being partisan.

[John McKay, Liberal, Scarborough—Guildwood, ON]

Mr. Speaker, returning now to the bill as opposed to the previous question.

I would be interested in the hon. member's comments with respect to the report of Mr. Justice Nunn. There are about 34 recommendations that were made, 19 of which were of an administrative nature, but six, which were actually substantive, were specific suggestions to the amendment of the legislation.

I am looking in the bill, and I might be able to find one, but I am pretty sure I will not. We have six recommendations from the justice, none of which appear to be incorporated in the bill, one of which appears to have some general support in the House and the others seem to be off in some la la land as to what needs to be done here.

I would like to ask the hon. member, why in heaven's name does the government choose to approach this particularly important area of legislation in such a piecemeal fashion?

[Geoff Regan, Liberal, Halifax West, NS]

Mr. Speaker, I think my hon. colleague has a very good point. I did mention a couple of the recommendations of Justice Nunn that were ignored by the government, and I would like to talk about some more.

I hope the government will actually reconsider this. I am disappointed, partly because when the Justice Minister went to Halifax and met with Nova Scotia's minister of justice, he seemed to be saying that he had listened and heard the recommendations of Justice Nunn and recognized the concern about this in Nova Scotia and he would bring forward changes to the act.

I must say that my assumption was that those changes would reflect, at least in large measure, the recommendations of Justice Nunn. That is why I am so disappointed because they do not.

Let me speak about some of the other recommendations that Justice Nunn made. For example, recommendation 11, “That the federal government amend section 42--

[The Deputy Speaker, NDP, Bill Blaikie]

I am sorry, but the hon. member does not have time to do that. Time has expired.

Resuming debate, the hon. member for Trinity—Spadina.

[Olivia Chow, NDP, Trinity—Spadina, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the overall crime rate in Canada has been falling since it peaked in 1991. Police reported about 2.6 million offences in 2004, resulting in a crime rate that was 12% lower than a decade earlier. However, youth perception of safety is declining.

Between 1998 and 2002, fewer young people, aged 16 to 24, considered their neighbourhoods to be a very safe place in which to live. In 2002, 72% felt their neighbourhoods were very safe from violent crime, a decrease from 1998, which was at that time 78%. By and large, the majority of young people still feel very safe, but there seems to be a small decrease.

We have seen another statistic from the Canadian Centre for Justice Statistics, which shows an increase of about 13% in the violent crime rate among young people from 1993 to 2003.

Of those young people who feel unsafe, roughly 25% of them are boys and girls who are home alone by grade seven. Eighty per cent of mothers of school-age children are in the workforce, according to the Canadian Council on Social Development, and they worry about their kids. In fact, the average child spends 67 hours of discretionary time each week at home, more hours than they spend in school. That is the time, especially after school, when they are worried about their own safety. Young people are most likely to be bullied during this time and likely to engage in unsupervised Internet use.

In terms of adolescents being victimized or running afoul of the law, research shows this happens between the hours of 3 p.m. and 7 p.m. When we talk about youth crime and youth safety, that is the time when young people sometimes get in trouble. It is between the end of the school day and when parents return home from work.

Research has also shown that this unsupervised time is the risk factor for substance abuse, gang behaviour and other problematic behaviour. Therefore, we know the time that we need to deal with, yet the bill does almost nothing. It does not talk about how we deal with prevention.

There are solutions such as dealing with anger management and bullying. The best programs that can be put in place are after school activities. Again, if young people can attend good after school activities, not only will they be safe, but their self-esteem will be enhanced and their educational success and their positive mental and physical health will be improved. Those are all the things we want for our young people.

Organizations like the Boys and Girls Club transform their after school hours from unsupervised time, where they feel unsafe, to a productive time where they can learn with structured activities.

When we talk about youth crime and safety, in the summer the New Democrats called for the extension of the Canada youth employment program to make it year round permanent program. Right now it only applies to the summer. We know this would have an impact on reducing the youth crime rate.

We have seen it over and over again. For example, the city of Toronto has an after school recreation and care program. This initiative hires young people in their own neighbourhoods. They become role models and mentors. They go to elementary and high schools to teach young people. Sometimes it is an arts program, basketball, physical programs or homework. Some of these young people could have been in trouble with the law, but they decided to turn their lives around.

These kinds of programs have a dramatic effect on safety in a community. Some may remember the summer of youth crime a few years ago. There were a lot of shootings in the city of Toronto. With different strategies, one of which is the youth employment program, the gun crimes for young people dropped 40% within one year. We know this kind of program works.

This kind of program not only provides good jobs, it provides excellent training and new opportunities to benefit the entire neighbourhood. If we look at youth crime, it is not just young people. Sometimes it is the neighbourhood or the families. The program provides young leaders with the tools and resources to reach out and support families and youth to break out of the cycle of violence, alienation and despair, which can often plague the at risk communities.

Research by Geena Brown shows that if we have these kinds of programs, fewer mothers would use emergency services, child welfare, food bank services and prescription drugs.

I want to point out how much money we could save if we could have a youth crime prevention program attached to the bill.

The latest survey I have seen shows that to keep young people in jail, even without the counselling and support that they may need while in jail, it costs society and taxpayers a bare minimum of $65,000 per year. If we add the counselling and sometimes the substance abuse help they may need, we are looking at $100,000 to $120,000 a year of taxpayer money. If we do the deterrence, the prevention kind of support we have for young people, it is much better use of funding because we know it works.

We recently looked at the figures. The justice department reported that crimes cost our society almost $50 billion a year. If we can enable groups like the Boys and Girls Club of Canada, YouCan, which teaches young people how to deal with violent situations by de-escalating and learning the skills of conflict mediation, they can take a very explosive situation, de-escalate it and young people end up supporting each other rather than resorting to violence.

We know that a lot of the young people resort to violent crimes because they feel is the only method in which they know to express themselves. It is not an excuse. They have to take responsibility, but we also have to give them the tools to learn how to de-escalate things, whether it is a bully situation or very at risk behaviour.

YouCan has had a lot of successful initiatives and many other organizations in the community have had some very good initiatives.

The Youth Criminal Justice Act contains the whole notion that when a young person commits a crime, rather than going to jail, we should find some way to give them alternative sentencing, such as working in the communities so they can reform themselves. Unfortunately, the funding has not followed that principle. A lot of neighbourhoods, organizations and municipalities said that it was a good principle, but when judges told young people, who were facing court time, that they had to take some kind of alternative programming, no programs were available in the communities. The community agencies do not have the funding to provide the alternative programs to train these young people.

Therefore, while we have had good principles in the past, we have not had the kind of funding we need to provide the community support, which is critically important.

The National Crime Prevention Centre, a major body for national crime prevention, funds pilot projects, sometimes for one year, sometimes for three years, but it does not provide permanent funding. Many of the organizations that are doing a lot of work with young people to prevent them from committing crime or after sentencing ensuring they learn the skills so they will not reoffend are saying that they need permanent funding. They know what works. The centre has seen the program work and yet after two or three years the funding dries up and a lot of young people and the communities themselves end up being in trouble.

Other areas that would really help to reduce youth crime are in supporting local initiatives. We have to assist municipalities to build, expand and support drop-in centres, whether it is social infrastructure like basketball courts, community centres or libraries. The Federation of Canadian Municipalities has told us there is a social infrastructure deficit.

For example, the city of Toronto is looking at closing swimming pools because there is not enough funding to support them. Again, more and more young people, after school or even during school hours, will be unable to learn skills. Unfortunately, some of these young people will end up getting into the wrong crowd or joining a gang. Then they get into trouble, and that is unfortunate.

We know young people sometimes are get in trouble. Why? Because the rate of depression and anxiety among young people in Canada is growing. The rate of suicide is 15% among 15 to 20 year olds, which is the third worst record among OECD countries. When we look at young people, whether they are in jail or not, or in their community and whether they are young offenders or not, we see a clear link because we do not invest in communities. These young people are feeling more and more depressed. We also see obesity and even suicide.

With Canada being a rich country, how could we possibly have the third worst record of young people committing suicide? They must feel dramatically hopeless to do that.

I know I have talked about deterrence, but the bill does not go into the whole notion of how we deal with youth crime prevention. At the end of the day, that is what will work.

Another aspect the bill does not deal with, which is a key one, is witness protection. Some young people would like to tell authorities what is happening in their circle. They would like to tell them that they may know who is doing what in a community in terms of crime. However, some of them feel tremendously unprotected. If we do not beef up witness protection program, many young people will continue to feel they will be targeted or will be at risk and therefore not speak out. A strong witness protection program is very much needed.

The Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police recently told the Standing Committee on Public Safety that while witness protection programs are extremely important for law enforcement, they are often too expensive for the local police force. They are unaffordable for the local police departments.

We need a comprehensive youth crime prevention plan that would include youth employment, after school activities, investing in local communities, investing in witness protection programs. Then we could really talk about deterrence and prevention. The bill that is in front of us sets out these sentencing principles. It is fine to have these principles, but there is no community infrastructure or capacity to support these principles such as deterrence.

We know that jailing young people is not a deterrent. While in jail they learn to become hardened criminals. Who is in jail with them? Criminals who have been around for a long time. It is a form of university, I guess, post-secondary education. The youth go to jail and while there, learn how to become hardened criminals. Putting them in jail alone does not work. Not only is it expensive, but it sometimes is counterproductive.

Unfortunately, the key element of prevention is missing in this bill. I know of a lot of young people who started out their lives wrong, in that they made a mistake, got to know the wrong people and got in trouble. Because they are young, energetic and enthusiastic many of them are still hopeful. They have not given up hope. If we reach out to them at the right time and actually believe in them, then they can turn their lives around.

This weekend I was at an organization called Sketch. It teaches homeless youth how to express themselves through the arts, visual arts, painting, sculpture, music, theatre. Some of those young people, because they live on the streets, have had quite a bit of contact with police. Some of them have been in trouble before. This is the 10th anniversary of Sketch. Many of those young people come from broken families. They suffered abuse, sometimes physical, other times sexual. They ran away. That is why they are out on the streets. When they live on the streets they get into some crimes that sometimes they regret.

Organizations such as Sketch deal with those young people holistically to get them to express themselves through the arts and in that way, they heal themselves. They come together and form a very strong community. They support each other. They talk to each other about why they should not continue that cycle of violence, how they can get back to school, find housing and turn their lives around.

There is much we can do for young people. Unfortunately, this bill does not necessarily address all we can do to invest in young people.

[Larry Bagnell, Liberal, Yukon, YT]

Mr. Speaker, I like the last example the member gave. Last weekend I visited a very similar project in my riding. People were doing excellent carvings, spectacular art, showing that if their skills are harnessed, it can go toward very productive and positive work. I think it was run by an organization called Sundog.

The bill is very small, as the member probably mentioned. It only has two items. One is to increase the opportunities for the crown to get a bit more detention in pretrial, and the other adds some adult principles of sentencing to apply to children.

I wonder if the member agrees with those two changes. I also wonder if she agrees with all the other recommendations in the Nunn report, probably 30 plus, that were not incorporated in the bill.

[Olivia Chow, NDP, Trinity—Spadina, ON]

Mr. Speaker, when young people can express themselves creatively, they tell me that their souls get touched and they turn their lives around. Often, that is what is missing in a lot of our programs.

The part of the bill I have a great deal of difficulty with is the sentencing principle, the second part. The first part, pretrial custody, I will put aside. The second part of the bill is the sentencing principle.

I used to be a City of Toronto children and youth advocate. I have certainly looked at a lot of research and there is no evidence whatsoever from all the research I have done to suggest that adult principles of deterrence and denunciation would have any positive outcome for the public safety. If we are talking about passing a law, one would think we would look at some scientific evidence. I have not seen any.

Furthermore, with respect to the difference between adults and youth, sometimes the courts and society do not necessarily sanction that. On this concept of protection of society, the best protection is to invest in the programs that my hon. colleagues are talking about, Sundog, Sketch, the Boys and Girls Club of Canada, YOUCAN, Leave Out Violence, or the YMCA. That is the best protection we could possibly have for our young people.

I have seen communities transform themselves when we invest in the communities. The key element is that the best allies to fight youth crime are the young people themselves, if we can get the young people to turn around their lives, go back into their communities and say, “Hey, that is not a good thing to do. Look at me. I have done it. It is terrible. Follow the right path”. They are the best allies, and that is the component that is missing here. That is the best deterrent.

Having the principle of deterrence and denunciation, the second part of the bill, I do not think works.

[Paul Crête, Bloc, Montmagny—L'Islet—Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I listened to my colleague with interest and, most of all, a certain sense of satisfaction.

Bill C-25 is clearly based on the Conservative ideology that it is absolutely essential to punish offenders and the belief that this is the way to solve problems, without putting the necessary effort into rehabilitation. I was afraid that this might have become a common view all across Canada, but luckily that does not seem to be the case. In Quebec, we dealt with this issue a long time ago. We passed legislation that gives people a chance and allows for rehabilitation, which helps reduce crime. This is shown quite clearly by the statistics.

This bill sets out to amend the Youth Criminal Justice Act by adding deterrence and denunciation to the principles considered in determining a sentence. The hon. member just explained very well how far removed this is from reality. The summary also states that the presumption against the pre-trial detention of a young person is rebuttable. In addition, the bill specifies the circumstances in which this presumption does not apply.

I would like to ask my colleague a question. It has never been shown in Quebec that this Conservative approach will have positive results, especially in view of the fact that the virtually identical model developed in the United States to fight crime has not had the desired effect. In addition, young people are at a time in life when we could be trying to ensure that they do not become repeat offenders. Therefore, an entirely different approach is needed.

I would like my colleague to answer a question. Does this Conservative approach really have a future in the area she represents? Would we not do better simply to study this issue again in depth to determine which real efforts should be approved? For example, we could put more emphasis on prevention, on fighting poverty, or on studying the situations in which young people find themselves, rather than taking a purely punitive approach.

I was reading an article this morning which said that, for the first time in ten years, the number of incarcerated people is on the rise. We would therefore be investing a lot of money in a punitive approach that would not necessarily be very effective. I agree with the hon. member that, in doing this, we risk helping to develop a school for crime. Does my colleague share this view?

[Olivia Chow, NDP, Trinity—Spadina, ON]

Mr. Speaker, millions of people in the U.S. have been in jail. There has been a dramatic increase, but the streets are not safer.

If we are looking for a model, it is right in front us, in Quebec. I have seen the way the Quebec court system works. It gives young people a second chance. It does not just talk about principles. It actually invests in young people. It has programs. It believes in young people, that because they are young, they are still learning and there is a chance for them to turn their lives around.

The majority of young people can do that. Yes, there is a very small percentage of hardened criminals, but I am not talking about them. I am talking about the majority of young people.

If we look at the rate in Quebec of those who reoffend, the ones who have gone to jail or who have committed crimes and received alternative sentences, very few of them reoffend. The percentage of young people who reoffend is actually much lower than the percentage outside Quebec. Why? It is because Quebec fundamentally believes that young people have the capacity to reform themselves.

When we talk about principles and sentencing, we have to be very clear. The first principle is that we have to believe young people have the capacity to change. If not, then we throw the key away. They are young people. For how many years are we going to put them in jail? It is not going to work. We have to find the best solutions. In Quebec quite a lot of programs work very well, and of course, there are other models outside Quebec.

On the principle of simply locking them up and putting more and more people in jail, we have seen the example in the U.S. and it has not worked.

[Chris Charlton, NDP, Hamilton Mountain, ON]

Mr. Speaker, we have certainly read a lot in the media lately, particularly with respect to gun related crimes and gang related incidents, so I understand why we are seized with this matter today. I also understand why the governing party would like to be perceived as the law and order party.

However, there are people in my community who are concerned about crime and they are also parents who have children of their own. Above all, they are concerned about prevention. They do not want to see crimes happening in the first place. One of the things that concerns me is that while we have debated crime bill after crime bill after crime bill in this House, we have not had any debate about the much more fundamental pieces that need to be in place for today's youth to succeed.

I had the privilege of working for the national office of Big Brothers Big Sisters of Canada. As part of that organization, I worked with many of the organizations that my colleague talked about, like YOUCAN and the Boys and Girls Club, which are doing some really progressive work with children and youth to ensure that they do not ever end up in a life of crime.

As my colleague is also the children's advocate and because the House has not been seized with these matters, perhaps her committee has been, or maybe she has been involved with other bodies that are part of Parliament but not necessarily in the television limelight. Maybe she could tell us whether there are other opportunities where important work is being done to ensure that children are safe in our communities.

[The Deputy Speaker, NDP, Bill Blaikie]

Order, please. I think the House will have to take that as a comment rather than a question, because the time for questions and comments has long expired.

The hon. member for Scarborough—Guildwood, resuming debate.

[John McKay, Liberal, Scarborough—Guildwood, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I will be splitting my time with the member for Richmond.

There is a pattern here. I do not know whether you have noticed it, Mr. Speaker, and I know you have been sitting as Chair for this entire Parliament, but there is a pattern here.

Step one of the pattern is to fan the flames of fear, usually on the basis of some egregious event that happened in public and has caught the public's attention. Step two is to step up to the microphones, to great fanfare, and announce once again that the government is very tough on crime.

Step three, also to great fanfare, is to do immediate interviews and television appearances, et cetera, and announce that the government has the solution. Step four is to table a bill.

Step five is to repeat steps one, two and three for as long as the media pay any attention, for as long as the public pays any attention, or for as long as the government needs to keep the channel on the channel that is currently on.

Mr. Speaker, I know that you are an experienced parliamentarian, but you may be surprised, or you may not be, to learn that this pattern was used 16 times in the first session of this Parliament. Sixteen out of the 64 bills presented to Parliament were crime related legislation, which means that about 25% of the legislation on the floor of the House is crime related legislation.

That is a lot of criminal legislation, but it is a great pattern. It appears to generate, how shall we say it, publicity more than it actually deals with the issues. However, because it is dealt with in such a piecemeal, hodge-podge fashion with the repetition of this pattern, it gives Canadians watching the debate a very small glimpse of a very large picture, whether it is a large picture of criminality or a large picture with respect to amendments to the Criminal Code or the youth justice legislation.

By dealing with it in this way, the government in effect gets 16 photo ops, 16 press conferences and 16 TV appearances, all to great effect for the propaganda machine of the Conservative Party, but not much actually gets accomplished. When the government went to prorogation, which killed all of the activity we had in the first session, it got to do it all over again.

In this session, six out of the 29 bills that are on the floor of the House are crime and crime-related bills, so again the pattern is repeated to great effect. The Conservative Party has six more photo ops, six more press conferences and, it hopes, at least six TV appearances. It gives the appearance of actually doing something about crime when in fact nothing is getting done about crime.

Instead of a comprehensive approach, which is what Mr. Justice Nunn suggested with respect to youth in this country, we have all these little series of one-offs.

I thought it would be particularly informative for those who are listening to know that Mr. Justice Nunn had 34 recommendations. Of those 34 recommendations, about 19 were of an administrative nature and are not the prerogative of this chamber. They are largely on how the youth justice system is administered. It is administered by the province.

However, six were specific suggestions on amendments to the legislation, none of which are incorporated in Bill C-25, or if they are, it is in a very tangential way. Here we have an individual who is well respected in the field issuing a report that has 34 recommendations, six of which are of a legislative nature and none of which appear in Bill C-25. That seems to be an awfully strange way to go about being, apparently, tough on crime.

Mr. Justice Nunn has suggested that:

The Province should advocate that the federal government amend the “Declaration of Principle” in section 3 of the Youth Criminal Justice Act to add a clause indicating that protection of the public is one of the primary goals of the act.

I do not know whether that is a good recommendation or not, but it does on the face of it make a lot of sense to me. Why would Bill C-25 not contain a declaration of principle that “protection of the public is one of the primary goals of the act”?

That does seem a bit sensible to me. It also seems to be something that would be easily incorporated into a piece of legislation such as this. It would not, however, be useful to the pattern that has been established, and which I suggested at the beginning of my speech, in that it does not give any publicity hit if this kind of thing is put into the bill.

Recommendation 21 states:

--that the federal government amend the definition of “violent offence” in section 39(1)(a) of the Youth Criminal Justice Act to include conduct that endangers or is likely to endanger the life or safety of another person.

Again, why not amend the definition of a violent offence while we are at it? Why can Bill C-25 not incorporate that suggestion? It seems perfectly sensible to me.

Recommendation 22 states:

--that the federal government amend section 39(1)(c) of the Youth Criminal Justice Act so that the requirement for a demonstrated “pattern of findings of guilt” is changed to “a pattern of offences”, or similar wording....

That is an interesting one, because there is some parallel in proposed subclause 29(2) in clause 1 of this amendment. The government seems to have chosen to stick with the concept of a “pattern of findings of guilt” rather than a “pattern of offences”.

I do not sit on the justice committee, but this would seem to me to be a particularly important question to ask. It would speak to those kinds of situations when a youth who has done a series of particularly egregious offences that may not have actually generated convictions still looks like a pretty bad apple. So if in fact incarceration or detention is being considered as a way to keep this particular individual off the streets, apparently in the government's bill there must be actual findings of guilt even though this particular individual may have had a whole string of offences for which guilt has not necessarily yet been found.

I am curious as to why the government, which apparently wants to be tough on crime, is not incorporating that. There may be good reasons. I do not know. Again, this looks like a missed opportunity.

Another recommendation deals with the concept of the “responsible person” and how that responsible person should continue his or her responsibility if the person is outside of detention. There are other recommendations with respect to bail.

None of these appear in Bill C-25. It is difficult to know why these kinds of sensible recommendations do not get incorporated. They are recommendations by a respected justice on an area of law that we all agree always needs some continuous amendment and review.

Then we have some of the things that the government does put in. I want to pick up on the comment of my colleague from Scarborough—Rouge River, who said that sentencing does not reduce criminality.

In another life, I used to be a lawyer. Actually I still am a lawyer, but I do not practise. I did a very little bit of criminal law. Occasionally one would go into the prisons to interview one's client. I did make a couple of observations on the very few clients that I did actually represent.

One was that they were not the sharpest knives in the drawer. Generally speaking, people who are in the criminal business are not that sharp. Second, they frequently had some pretty horrific backgrounds, possibly due to drugs, either drugs they were taking or drugs that had resulted in fetal alcohol syndrome or fetal alcohol effect or things of that nature, which diminished their capacity to interact in society.

Frequently their educational achievements were not very high. Frequently they had dependencies of some kind, whether it was drugs or alcohol or something of that nature.

Therefore, it is a population that is not, so to speak, the most outstanding. A consistent pattern was that in each and every case they never thought they were going to get caught in the first place. Therefore, amending legislation so that you can denounce them and deter them, whether it is the Criminal Code or this particular legislation, is utterly meaningless to the population we are trying to affect.

First, none of them had any idea they were going to get caught. They all thought they were going to get away with what they were doing. Second, if they were caught, they had absolutely no idea what the sentence might be for conviction on the particular offence with which they were charged. This was consistent both with adults and with juveniles.

I just want to point out that sentencing, whether it is minimum mandatories and all the rest of the stuff that seems to go on here to great effect, does not seem to make a great deal of difference with respect to the actual criminal population that it is supposed to affect, but for some of us, it really makes us feel a lot better.

Let me pick up on a comment by Martha Mackinnon of Justice for Children and Youth. A news report states that she says:

--the Conservatives are addressing a perception that has been exacerbated by politicians and the media. She also criticized the government's move to bring back “general deterrence” for youths, saying “there's no evidence that deterrence works for young people.”

I agree with Ms. Mackinnon. I do not know who she is, but she--

[The Deputy Speaker, NDP, Bill Blaikie]

Order. I am sorry to interrupt the hon. member. I have been trying to get his attention to let him know that his time has expired, but he has been absorbed. Perhaps he could take a sentence or two to wind up.

[John McKay, Liberal, Scarborough—Guildwood, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I apologize for not recognizing your signals.

In summary, this is a bill that could have done a lot, appears to have done very little, and frankly misses the mark, but does feed the Conservative propaganda machine.

[Laurie Hawn, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of National Defence]

Mr. Speaker, I listened with interest to my colleague's remarks. I must point out one thing. He talks about penalties not being a deterrent, but when there are no penalties, clearly there is no deterrent. That is what youth are approaching the justice system with right now. They do not care because they know they are not going to be punished.

The member talks about the Nunn report and says we are not including the principle of “protection of the public”. The whole thing is about protection of the public. He said that a person has to be found guilty, not just charged. I do not think he has read the bill. It states:

--unless

(a) the young person is charged with a violent offence or an offence that otherwise endangered the public....

So clearly it is about public safety. Further on, the bill states:

(c) the young person is charged with an indictable offence....

That means not necessarily convicted. Further, the bill states:

--including any pending charges against the young person, that the young person will, if released from custody, commit a violent offence or an offence that otherwise endangers the public by creating a substantial likelihood of serious bodily harm to another person.

It is all about protection of the public. It is not about only when a young person is found guilty. It is about when he is charged and when he has a record and so on. It is clear. I am not sure why the member says it is not.

[John McKay, Liberal, Scarborough—Guildwood, ON]

Mr. Speaker, first of all, with respect to the statement that there are no penalties, there are penalties. Of course there are penalties. The member may not be happy with the application of the penalties, but there are penalties. The member may not be happy with the timeliness of the application of penalties, but there are penalties.

With respect to the member's concerns about protection of the public, why not simply adopt Justice Nunn's recommendation? It states:

--the federal government amend the “Declaration of Principle” in section 3 to add a clause indicating that protection of the public is one of the primary goals of the act.

These are the kinds of things that judges refer to continuously when considering sentences.The member may think that these are simply superfluous words, but these are significant words that Justice Nunn, on studying patterns of criminality and studying how judges deal with these things, says are important to incorporate.

Why is it not there?

[Laurie Hawn, Conservative, Edmonton Centre, AB]

It is there.

[John McKay, Liberal, Scarborough—Guildwood, ON]

It is not.

[The Deputy Speaker, NDP, Bill Blaikie]

Order. Further questions and comments, the hon. member for Marc-Aurèle-Fortin.

[Serge Ménard, Bloc, Marc-Aurèle-Fortin, QC]

Mr. Speaker, the member's speech makes more sense than what I have heard from the members sitting opposite him, with the exception of the member for Kitchener—Conestoga, who spoke this morning.

I would like to honour the member by asking him the same question I asked the minister. Is the member aware of the difference between the crime rates in Quebec and in the rest of Canada? Did he know before today that there is a difference? Did he understand why there is a difference?

[John McKay, Liberal, Scarborough—Guildwood, ON]

Mr. Speaker, yes, in terms of comparing Criminal Code offences under the youth justice system in Quebec to the others, there is a significance difference and they are significantly lower in Quebec.

There is, however, a caveat to that particular response. The caveat is that the Quebec government, for better or for worse, chooses to deal with similar offences under civil code legislation, under welfare legislation. I could be corrected on whether I am choosing the correct word. Therefore, it is not an exact comparison between Canada and Quebec.

The other provinces choose to deal with an equivalent kind of behaviour under this legislation, the Youth Criminal Justice Act, where Quebec, on a similar fact situation, will either deal with it under this or deal with it under more welfare directed legislation.

The behaviour itself I do not think is greatly different between Quebec and the rest of Canada. The way in which Quebec deals with it, however, is somewhat different and, arguably I think, somewhat better.

[Raymond Chan, Liberal, Richmond, BC]

Mr. Speaker, the Conservative government has played politics for far too long, shamelessly exploiting criminal justice issues for political gain.

The Conservatives have spent years trying to mislead Canadians saying that the Liberal Party approach on crime does not and did not work. However, Statistics Canada reported earlier this year that Canada's crime rate hit a 25 year low in 2006, completely contradicting the government's misrepresentations and fearmongering. In fact, in every province and territory, crimes rates have been reduced.

We Liberals believe that crime continues to be a very important concern that we need to tackle. However, the report proves that our approach to fighting crime was effective and has made Canadian communities safer. Our effort to fight crime was focused on a three-pronged approach: crime prevention, tough sentencing and an increase in enforcement.

The government has exploited crime statistics and incidences and tabled legislation that is focused on heavy punishment to generate headlines instead of dealing with the real issues and coming up with solutions. The Conservative government would rather scare Canadians instead of offering well thought out legislation.

Bill C-25, An Act to amend the Youth Criminal Justice Act, is a prime example of this. Instead of working with opposition parties to create meaningful changes to the Youth Criminal Justice Act, the Conservative government is once again trying to force through legislation so it can slap a headline sticker on it and call it done.

The fact is that this bill is flawed. It is flawed because it only partially addresses the recommendations made by the Hon. Merlin Nunn, retired justice of the Supreme Court of Nova Scotia and the commissioner of the Nunn Commission of inquiry.

The commission recommended that improvements be made in three core areas: youth justice administration and accountability, youth crime legislation and prevention of youth crime. The Conservative bill only talks about adding deterrence and denunciation to the sentencing principles that a court must consider when determining a sentence for a conviction under the Youth Criminal Justice Act and using pretrial detention in cases where it might be warranted.

The bill fails to add a clause indicating that protection of the public is one of the primary goals of the act. It fails to amend the definition of a violent offence in section 39(1)(a) of the act to include conduct that endangers or is likely to endanger the life or safety of another person.

It fails to amend section 31(5)(a) of the act so that if the designated responsible person is relieved of his or her obligations under a responsible person undertaking, the young person's undertaking, under section 31(3)(b), nevertheless, remains in full force and effect, particularly any requirement to keep the peace and be of good behaviour, and other conditions imposed by a youth court judge.

It also fails to address the gaps in the legislation with respect to repeat violent youth offenders.

Those are very important amendments that were recommended by Justice Nunn and the Liberal Party.

We should send this bill to committee for further review to see to it that the right amendments are made to the bill and to ensure that any changes to the Youth Criminal Justice Act reflect the necessary tightening of the bill.

The Youth Criminal Justice Act works for the majority of young offenders but we must amend the act to get tough on the group of young people whose activities pose a serious risk to society.

As Justice Nunn stated:

...I must make it absolutely clear and not open to question that all the witnesses I heard—police, prosecutors, defence counsel, and experts—agree with and support the aims and intent of the act. They accept it as a vast improvement over the previous legislation. All are convinced it is working well for the vast majority of young offenders, though it needs to be fine-tuned to provide effective means to handle the smaller, but regular number of repeat young offenders.

A full review of this bill and the implementation of Judge Nunn's recommendations would fulfill the legislative requirements, but our communities need more. We need a comprehensive criminal justice plan to be effective in fighting crime. We not only need tough legislation, we also need community-based policing, preventive measures and investments in increasing the strength in our police forces and prosecutors to ensure timely processing of cases.

Tony Cannavino, president of the Canadian Police Association, has stated that there is a massive shortage of uniformed officers and that across Canada there is not a police service that has near the number of staff it should have.

The Tory government made a promise almost two years ago to deliver 1,000 more RCMP officers and 2,500 more police officers on the streets but it has failed to deliver this to our communities. The Tory government made a promise almost two years ago and yet it has not delivered.

The Conservatives did not stop failing Canadians with just their broken promises. They have failed Canadians because they simply are not listening to those who serve and protect us. Canada's own association of police has stated that the fight against criminals will not be won with just more police and bigger jails. It takes social programs that prevent criminal behaviour. This means developing social programs that address the root problems in a holistic and collaborative manner.

I agree with Justice Nunn who stated:

To meet the need for collaboration in the provision of services, I recommend that a new and more effective strategy be developed to coordinate the various services to youth of the Departments of Community Services, Justice, Health, Health Promotion and Protection, and Education and other departments and their partner agencies (including police and community organizations) to enable greater collaboration in the provision of services to youth, better and more accessible services for at-risk children and youth and their families, and more efficient use of public services.

We also need more prosecutorial services to address the demand of paperwork and to process evidence. We need to support the provincial governments to increase the resources of the prosecutors and the court system such that criminals do not plea bargain and get away with their deserved sentencing. This is to ensure that the tough legislation we put in place is in fact effective.

The Conservatives, however, are more interested in slogan smearing and fearmongering rather than fulfilling their duty to Canadians.

Today, the Government of Canada is awash with surpluses but, after two federal budgets and a mini budget, the Conservatives have not allocated any new money to hire the promised officers. Pretending to be tough on crime is not the same as doing it. Promising funds and not actually allocating money in the budget is not the same as doing it.

Our law enforcement agencies want the necessary tools and funding for an increase in the workforce to make our communities safer. When will the government deliver on its promises?

Today I stand with the growing list of legislators who are calling the government's bluff and demanding that it fulfill its promises. In B.C. the attorney general and the Vancouver city mayor have publicly criticized the Conservative government's failure to deliver on promises of federal money to hire more officers.

[The Deputy Speaker, NDP, Bill Blaikie]

Order. Sorry, but the hon. member's time expired a little while ago. Questions and comments, the hon. member for Edmonton Centre.

[Laurie Hawn, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of National Defence]

Mr. Speaker, again I listened with interest and I agree with a lot of things that the member said about things that need to be done. That is why in fact we are doing many of those things. I want to challenge him on a couple of things though and then I will ask a question.

He talked about StatsCanada saying the reported crime rate in Canada is down. At the same time violent crime is up and youth crime is up. That is why we are talking about Bill C-25, the Youth Criminal Justice Act, to address that situation.

We talked about adding 1,000 RCMP officers and 2,500 other officers and so on. That is great and we are doing that. We are recruiting and training very hard in the RCMP.

Does the hon. member think that there is an RCMP officer store where we can just go and buy a thousand RCMP officers off the shelf? That is not the way it works. They are highly trained. It takes at least a year to train an officer once he has been recruited. It does not happen overnight. A thousand is quite a large number. We are recruiting hard. We are training hard. We cannot just snap our fingers and produce these folks out of thin air, or does he think we can do that?

[Raymond Chan, Liberal, Richmond, BC]

Mr. Speaker, that is exactly the issue. Yes, we know it takes money to train police officers and so on but we have not seen any money. It is all empty talk in thin air.

The Conservatives promised that in their 2006 election campaign platform. There have been two budgets, the 2006 and 2007 budgets, and the mini-budget which was delivered a few weeks ago, and no money at all was allocated.

The Conservatives can say that they are doing it, but if there is no money, how can they start? That is the big frustration we all have. It is not only me. The Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police has made that public in the newspapers. The attorney general of B.C., the hon. Mr. Oppal, as well as the mayor of Vancouver, Mr. Sullivan, went public to demand that the government fulfill its promise.

[Larry Bagnell, Liberal, Yukon, YT]

Mr. Speaker, I notice the member did not finish the things he wanted to say so I would like to give him an opportunity to finish the things he did not get to say within his time.

The principle of the bill is deterrence. Increasing sentences has been proven by all the experts who came to committee not to be a deterrent but the likelihood of getting caught is a big deterrent. Of course that requires more police and investment in that area.

I would like the member to say what he did not get to say and then comment on that.

[The Deputy Speaker, NDP, Bill Blaikie]

Order. I must say that the purpose of the question and comment time is not for people to give speakers the opportunity to finish what they have to say, but I know that this can happen in a less transparent way. The member for Yukon might want to try to not be quite so transparent the next time he tries that.

[Raymond Chan, Liberal, Richmond, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate my colleague's giving me this opportunity. What I was trying to say to wrap up my presentation is that the government has pretended for far too long that fighting crime is a priority when in fact the only priority for the government is to make hollow headlines.

It has missed an opportunity by failing to adequately address the gaps in the Youth Criminal Justice Act, by failing to listen to the call by legislators. Finally, the government has failed to address Canada's justice issues because it has not allocated a penny of new money, even though the government is awash with surpluses. Over the past three consecutive budgets, it has not allocated any new money to crime prevention, the hiring of new police officers or helping the provincial governments add more resources to the court system or hire more prosecutors.

[Thierry St-Cyr, Bloc, Jeanne-Le Ber, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am happy to speak to this issue today in this House. I should begin by making the following comment. Even though this is my first term in this House as the member for Jeanne-Le Ber, I have the feeling that history is repeating itself. Whether the Liberals or the Conservatives are in power, the government continually takes this same wrong-headed approach to preventing crime, especially youth crime.

Even though all the studies and all the statistics tend to show that this approach does not work, the government is continuing to go in this direction. It is true that these American-style measures, inspired by George Bush, are popular with a certain segment of the population, especially in the rest of Canada. The government wants to be tougher on criminals, tougher on crime, and it believes these measures will solve every problem.

That was particularly true, in the experience of the Bloc Québécois, when it came time to adopt the amendments to the Young Offenders Act. At that time, the bill had been introduced by the Liberal government and was clearly contrary to the wishes of Quebec. A unanimous motion had been adopted in the Quebec National Assembly and all stakeholders from Quebec demanded that no one disturb their model, based on prevention of crime, that the legislation not be changed, or, at the very least, that the law should provide for exceptions so that Quebeckers could maintain a system focused on prevention rather than on repression.

In spite of all that good will and that unanimity in Quebec, the Liberal government of the day went ahead with that bill. Some provisions were challenged in the courts. However, it is clear that in no way was the problem solved.

Today, we find ourselves again facing a government that adopts this George Bush-style philosophy and takes great pleasure in repeating its famous maxim that we must get tough on crime and tough on criminals. This government presents us with another, similar bill, which will do a great deal more harm than good.

In the course of my remarks, I would like to explain why this bill is bad. It is bad because it is founded on a series of false premises. In their reasoning, the Conservatives often refer to common sense as their argument. It is obvious, they will say, that if we introduce minimum sentences there will be less crime.

In my view, we must go beyond this facile argument of the alleged evidence and common sense. I would point out that for thousands of years people thought the earth was flat. It was a matter of common sense: look straight ahead and everything is flat. However, that was not the case. When one went a little further, one could see that the earth is round. It is somewhat the same thing in this situation. Even though, at first glance, it seems comforting and easy to say that we have only to increase penalties and crime will decrease; when we go a little further and dig deeper, we find that is not the case. When we compare the approaches used in different countries around the world, and even in Quebec, we recognize that is definitely not what is happening.

In the end, those countries where legislation is based on prevention will have the lowest rates of criminal activity while those that emphasize repression will have higher rates of crime.

To begin, what exactly is criminal activity? This is one of the Conservative government's false premises and the Conservatives know that very well.

When they say that crime is going up in Canada, that our cities are less safe and that we are living in a more violent world, they know that is not true. The figures from Statistics Canada show that this is not so. The Conservatives are absolutely misleading the public. Instead of doing their job and explaining why we should take measures focused on prevention, they go ahead with that tack.

Since the early 1990s, the crime rate has generally been going down practically across the board for all types of offences. Obviously, when we look at the figures provided by Statistics Canada, there are variations from one year to another. That is true for any statistic. For different years, there are different results, but the general trend since the early 1990s is a drop in crime.

In the meantime, the media give too much attention to certain crimes, let us say the most sensational. Some scandals are so despicable they truly shock us. The 24-hour news media reports these stories more frequently. The way this is handled by the media might leave us under the impression that crime is going up, but that is just an impression. We can say with confidence that our world is much safer now than it was 30 or 40 years ago.

I meet with people in my riding who say, “Thierry, I saw this crime or that murder in the news. It is just awful. Things are bad”. That person might be from the Saint-Henri area, for example. Today in Saint-Henri, a woman can walk alone, cross through a park and never have any problem. She does not have to be afraid of going for a walk. With all due respect, that may not have been the case 30 or 40 years ago.

Our communities everywhere are becoming safer. Is that any reason to be complacent? Of course not. The Bloc Québécois has some proposals for things we should work on.

However, the fact is that the prevention-based system produces results. We can see this even in Canada, where the crime rate has gone down since the 1990s, as I mentioned earlier. The trend is there. Last year, the crime rate went up slightly in every province except Quebec, where the legislation focuses the most on prevention, especially where young offenders are concerned. We see the same thing when we compare ourselves to the United States or any other country. This correlation is very strong.

The second big myth that will have to be dispelled is that tougher laws are effective. This is completely false, as we can see if we take the simple example of homicides. In a number of U.S. states, homicides carry the death penalty. I respectfully submit to the House that I cannot see how, in a modern society, there could be a more serious penalty than death. According to the theory of punishment, there is no greater deterrent than the death penalty. Yet the results do not bear this out.

The crime rates, for murder or homicide, in the United States are three times the rates in Canada, which has lighter sentences. In Quebec, the rates are four times lower than in the United States. We can debate and discuss that and try to find a lot of psychological reasons to explain it, but it is a fact. Stiffer sentences have not been successful in the United States or anywhere in the world where they have been brought in.

One of the fundamental reasons for this is that people who intend to commit crimes will not be deterred by the potential length of the sentence or the fact of a minimum sentence, but by the fear of being caught.

In any event, regarding the minimum sentences we are talking about, a subject dear to Conservative hearts, who in this House knows what minimum sentences apply to various crimes? For example, is there a minimum sentence that applies to theft of a vehicle over $5,000? Who in this House knows the answer? No one knows. We could do this for most sentences in this House. I see some doubting looks: people are asking themselves where I am going with this.

I am convinced that in this House, even we, as legislators, do not know by heart what sentence applies to a particular crime, what crimes call for a minimum sentence, and what that minimum sentence is. We do not know. Now imagine the young offenders on our streets. They have no idea about what the minimum sentences are. Do we really think that before they commit a crime they are going to go and consult the Criminal Code, and say to themselves that because there is a minimum sentence of seven years for a particular crime, they will not commit it, and instead they will choose to commit a crime with a minimum sentence of three years? Come on! It is absurd to think that. In reality, what truly deters criminals is the fear of getting caught.

There are people who commit crimes, for example murders, homicides. There are people who commit crimes of passion, because the sparks fly, as they say. In a moment of madness and agitation, they get into a fight and they kill someone. There is not much that can be done. They are not even thinking about the consequences of their actions. There are people who premeditate a crime and plan it so they will not get caught. It is of no importance whether the crime they are preparing to commit is punishable by 5 years or 10 years or 15 years in prison, because they are convinced they will not get caught.

And that is why, instead of devoting resources to longer and longer prison terms, we should be allocating that money to our public safety systems, police services, the RCMP and the entire crime prevention apparatus and trying to spot potential criminals, to try to catch criminals before they commit crimes.

The Conservatives often talk to us about families that are victims of criminals. They ask us what we are doing for them. Personally, I want to work to ensure that there are fewer and fewer families who are victims of crime. For a family that has seen one of its members killed, the fact that the minimum sentence is 7 or 10 or 15 or 20 or 30 or 200 years does not change anything. We must work from the perspective of prevention, and the best way to do that is to provide the resources to catch criminals.

There is something else we have to work on. That is parole. The Bloc Québécois has some proposals to make on that subject. Parole must be granted on merit. There should be no automatic release on parole. Each case has to be studied, and when it is appropriate, when there are good reasons to believe that a person is rehabilitated, then he or she will be released on parole. If the person is not rehabilitated, then he or she should remain incarcerated.

The bill before us now, like a number of the government's bills, includes measures to impose automatic sentencing. The government is telling judges that a certain crime calls for a certain minimum sentence and that they have to presume guilt. The government wants to make judges' decisions for them. Yet when it comes to parole, the government is leaving existing automatic measures in place and is ignoring this much bigger issue. After a criminal has been convicted and sentenced and has served time, the system should take into account whether that person is really ready for release. That is what really matters here. Telling someone that he or she will be sentenced to 10 or 15 years in prison regardless of the circumstances is not the best thing for our society.

I have talked a lot about crime prevention and the justice system in general, but when it comes to the youth criminal justice bill before us now, we must not forget that prison is crime school, and that is the truth. Send a juvenile delinquent—a kid who has done a few bad things or who has criminal or slightly anti-social tendencies—to prison, and he will come out a hardened criminal. Had other, more appropriate options been available, that young person might have had a chance at rehabilitation and might have become the kind of person who contributes to society and respects the law.

What happens when judges are told to apply a given rule automatically and hand down a set sentence? What happens when judges are given no room to manoeuvre so they can hand down an appropriate sentence? They are forced to send youths to prison even though it is not really necessary. The bill under consideration would reverse the onus for pretrial, presentencing detention for youth.

Imagine. This is an attack on the principle of presumption of innocence. The judges are told that unless the young person is able to prove he is not in danger of committing certain crimes, they must automatically send him to prison. It will be up to him to prove that he is not dangerous. The presumption of innocence will be reversed, even if we do not know whether or not he is guilty. But people are sometimes acquitted at trial. With this measure, young people could very well be imprisoned and end up being found not guilty. They would have been imprisoned for nothing.

Imagine the damage that could do to a vulnerable young person who may already be experiencing difficulties. He will be jailed in a school of crime, and he is subjected to that when he may not even be guilty of a crime. I must stress that this could be much more harmful than helpful.

Members may have noticed that I did not go into detail about this bill. A number of people in this House will do so. There has been much talk about it in the Bloc Québécois. Nevertheless, I would like to talk about the downside of this American-style approach. This is essentially a George W. Bush policy we are seeing today. It is a tough-on-crime policy, and that is how we will treat criminals.

At the same time, it is completely hypocritical, because they refuse to review the parole system or give our police services the money they need to catch criminals. Above all, they refuse to build a more just society where there is more emphasis on helping others. Since a good number of crimes are born out of poverty and human suffering, we would have a much greater chance of lowering crime if we tried to do something about that suffering.

To top it all off, the ultimate hypocrisy of the Conservatives, in trying to get tough on crime, is that they want to put more guns in circulation and they want to make life easier for those who wish to obtain and use firearms by dismantling the gun registry, even though everyone is telling them that it is the wrong thing to do. The police, lawyers and social workers are telling them that but, in spite of everything, they want to go ahead. Their policy in general is to simplify life for those who want to obtain firearms and to impose minimum sentences on those who commit crimes in the hope that they will not act up.

It is not the right thing to do. This government's crime prevention policy is bad. In fact, it does not have a crime prevention policy. It has a crime punishment policy that kicks in when the crime comes to light. This is not the way to go for Canada or for Quebec.

[Laurie Hawn, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of National Defence]

Mr. Speaker, I listened very carefully to my colleague and again I would challenge him on a couple of things.

He talked about the Statistics Canada statistics for crime saying that crime was down. That is true if we talk about all crime, including petty crime. The fact is that petty crime is not reported anymore because nothing is done about it.

The fact is that violent crime and youth crime are up, and we are talking about Bill C-25, the amendments to the Youth Criminal Justice Act.

He talked about deterrence and prevention. I agree that if someone has already been sentenced that will not deter the person because it is too late. However, it might deter somebody else who looks at somebody actually being caught and actually being held to account for what he or she has done.

If we want to talk statistics, statistically an habitual offender, if he is in jail, will not commit the 15 crimes in the next year that he would have committed had he been on the street. Therefore, we are talking about deterrence, not necessarily of that person but of somebody else. We are talking about the prevention of crimes and, while that person is in jail, whether it is a youth or an adult offender is immaterial, the person will not be committing crimes.

Why does my hon. colleague ignore some statistics and selectively picks others.

[Thierry St-Cyr, Bloc, Jeanne-Le Ber, QC]

Mr. Speaker, indeed, I was referring to Canadian statistics indicating that youth crime is down. In this regard, I would like to say that there is no such thing as petty crime because, when these petty crimes are not taken into account and nothing is done to rehabilitate young offenders, one day they will become hardened criminals and commit more serious crimes.

I agree that incarcerating an individual has a preventive aspect. What I am saying is that judges are in the best position to establish, on a case-by-case basis, the most appropriate sentence for a youth. A judge could decide to incarcerate a truly dangerous individual for a longer period of time in order to protect society. It is not up to us, the legislators, to automatically impose a predetermined sentence without taking the circumstances into account.

We have often heard the Conservatives criticize judges for political activism or for getting involved in politics, but the Conservatives want to do the opposite. As legislators, they want to get involved in judicial matters. In my opinion, as legislators, we must pass laws and then guide judges by indicating the maximum sentence for each crime. However, after that, we must let the judges decide what is most appropriate.

In the bill before us here today, it is especially hypocritical that the government talks about punishment as a means of preventing crime, yet it wants to amend the Young Offenders Act to include punishment as a deterrent. The government must make up its mind.

Is this meant to prevent people from committing other offences by putting them behind bars, or is it meant to deter other people from committing crimes? It is logically incoherent.

[Dean Del Mastro, Conservative, Peterborough, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I listened to what the hon. member had to say and part of what I do not think he understands is that our government does not disagree with the fundamental point that he is making, which is that there needs to be a focus on prevention. We agree with that.

In fact, we have worked very hard to support families and to support communities. We believe assisting families and communities is fundamental. Stronger families mean safer communities in my opinion.

What I do not understand and what I can never comprehend, when I hear these arguments from members of the opposition, is that they do not believe there should be an adequate punishment for crime. In my riding, people are very often outraged with what they see as lenient sentences that, quite frankly, do not fit the crime at all.

Our government is saying that sentencing is a deterrent. It is an important deterrent and Parliament should be giving direction to the courts in sentencing that we feel is fitting for the crime, in particular violent crimes, but more than that, because we made a serious commitment to Canadians for safer streets and communities.

Does the member believe that in order to have a justice system we must have just sentences, or does he believe that sentences should be completely immaterial to the crime and that we should just focus on prevention, keep the blinders on and pretend that crime is not out there, even though our communities tell us otherwise? Is that the approach he would like to take?

Would he prefer justice or would he prefer pretending it is not out there, putting the blinders on, talking kindly to people and maybe they will not do bad things anymore?

[Thierry St-Cyr, Bloc, Jeanne-Le Ber, QC]

Mr. Speaker, indeed, we believe that the punishment must fit the crime and it must be suited to the context of the crime. The only person who can decide this is a judge. Only the judge, while considering the guidelines set out by the legislators who establish maximum sentences, can determine the most appropriate punishment for the crime, the context and the individual in question.

Now, we, as parliamentarians, are all being asked to determine the minimum sentences for crimes x, y and z, full stop. And this is how to determine the appropriate punishment? Come on! We will end up with even worse disparities. For instance, two people in completely different situations will be slapped with the same minimum sentence, because the judge will not have had the latitude to gauge the most appropriate sentence for each individual. Thus, by taking away a judge's capacity to determine the best punishment, we are inviting the exact opposite: punishment that does not fit the crime.

The second thing I would like to point out is this hypocrisy. We hear talk about making our streets safer and protecting our communities, yet in the meantime, the gun registry is being dismantled. Is this not the most abysmal hypocrisy we have seen from the Conservatives? This will facilitate the circulation of firearms in our communities, yet we just heard that it is the opposition that is hindering the safety of our communities. The government must ensure that the gun registry is maintained as it is. Only then can we talk about the safety of our streets.

[The Deputy Speaker, NDP, Bill Blaikie]

I am sure the hon. member would like to carry on the debate, but we have reached the time for statements by members.

The House resumed consideration of the motion that Bill C-25, An Act to amend the Youth Criminal Justice Act be read the second time and referred to a committee.

[The Speaker, Liberal, Peter Milliken]

Before oral question period, the hon. member for Jeanne-Le Ber had the floor to respond to questions and comments. There are two minutes remaining.

Since there are no questions, we will resume debate. The hon. member for Yukon.

[Larry Bagnell, Liberal, Yukon, YT]

Mr. Speaker, I am delighted to speak to Bill C-25, An Act to amend the Youth Criminal Justice Act.

The House leader was complaining that the bill was being held up, so I hope he can get his message to his troops. Just before question period, the Conservatives were using the time up and stalling his bill.

A report prepared by Justice Nunn dealt with youth criminal justice, and it was very timely. The Conservatives wanted to improve the act, so we had this very detailed, well thought out study. The minister subsequently announced, with the justice minister of Nova Scotia, that he would improve the act. In his speech, the minister said, “Nova Scotia's request for change is in large part based on the recommendations of the Nunn Commission report”.

This is the good news, but from that point on Conservatives should become very upset. Very few recommendations from the Nunn report actually ended up in the bill. The minister has a prescription to fix the act. A number of Conservatives members have said that they want to fix the act and make improvements. They have the outline to do it and then it is not followed.

The Nunn Commission had 34 recommendations on how to improve youth criminal justice, in particular six specifically are referenced to this act. At the most, the minister only deals with three of those, as a member said earlier today, tangently. One of the three only moves the words from a couple of clauses into one clause, clause 29. Therefore, it is only a wording change. It does not change anything substantive. That leaves two changes in the bill.

One of those two changes is about 20 words, which makes some increased opportunity for the crown to increase detention in pre-trial. The exact wording of that very minor change is outlined very carefully in opposition justice critic's speech, if anyone wants to see the details of that change.

That leaves one other change and it did not come from the Nunn report. It is the use of denunciation and deterrence as reasons during the sentencing.

Therefore, we have a bill that is not even a full page long, if we were to put it all on one page. It has one major concept from the Nunn report and it avoids all these things for which Conservatives have asked, and that is increased safety. They received the recommendations in the Nunn report and everyone applauded it. I think the people who wanted those changes would be very astonished.

I forgot to say, Mr. Speaker, that I am splitting my time with the member for Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca, my esteemed colleague, who I know has some very important thoughts in this area as well.

What is more astonishing is what is missing. The Nunn Commission recommended to amend section 3, the declaration of principle, to add a clause indicating the protection of the public as one of the primary goals of the act. I cannot believe why the minister would be against the protection of the public. The Nunn report suggested that we put it into the principles of the act, and it is not there. What could the government possibly have against that?

In fact, I do not think the minister is against it. He said in his speech, when he introduced the bill, that the proposals before the House “provide new measures to protect communities from young offenders who pose a significant risk to public safety”. The government wants to protect communities from risks to public safety and then it does not put the recommendation into bill. Why not simply follow that most obvious suggestion from the Nunn Commission?

Some of the comments on the bill show the difference between the government and the other parties in finding solutions to lower crime in the country.

The first response from a member of the government, in questions on this bill, was the suggestion that safe integration was not the primary objective of the Conservatives. On punishment, is it longer sentences? I do not know, but I am sure that for all other members of the House, safe integration is a primary objective. What the people of Canada want first and foremost is to be safe again. I do not know why the Conservatives are speaking against that.

The second Conservative member who spoke suggested that we should not deal with poverty. I do not think there is a member of the knowledgeable community in our modern country who does not know that poverty can lead to circumstances that make crime more prevalent. Not all crimes are done for this reason. Wealthy people create crimes as well, but I think the vast majority of people know it is a determinant. It is astonishing that it would not be part of the solution.

The next thing a Conservative member said on the bill, before we broke for question period, was that sentencing was an important deterrent for the Conservatives. Yet, the changes in sentencing have been proved over and over again, by witnesses to committee, that it is not a deterrent. It has no significant statistical effect on the incidence of crime. What does have an effect, and my colleague from British Columbia spoke at length on this earlier, is the fact that a criminals will be caught with an increase, for instance, of police, et cetera. That does act as a deterrent, but not what has been added to the bill.

The fourth comment from the Conservatives was about the people who had lost faith in the justice system. This is a pattern and if I had my 20 minute slot, I would have gone through the whole pattern. It is a pattern of adding the wrong solution in bill after bill, a solution that does not work. They add something that is not a deterrent or they add more of the same.

People are upset. The system does not work and, in fact, it has not worked for 1,000 years. We put people in jail, they get out and reoffend. Most crimes are reoffending crimes. Why this has been so problematic is the agenda has had so many amendments with many rejected because it is not the answer. It is not what witnesses, people who work with victims, or people who work with criminals have found to be the answer.

Finally, we have some new answers that are working in the restorative justice. I have to compliment the people of Ottawa because this is Restorative Justice Week in the city of Ottawa. I went to a wonderful session on Tuesday night this week. The Ottawa Chief of Police said, “We would challenge anyone to show me a system that fails as much as our mainstream justice system”, which these bills are trying to promote.

The crown prosecutor, who was also there, said, “never seen a victim or offender happy with the existing system”. We are concerned about victims and we want to have systems like the restorative justice system and the collaborative alternate diversion family group conferencing where we finally come up with solutions that on occasion, certainly not all the time, work.

In fact, a Conservative stood and said that even the people who worked in that field said that they did not work all the time. I have to agree. The Conservatives were right with that comment. It does not work all the time, but the statistics in Ottawa show that 38% to 45% of the time it fails. The regular justice system fails 73% of the time. If there is any member of the House who would want to make Canada safer, they would obviously choose the 38% to 45% with these alternative methods for rehabilitating criminals so they do not go out and create more victims. This would make Canada safer.

This has been successful around the world with aboriginal people for centuries. Therefore, let us not continue to put in solutions that do not work. Now that there has been all this attention on justice, at least the good thing is we have heard from witnesses about things that will work. Let us start promoting those and really changing the system. Although the crime rate is going down, let us make it go down even more.

[Bradley Trost, Conservative, Saskatoon—Humboldt, SK]

Mr. Speaker, I thought I would just help the hon. member with some of his remarks.

He kept mentioning the Nunn commission and that only one of the recommendations has been included in Bill C-25.

For the member's information, the Nova Scotia justice minister is very supportive of our bill. Nova Scotia justice minister Cecil Clarke has called on members of this House to support Bill C-25. Our justice minister has worked closely with his provincial counterparts on provisions of this bill. I think the hon. member should keep that in mind when he talks about the Nunn commission and other commissions.

[Larry Bagnell, Liberal, Yukon, YT]

Mr. Speaker, that is exactly what I was trying to say at the beginning. Perhaps I did not say it clearly, but both the Nova Scotia justice minister and the federal Minister of Justice talked about the suggestions coming from the Nunn commission, so why did they only use one substantive idea?

I actually said there would be maybe three of the six suggestions related to the act itself that tangentially were dealt with, but certainly the major one is the principles of the safety of the public, which is important. I cannot believe there is any Conservative who would disagree with this, because the Conservatives are always talking about it, but when the judge considered the sentence, now he would have to look at public safety as well. That would make eminent logical sense. That was an important recommendation from the Nunn commission. I am sure that the justice ministers who were looking at that would certainly think it was very important to have public safety as a goal of sentencing.

[Keith Martin, Liberal, Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I listened to my colleague from Yukon, who does an excellent job for his constituents in his riding. In the north, particularly in aboriginal communities, violence and youth violence are terrible parts of the social structure of too many of those communities. Drug abuse, violence and sexual abuse prey upon the children in those communities and can have broad ranging, deleterious and damaging effects in the development of those children throughout their early lives and on to adulthood.

I want to ask my colleague, who comes from Yukon, if he sees these tragedies in an upfront and personal way in the communities that he serves. What solutions does he think the government ought to be doing to deal with the plague of youth crime that is affecting too many aboriginal communities in our country?

What solutions does he think this government should adopt that could prevent these problems and enable aboriginal communities to have the social and economic assets they require on the ground to change the terrible tide that occurs to too many people in too many communities?

[Larry Bagnell, Liberal, Yukon, YT]

Mr. Speaker, that was an excellent question. To a large extent aboriginal people will be as successful as everyone else, if they have the same opportunities to succeed. I found that there are the same problems with all criminals.

In fact, when the minister introduced this bill, I asked him what the government was doing. One of the major problems in the system is the overrepresentation of aboriginal people and in particular people with FAS. The government did not have a comprehensive plan.

Fortunately, the minister did say that he bowed to the constant pressure that we had put on the government to reinstate the aboriginal justice strategy only a few weeks before it was to expire. I am delighted he did that. We pushed him to do that. That strategy has been a very big success.

There have been some wonderful success stories resulting from the restorative justice programs that mentioned. Many communities in Yukon now have circles and there are wonderful success stories coming out of them. If people had not gone through this process, the statistics show that there would have been a greater chance of recidivism and thus more victims in society. There are wonderful success stories. It would be terrible if we lost this program.

The government talks about victims. Some victims were at an event on Tuesday night in Ottawa. They talked about how thankful they were that the offender had come to the circle and talked with them. They said that it helped them. The offender actually said, “No, you have helped me more”. It is a very successful system. That is the type of thing we need to do.

Aboriginal society is slightly different in the sense that it is a collective society, not simply individuals. It is very important when an offender has to actually confront the people he or she has offended in a circle, in front of the family and that social network. The elders are much more important and have more effect. It is more difficult for the offender than being incarcerated. I think the police chief said that every single person that he dealt with found it more difficult being involved with that type of restorative justice than simply being incarcerated.

[Keith Martin, Liberal, Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague from Yukon for splitting his time with me.

Youth violence and youth crime issues have sometimes been fraught with the lack of facts, are driven by emotion, which is more than understandable, and are certainly driven by fear. Those who have been victimized by youth criminals know full well the pain and suffering they endure and sometimes find it, understandably, very difficult when the system does not come to their aid as it should. Over the last decade or so a lot has changed for victims but more needs to be done.

The government has introduced a bill that supposedly is going to make our streets safer. At least that is supposedly the goal. What if the interventions of the government made our streets less safe? What if it was introducing interventions that would increase the level of criminality, not prevent youth crime and not deal with youth crime in a way that would improve the safety of the general public?

Dr. Laurence Steinberg, a child psychologist at Temple University, suggests that family friendly policies and programs to promote parental effectiveness, parental education and prenatal care are very important. He also argues that additional benefits to families are derived from programs addressing mental health, substance abuse recovery and the reduction of poverty. I will explain why I mention this in the introduction of my speech.

I have been a corrections officer in the past. I have worked as a physician in adult jails and youth jails. I have seen a number of communities where youth crime is prevalent. It strikes me that we have to do things to address those who have committed crimes and also to protect the general public, which is absolutely the first order of business of any government. It is also the government's responsibility to introduce policies which will make our country safer, but some of the policies the government is introducing are going to make our streets less safe.

For example, the government wants to introduce policies that will put low level drug dealers in jail. Who are those drug dealers? The low level drug dealers are addicts themselves. If we throw those individuals in jail, all we will do is harden their criminal behaviour and drive them toward worse criminal behaviour when they get out.

The low level drug dealer needs to deal with his or her underlying problem, which is addiction. That is why the government needs to work with the provinces to adopt policies that address the plague of addiction and substance abuse that affects youth and adults alike. What is needed are solutions that are based on fact and science, not based on ideology.

If we look at our policies in terms of the youth criminal population, a good percentage of those individuals suffer from fetal alcohol syndrome and fetal alcohol effects. That occurs when a woman drinks alcohol when she is pregnant, particularly during the first two trimesters, and it affects the development of the child's brain to such an extent that the average IQ of a child is in the seventies and behavioural problems occur. A number of those children commit crimes. Many of them fall prey to addictions and that puts them into the realm of our judicial system.

What if we were to prevent fetal alcohol syndrome and fetal alcohol effects? I am not talking about putting up posters in communities. I am talking about substantive solutions that would address the problem at its heart. Fetal alcohol syndrome is the leading cause of brain damage in our country and it is preventable. There is a community in my riding where it is estimated that 70% of the people who live there have fetal alcohol syndrome or fetal alcohol effects. Imagine that.

Sixty per cent of the people in jail are determined to have fetal alcohol syndrome or fetal alcohol effects. If this is such a problem, why is the government not introducing policies that will actually work to prevent that? Why is the government not working with its provincial counterparts to introduce policies that would prevent youth crime? Why is it not implementing a national head start program that works to prevent youth crime?

If I were to say that there is a program that results in a 60% reduction in youth crime, that saves the taxpayer $7 for every $1 invested, would people not think it was a good solution? I would think any responsible government would embrace that policy.

Why did the government kill the national early learning program when the facts support that an early learning program, which enables children to have at least one responsible adult in their lives and where they can have adequate parenting, proper nutrition and proper access to love and care, ensures that a child's brain develops normally, particularly in the early years?

By keeping kids in school longer, they become less dependent on social programs, have better outcomes in education and have better integration into society. All of those things reduce youth crime. Why does the government not take the initiative to work with the provinces where it has willing partners to implement those solutions, such as an early learning headstart program, for every citizen in this country? That works.

Whether it is in Ypsilanti, Michigan, where it has had a 25 year retrospective analysis, or it is in a place like Hawaii with its healthy start program that produced a 99% reduction in child abuse rates, those programs, with a minimal amount of money and by working with parents and their children, have a profound positive effect on the outcomes of those children.

The provinces have another obstacle in terms of the implementation of the justice system. The provinces, which are the managers of our justice system, have backlogs. Right now, there is a huge prison population who have been remanded in jail while awaiting their day in court. We know that justice delayed is justice denied. Why does the Minister of Justice not work with his provincial counterparts to ensure they have the resources to ensure justice is seen to be working?

The government can also work with the provinces to ensure that administration takes place. The police officers have a terrible time, as do Crown prosecutors, to ensure youth criminals are able to have their day in court and that justice occurs in a fair but expeditious fashion.

All manner of loopholes exist that enable defence attorneys to block the ability of the justice being seen to go through from beginning to end and that is a big problem. It is frustrating for the police, for the courts and for the victims. It is frustrating for all concerned, except perhaps those who are involved in the defence and those who have committed the crime.

Intelligent solutions have been offered by the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police, by the Canadian Police Association and by victims groups that the government should be listening to, rather than pulling solutions out of its ear that are not based on fact and not based on experience but are rooted in ideology.

Not all of the interventions are bad. Keeping those who have committed violent offences and who have been shown to break their probation rules in jail is good because it has been proven that they committed those acts and that they flagrantly abuse the law as they see fit.

However, the government has a role. It has an obligation and a responsibility to ensure that it is implementing solutions with the provinces that work.

In my riding, in my area of Victoria, we have an enormous problem of youth crime and, in terms of homelessness, that is largely driven by drugs. The government should be doing two things.

We have good laws right now that address organized crime but they can be and should be strengthened. The government should be putting out a policy that deals with organized crime.

Right now, organized criminal activity that occurs across the border is fuelling the introduction of guns, drugs and other contraband, including contraband cigarettes, into Canada and yet the government has stuck its head in the sand and does not want to see it. It is happening all along the St. Lawrence and has become a huge problem for those communities along the St. Lawrence, including many aboriginal communities. However, no one speaks for those people who live in those communities. The government has stuck its head in the sand and those people are actually the victims of the government's neglect of their plight.

The other thing the government should have is an effective drug policy. It should also be supporting the Insite safe and supervised injection program in Vancouver, allowing it to be used in other communities in the country, and the NAOMI project, which is a narcotics substitution project that has been proven to get addicts out of jail, back into the system and to move on with their lives.

[Ed Fast, Conservative, Abbotsford, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I was pleased to hear my colleague begin his speech by referring to the fact that the most important role of government is to protect its citizens. I commend him for saying that but I think he went downhill from there.

He used to be on the opposition side of the House when the Liberals were in government and for years he railed against the Liberals for their inaction on crime. I had a chance to review some of his comments many years ago. And then something happened, although I do not know exactly what, but he crossed the floor and joined the governing Liberals of the day.

He spent a few years there and, over those years, violent crime got worse. In fact, Statistics Canada recently reported that not only did violent crimes in general get worse, but youth crimes went up by 3% and the number of youth accused of murder in 2006 was the highest in 40 years.

Given the fact that the Liberal policy of 13 long years failed, why will he not now give an opportunity to a new Conservative government to implement the kinds of criminal law policies that Canadians demand?

[Keith Martin, Liberal, Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca, BC]

Mr. Speaker, my colleague's facts are dead wrong on a number of counts.

He is correct in the sense that last year there was a blip and an increase in violent crime, but if he would be good enough to look at the statistics that he claims he looked at, he ought to look at the fact that basically from the late 1980s there has been a steady decline in crime, including gun crime, across the country and it has been in a steady decline for more than 14 years.

He is correct about there being a blip last year, but there is also a regional blip, particularly in Toronto, which means that we need to be looking for solutions to the problems in Toronto. The community and the mayor have come up with a number of solutions.

However, I want him to look into his heart and ask himself a question. His government is going to introduce a series of policies that will incarcerate more people. Some of those people, particularly that nub of small population that are inveterate criminals and are causing a problem, should be in jail and there should be a way to ensure that the police do not have go through this rotating door all the time.

He needs to ask himself whether his government should be implementing policies to deal with substance abuse and drug abuse, to have an early childhood education program for children, to have psych therapy for children and to have detox and treatment programs. Those are the things that work.

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I listened with great interest to this debate because I think it is very important to have these discussions.

I would like to offer my own interpretation of what we are looking at because for a number of years my wife and I worked with homeless people in downtown Toronto and we would take in people coming from the prison system to live with and to work with on rehabilitation. We found, of course, that the vast majority of criminals were not the evil ones that they are sometimes portrayed as, but are actually mostly the stupid ones. The reasons for which they get involved in crimes are so abominably stupid most of the times that it is surprising they did not get caught before they started.

However, what we found time and again with recidivism were issues of addiction and poverty and that once they fell into that system the abuse and humiliation, which is what they would talk about in prison, damaged them so much that they were coming out much worse than when they went in. It became harder and harder to help someone, especially young offenders who had been in two or three times, because of the abuse they were suffering in prison.

Does the hon. member have any suggestions about this facet of the criminal population, the ones who are first getting in there and how we can actually keep them from ending up as worse citizens at the end of the day?

[Keith Martin, Liberal, Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca, BC]

Mr. Speaker, my friend obviously knows where he comes from with his experience in this.

There is a small subpopulation of individuals who are inveterate criminals, who are mentally competent and who are actually sociopathic or psychopathic. They need to be in jail to protect the public at large. There is no question about that. The police are very frustrated with them and there needs to be a way to get them in jail and a way that works better.

However, for the population the member talked about, we need a drug policy that works. We need a prevention solution that works, which is the head start program for kids. We need adequate detox, adequate treatment facilities, the early learning program for children and psych therapy because many of these people have dual--

[The Acting Speaker, Conservative, Andrew Scheer]

Resuming debate, the hon. member for Laval.

[Nicole Demers, Bloc, Laval, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise this afternoon to speak to Bill C-25. I have heard this bill being discussed all day by various colleagues who have different positions.

However, I think that there is room in the debate on this bill for the individual, the grandmother, the mother, the person looking at the situation from a different point of view than the legal experts.

It is true that if we were legal experts, we would look at this pragmatically without too much thought for the consequences of our decisions. The consequences do not affect us. They will affect the people this bill will target in the future: our young people. There are 308 members in this House, and I believe that many among us have children, grandchildren and teenagers. But the difference between our children and the children this bill would put in prison for committing serious crimes, is that we are probably in a position to offer them services to get help.

When we talk about juvenile delinquents, we are often talking about young people who come from disadvantaged, impoverished backgrounds. Unfortunately, we are also often talking about youth who come from aboriginal communities, and for good reason. When you do not have any dreams to pursue when you wake up in the morning, when you have no way to realize your ambitions, you may well rebel as an adolescent and wind up doing something to finally make a name for yourself. But sometimes, people do strange things for recognition.

I am not trying to say that I am in favour of what our young people do and the violence they often engage in. In my opinion, everyone in this House had a difficult adolescence. If we did not, it was probably because we were luckier or more privileged or because our parents were able to protect us and gave us as much affection, love and discipline as they could.

But this is not the whole reason young people rebel. Rebellion is part of adolescence, part of the transition to adulthood. When adolescents rebel, they sometimes do reprehensible things that they are not necessarily aware of. Even though they want to become adults, adolescents are still children. Even though in their own minds they already have adult thoughts and tastes, emotionally they are often still children and need someone to guide them and help them find their way.

Often, young people step out of line because they are far more spontaneous than when they become adults. Even here, in this House, adults often step out of line because they are spontaneous and spontaneously decide to rebel against a colleague, a policy or ideologies they do not appreciate. But we are adults, and we should always behave like pragmatic adults and keep our feelings in check.

This, however, is not the reality. Imagine being an adolescent who is having problems, who has little in the way of resources, who has no money and wants to be like everyone else, like those who have money and wear designer clothes, those who go to the movies and to concerts, which, these days, can cost $65, $150 or even $200 a ticket. Although I do not condone the actions of these adolescents, I can certainly understand why they are sometimes tempted to do something reprehensible in order to achieve their ends.

Should we immediately give them sentences that, in reality, rival adult sentences? Does anyone believe that this is what will get them back on track and make them into serious adults? I do not believe that putting children in prison will produce better citizens. I do not believe that establishing harsher sentences for our young people will produce better citizens.

I do not believe that prison, any more than prayer, can transform a person. It has long been said: “pray and you will be healed”. The same is true when it comes to prison: it just does not happen. All too often, the very opposite is what happens—and I am not referring to prayer, but to prison. Quite often, rather than making someone more socially responsible, prison teaches them the tricks that only lead them deeper into the spiral of crime.

Prisons are full of hardened criminals, such as murderers. Often, people in prison have no concept of right and wrong. Is that really what we want for our children?

When I wake up in the morning and I hear on television that a bunch of teenagers had a fight and one of them died, or that an elderly person was assaulted and beaten, or that some teenagers stole some weapons and shot at other teenagers, that scares me. It would scare anyone. But will that fear make me want to put all children in prison? That would not make sense. It does not make sense to make a law so restrictive that it prevents us from giving these children a chance to become full members of society again.

There have been so many studies on the subject. We have a good record in Quebec. We are constantly working to give our children back a sense of fairness, of justice, of belonging to society, as well as an understanding that being part of society means having both rights and responsibilities. If we spent a little more time educating children about that, if we ourselves, as responsible adults, made a stronger commitment to teaching our children about rights and responsibilities, then perhaps fewer of our children would choose the wrong path.

Today, the government is trying to persuade us that there is no hope for our children. I refuse to accept that. I refuse to believe that our children are intrinsically bad.

I refuse to believe that the bad in children who are 12, 13, 14, 15 or 16 is so entrenched that they are beyond redemption. I refuse to believe that.

I wonder how many people here have thought about that. I wonder whether the Minister of Justice has children; if he has adolescents. I wonder if he always follows the rules. Does he always drive his car at 100 km an hour? Does he always make a complete stop? Does he ever have a drink before getting in his car? I wonder. We are entitled to wonder. When we legislate for children, we have to be as pure as the driven snow and I do not think that is the case for any one of us here. I am not; and I am not a murderer either.

We are talking here about changing laws for the future, for a long time. When legislation is passed, it is not just for a year or two. It does not come and go like political parties falling in and out of favour. That is not how it works. Unfortunately, when a law is entered in our books, it is there for a long time, unless we change it by eliminating parts of it. It is still very hard work. And even if we do this hard work, because we have had second thoughts, does not guarantee results with our children who are growing up right now.

Our children need parents with financial security. They need parents who are not experiencing a work shortage or a gap in employment insurance benefits if they are without work, or a lack of affordable housing.

I went to Prince Albert this summer. I met some people there from Edmonton who told me that in the middle of their city is a tent-city to shelter Edmontonians who can no longer afford rent. I have not heard anyone talk about that in this House. The Conservatives are unable to find solutions to poverty, the lack of affordable housing and other problems in Quebec or Canada that prevent our children from attending the schools of our choice or from participating in the activities of their choice because people can no longer afford it.

When people lose their jobs at 55 years of age, they very likely have children, adolescents, who are left without a lot of choice. The Conservatives cannot do anything in that regard, but they want legislation to ensure that these children, who will never have as much as other people, will be imprisoned if they do something wrong. They want to pass a law to do that. Children are allowed to have guns in Alberta and Saskatchewan in particular. They are allowed to play with very dangerous things, and now the Conservatives want to pass a law so that they can be imprisoned after they use their guns on someone.

What lack of thought. What are we coming to? It is socially reckless. What are we doing for the generations to come?

I do not think that this is the way to solve the problems of our young people. We should put the money where it is needed. We should ensure that parents have the wherewithal to feed their children. We should ensure that they have what it takes to nourish their minds, their bodies and their interests and that they can buy books to nourish their dreams. We should do that first, and then I am sure we would have a lot fewer delinquents. I am sure that if we give our children what they need to grow up proudly, there will be no need for these prisons.

We know that some children are sexually assaulted. This also helps to create habitual criminals. What are we doing, though, to protect our children from sexual assault? What are we doing to protect the children who are out on the streets right now? What are we doing to provide them with homes? There are very few places where they can go when they lose their way or run away from home. What are we doing for them? Rather than sending them to prison, why not try to work with them? Why not try to give them a chance? That is what we are doing in Quebec, and it is having real results.

In the United States, on the other hand, they are just creating habitual criminals. The earlier a child goes to prison, the greater the chance that he will become a habitual criminal. We know that in Quebec. Why can people not understand that in the rest of Canada? Why? What is the problem? Is it between the ears? Why can they not understand that children have a right to be free? Children need to be taught, though, that freedom entails both rights and responsibilities. We should teach them that instead of putting them in prison.

All day long, I have heard our friends—I do not even want to use that word any more—our Conservative opponents, let me say, talking about the importance of putting children in prison. Usually, I would qualify the Conservatives as adversaries, but they are not even adversaries; they are simply bad guys.

Among the Conservatives you will find people who are against abortion. They want the babies of women who have been raped to come into the world so they can become children without dreams, criminals that we put in prison. Is that the kind of future we want to give them? Is that the justice, the policy we want to introduce? The kind of policies that we need are the ones that will eliminate poverty, that will allow for the enrichment and empowerment of our children, policies that will enable everyone to profit from the fruits of this money that is constantly collected. It is in the order of $14 billion, $11 billion and $27 billion.

We send money to Saudi Arabia and we send them recommendations. That is what they told us, at noon today, concerning a woman who had received a sentence of 200 lashes. What treatment will our children receive in the places where we want to imprison them? Are we going to wash our hands of them too? After all, what is important is to get rid of them, right? What is important is to close the door so that we do not see what is going on. Is that really what is important?

Unfortunately, that is what seems to be important. They are completely uninterested in the results that such a policy could produce. They could not care less. They have not given it five minutes' thought. They are populist; they do like so many others. For our part, we do not want to lower ourselves to that. The government responds to pressure rather than doing what it should. It is easier. It is easier to build prisons than to commit money to combat poverty.

Needless to say, I will be voting against this bill. I hope that my colleagues in the opposition will vote against it as well. As for the rest of my colleagues, I do not expect anything from them.

[The Acting Speaker, Conservative, Andrew Scheer]

I see several members rising for questions and comments. I will try to do a minute for each question and answer to accommodate more members.

The hon. Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of National Defence.

[Laurie Hawn, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of National Defence]

Mr. Speaker, I cannot resist saying that this is just right out of Days of our Lives. Does the hon. member really think that we are going to go down the streets rounding up children, throwing them in jail and giving them 200 lashes each because they are naughty? For crying out loud, this is absolutely outrageous.

Let me ask the member a simple question. Does she think that a curfew for a year is a just penalty for someone who gets three friends together, goes home, gets baseball bats and golf clubs and then knocks on another juvenile's door and, in a premeditated way, beats him to death? Is curfew for a year a just penalty?

[Nicole Demers, Bloc, Laval, QC]

Mr. Speaker, as usual, my colleague demonstrates that he does not listen when we speak. I did not say that he should give our children 200 lashes.

On the question of imposing a curfew on children for a year, in Quebec we have proved that we can adapt the punishment to the crime committed and that sending them right to prison is not going to straighten them out. While these children did something that is not right, we also have to see the root of the problem. It is not enough to say that a crime was committed, particularly when it is committed by children. It is not enough to say that a crime was committed when we do not know what the root of the problem is. We must absolutely ensure that we know why the crime was committed.

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I listened with great interest to my colleague's speech. I found it very powerful because more and more now we are talking about the criminalization and the demonization of our young people. It is, I think, a profound change in our society.

I was a school trustee. I saw schools putting in CCTV cameras to spy on our young people because they are up to something. I have seen schools where they have taken out the meeting places where young people spend time together because if those young people are spending time together they are causing trouble. There is a sense that young people are a threat to be watched all the time.

Where is the question about how these young people are our citizens? These are the people we adults should be working with instead of just always blaming them, stopping them on the streets and making sure they have no place to hang out. This is what we are seeing and not just with the Conservative Party. That party is a manifestation of a much larger problem.

When Sun Media has a story about a little old lady mugged by a punk, we will notice that there are members in the House who have a spring in their step and a whistle as they sing. It seems to make their day that they can come here and say that they have another example of evil youth. I would like to ask the member what she thinks about this continual demonization of young people.

[Nicole Demers, Bloc, Laval, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his question.

What is happening is in fact very unhealthy and it makes me very afraid. It makes me very afraid because we are seeing a very intense right-wing wave that has got hold of some people’s minds.

And yet we know that Dr. Lipsey has done meta-analyses over several years on the subject of rehabilitating offenders. He tells us that for adolescents, rehabilitation is much more effective than imprisonment. This is someone who is recognized worldwide. Why not put our faith in people who have done studies for years rather than putting our faith in what we feel, as an individual or a minister or an MP? Why not put our faith in what has been done by qualified people who do nothing but this, rather than wanting to imprison our children for a few votes in a few provinces?

[Raymond Gravel, Bloc, Repentigny, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I was very pleased to hear the speech by my colleague from Laval. She is a woman with heart who speaks from her heart and I found it very interesting. I have two little questions to ask her, but I do not know whether she will be able to answer them both.

First, she drew a parallel between prayer and prison. I would like her to expand on what she meant. Second, I would also like to know the statistics. We are told that the crime rate is falling, but at the same time we are toughening up the laws. I do not know what the statistics are in this regard. Is there a difference between Quebec and the rest of Canada? I think that the rehabilitation rate is much higher in Quebec than elsewhere and that the policy is perhaps different. I would like her to expand on this.

[Nicole Demers, Bloc, Laval, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I want thank my colleague for his question.

I made reference to prayer because I know our colleagues truly believe in it. In fact, I think they believe in prison as much as they do in prayer. I believe in the power of prayer. They say, pray and you shall be healed, but that is not what I believe. Pray, do something and then you will heal. We do not heal automatically. This is not a time of miracles, especially not since this government came to power. In talking about prayer, reference is often made to the Conservatives, who are very right leaning and often use prayer to resolve their problems.

However, as far as rehabilitating our offenders is concerned, we have such a high success rate in Quebec because we use the right tools and we believe in these young people and we believe that by working with them we can help them do something good.

[Myron Thompson, Conservative, Wild Rose, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I quite often listen to members like this one and the member from the NDP, who seems to think that everybody is demonizing young people these days. I keep hearing the message from that member's party that if we cleaned up poverty, we would clean up crime. Do rich kids in Quebec not commit crimes?

[Nicole Demers, Bloc, Laval, QC]

Mr. Speaker, if the hon. member had bothered to listen to my entire speech he would have understood when I said that, fortunately, some parts of society are able to provide services to their children when they slip up.

However, people who are poor do not have the capacity to provide these services. How many rich children go to rehabilitation or detoxification centres that cost thousands of dollars? How many poor children go? None, and they will die injecting heroine in their arms because they were unable to get help.

That is the difference. It is not that rich children do not commit crime, it is that they have lawyers to defend them other than crown attorneys. Rich children might have parents who do their part. Even still, not all rich children have that.

All children must be treated equally, with respect, justice and fairness. We will not achieve that by incarcerating them.

[Joe Volpe, Liberal, Eglinton—Lawrence, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I tried to follow the remarks of the honourable member. I think I understood that she would like reasonable and fair training for every individual, whether they are young people or adults. The role of training and educating individuals in our society falls under provincial jurisdiction.

Second, she would like to see a sharing of social and community values with all citizens, particularly with young people. In the past, training in those values was in the hands of the church. Today, we no longer accept the role of the church in the training of the community.

Finally, the member says that we must eradicate or eliminate poverty. The causes are economic and I know that there are political programs with economic aspects that are aimed at eliminating poverty.

However, I would like to ask her what alternatives the Bloc is offering to the bill introduced by the government that she and her Bloc colleagues supported against the Liberals.

[The Acting Speaker, Conservative, Andrew Scheer]

There are only 30 seconds remaining for the hon. member for Laval.

[Nicole Demers, Bloc, Laval, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I will not dignify that with an answer.

My remarks were very direct in calling for the things we need. When I talk about being able to eliminate poverty, my colleague knows very well that I never wanted a centralizing government and that I still want the money to be given to the provinces so that we can deliver our programs, as we are doing in Quebec.

What we have proposed is making a difference. What we have always done, are still doing and will continue to do is to offer simple alternative solutions that have been tried elsewhere and have been successful, such as what we are doing in Quebec; for example, our day care program, our health care system and our system of—

[The Acting Speaker, Conservative, Andrew Scheer]

Resuming debate, the hon. member for Dartmouth—Cole Harbour.

[Michael Savage, Liberal, Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to have the opportunity to speak to Bill C-25, which I think responds to a very significant need in the country and certainly responds to a demand for action from many people in my own constituency of Dartmouth--Cole Harbour.

I can indicate certainly my support in principle for the bill. I think there are some significant things in the bill that need to be changed or added to, specifically in terms of how Justice Merlin Nunn's recommendations were used or not used. I think there is enough good in the bill that we need to send it to committee for further discussion.

Crime is a huge issue for Canadians. Probably there are not that many places in the country where it is more of an issue than it is in my own community of Halifax, more specifically Dartmouth--Cole Harbour. I have had the opportunity to meet with very many constituents of mine who have come to see me specifically about the incidence of crime. Quite often it is youth crime, but not always, and perhaps it is even exaggerated a little. Nonetheless, it is a big issue with a lot of people who live in my area, just as it is for people across Canada.

I met not too long ago with the Smythe family, whose son was bullied and then beaten up very badly. They do not feel they have the protection they need as a family to deal with the circumstances that their son, through no fault of his own, found himself in. He was beaten up and is now back in school walking the same halls as the perpetrators of that crime.

I think there is a moral responsibility upon governments at all levels, federal, provincial and municipal, to make sure that people feel safe in their communities. Right now many people do not feel safe, whether the crime rate is up or down. Over the years it has come down. Nonetheless, we have a responsibility to make sure that all citizens feel safe in their communities, on their streets and particularly in their schools.

Jason McCullough is a person whose name has become well known in my community. He was murdered some years ago in the north end of Dartmouth. His murder has never been solved. The case is still open. Every year in October, there is a candlelight vigil and community members get together to remember Jason and to walk through the streets that he used to walk through as a student. They do it to remember Jason and to put on the pressure so that he is not forgotten and his case continues to get attention.

My own brother is the vice-principal of Dartmouth High School. He loves the kids. He is a great teacher and now he is a great administrator. I have talked to him and other administrators and teachers who tell me that we need to do something to make sure that repeat and violent young offenders in particular are dealt with. Nobody in these schools wants to abandon these kids for life, and they are kids, but they also think it is an absolutely unacceptable circumstance that people who continually violate are put back into a circumstance with the people whom they have already violated and may violate in the future.

The week before Parliament resumed in October, I had the occasion to call an open meeting. I have a series of community round tables in Dartmouth--Cole Harbour, usually on a specific topic. I ask people to come in. We have held them on health, education, development and a number of other things. This latter one was entitled, “What are your priorities for this Parliament?” I just asked the people in my community to come to this open forum and tell their member of Parliament what they wanted to see done in Parliament and what were their priorities. This was before the Speech from the Throne.

We talked about a number of things. Poverty came up continually. Poverty was a big issue. So was the issue of Afghanistan: what is the right thing to be doing in Afghanistan? Child care came up.

The issue that resonated most at that meeting was the issue of crime, because again, we had families come to that meeting and stand up and say that their family life has changed because they do not feel safe in the streets. Their son or daughter or someone close to them has been the victim of a crime and they feel helpless. They feel powerless.

In a lot of cases, people said that they do not exactly know the details of all the legislation in Canada, but they just have a sense that it is not working for them and they feel we have to do something about it. Specifically, people talked about the Youth Criminal Justice Act and what we can do to tighten it up.

The history of what is now the Youth Criminal Justice Act goes back to the Juvenile Delinquents Act of 1908 or something like that. The Young Offenders Act was a dramatic improvement. There is still a lot of confusion. I heard the Minister of Justice last night on CBC refer to changes he was making to the Young Offenders Act, so he misspoke, but a lot of people still think the Young Offenders Act is in force. The Youth Criminal Justice Act is the source of an awful lot of confusion.

In Justice Merlin Nunn's report, on which much of this legislation relies in the form of his recommendations, on pages 166 and 167, actually says the Youth Criminal Justice Act is a very sound piece of legislation.

In fact, it is one of the best pieces of youth justice in the world, but there are holes in it. There are gaps and those gaps relate to the issue of repeat and violent offenders. We do not need to blow up the Youth Criminal Justice Act, but it is appropriate to look at it and make sure we approach it in a reasoned way.

We also need to make sure, when we deal with the issues of youth justice, that we are getting out in front of the problem as well as just dealing with it when it happens. We also need to believe, as I do, in rehabilitation.

I met with a member of the Federation of Canadian Municipalities, FCM, from Saskatchewan this afternoon who was telling me about a politician, who I had not heard of but other members will have in Saskatchewan, who had a criminal past and was reformed, rehabilitated and elected in the Saskatchewan Party and is part of the government today.

People can be rehabilitated. We should never suggest that people cannot be rehabilitated. That would be an absolute failure and an admission of our inability to deal with circumstance. It is not that way.

While we look at these changes, some of which I support quite strongly, we have to get out in front of the problem. We need to look at things like child care for Canadians. I have made no secret of that.

I have spoken in the House about how strongly I felt about the plan that the former government had for child care. We may disagree on the best way to deliver it, whether it is through the universal child care benefit that the government has come forward with or the plan that I believe in, but we have to accept that not all children are born with an equal opportunity for success or even an equal opportunity for a good life.

Quite often, it is those kids who fall through the holes in society and end up dealing with the criminal justice system on a repeat basis. That has to be changed.

We could invest not only in child care but in things like the Boys & Girls Club. We could build jails, but the best thing we could do for kids is to build the infrastructure they need.

My community has the Dartmouth North Boys & Girls Club, the Cole Harbour Boys & Girls Club and near where I live there is the East Dartmouth Community Centre. Here the federal, provincial and municipal governments got together and decided to put money toward it because there were a lot of kids who did not have an equal opportunity for success and a good life.

The Boys & Girls Club of East Dartmouth is led by people like John Burton and Dave who run the programs and are friends to the kids. They are both mentors to the children and provide the kind of support that gives a lot of kids, who otherwise might not have it, a chance to succeed and access to opportunity.

With regard to the infrastructure that the FCM was talking about today, again to go to my community, there are less hockey rinks in Dartmouth now than when I was growing up. A couple have closed over the last 10 years. We do not have the infrastructure we need.

Anybody here would agree that if kids have a chance to play hockey, which is prohibitively expensive, basketball or soccer and feel like they are part of a group through recreation, they have a better chance to succeed, to feel valued, to live a dignified life, and to avoid coming in contact with the criminal justice system.

I suggest investing in schools, both public schools, pre-kindergarten to grade 12, and universities. We need to invest in schools. Nova Scotia has a woeful record of investing in public schools over the past number of years. It is very low in the per capita rankings. Municipally, provincially, and federally we need to get together and decide that there is nothing more important than the children of the next generation of Canadians. We must invest in schools and give all kids an opportunity to succeed.

There are other things. I had a chance to meet, as I often do, with RCMP officers and police officers who are assigned to high schools in my community. I met with an RCMP officer recently who works in the Cole Harbour high school. He told me that one of the things that works the best with kids, and people may think he is crazy, was restorative justice.

We have a champion of restorative justice in Nova Scotia in Danny Graham who was the former leader of the Liberal Party in Nova Scotia.

When kids have the opportunity to understand what they have done and a chance to make compensation, it has a big impact on them. Quite often it has a big impact on the families of victims as well, who are very integral to the process of restorative justice.

We have this legislation today. It was alleged to have been inspired by the Nunn commission, the hon. Merlin Nunn, retired justice of the Supreme Court of Nova Scotia. His report came about as a result of the tragic incident of Theresa McEvoy, who was killed by a young offender in a car crash on October 14, 2004. Two days before his criminal act caused her death, he was released from custody, although he was facing numerous charges. That is on the front page of the Nunn commission report.

Justice Nunn talks about specific problems within the Youth Criminal Justice Act. He talks about the gaps that exist. He also talks about, as I mentioned before, some of the very good parts of the legislation that today form the Youth Criminal Justice Act. He does not want to throw it all out. He wants to refine it to adjust to those circumstances.

I think we should look at the Nunn report. I have most of it here. It is quite a significant document. I suspect that most members of the House have had a chance to look at it. He says on page 169 in his summary of approach to recommendations:

It would be foolhardy to suggest that we can prevent all youth crime. However, we can prevent a great deal by reducing the causes, and we can control others by instituting programs and systems to cut down on further criminal activity by those already in the system.

I think that paragraph summarizes what Justice Nunn was about. When this report came back I think last December, it was highly acclaimed. It was significantly thought out. It brought in a whole variety of viewpoints. It talked about some very specific Nova Scotia problems in criminal justice, even down to fax machines that were not working, that things such as that can actually have an impact on criminal justice. The report talks about some of the improvements that can be made.

I recall the Minister of Justice being in Halifax I think before Parliament came back. He credited Justice Nunn with having put forward a good report and indicated he was going to move on that. The Minister of Justice is a person I take at his word and I think his intentions are entirely appropriate.

I do think that we are missing out a little bit on the front end. I also think we are missing out on the rehabilitation side. The summary of the bill, as members will know, is that it makes two specific amendments to the Youth Criminal Justice Act.

It adds deterrents and denunciation to the sentencing principles that a court must consider when determining a sentence for someone convicted under the Youth Criminal Justice Act. It facilitates the use of pre-trial detention in cases where a youth has committed a violent crime, has breached their current conditions of release, or has been charged with an indictable offence for which an adult would be liable to imprisonment for a term of more than two years, and has a history that indicates a pattern of findings of guilt.

We believe that using the Nunn report as an inspiration for federal legislation makes perfect sense. We also think that the report of Justice Nunn brought in a good balance. We think some of that balance is missing. We think perhaps we can do some work on it at committee. I certainly want to support in principle the legislation. I would also want to point out some of the recommendations in this rather lengthy Nunn commission report that were not followed.

Recommendation 11:

--that the federal government amend section 42(2)(m) of the federal Youth Criminal Justice Act to remove the time limits on the sentencing option for a court to require a young person to attend a non-residential community program--

Recommendation 20:

--that the federal government amend the “Declaration of Principle” in section 3 of the Youth Criminal Justice Act to add a clause indicating that protection of the public is one of the primary goals of the act.

Recommendation 21:

--that the federal government amend the definition of “violent offence”...of the Youth Criminal Justice Act to include conduct that endangers or is likely to endanger the life or safety of another person.

Recommendation 23:

--that the federal government amend and simplify the statutory provisions relating to the pre-trial detention of young persons so that section 29 will stand on its own without interaction with other statutes or other provisions of the Youth Criminal Justice Act.

Recommendation 24:

--that the federal government amend section 31(5)(a) of the Youth Criminal Justice Act so that if the designated “responsible person” is relieved of his or her obligations under a “responsible person undertaking” the young person’s undertaking made under section 31(3)(b)--

Recommendation 25:

--that the federal government amend section 31(6) of the Youth Criminal Justice Act to remove the requirement of a new bail hearing for the young person before being placed in pre-trial custody--

There have been varying opinions of the Youth Criminal Justice Act changes as in Bill C-25. There are some people who do not like it and I understand some of their concerns.

From Nova Scotia, Cecil Clarke, the minister of justice, who today is dealing with another circumstance which is the very sad death by taser in Nova Scotia yesterday, he has endorsed the legislation. Most provincial and territorial ministers of justice express support, certainly in principle, in some cases absolutely for the legislation.

We think that there is a lot of merit in Bill C-25. My concern is that this is a lengthy report and there is a lot of very important stuff in this that could be caught. I am not suggesting that the legislation needs to look quite like this, but the principle of the bill is not something that I think can be picked or chosen over. It has to be looked at, if we support this bill then I think we support it entirely. We do not have to have every single provision but there are very significant provisions that are not reflected in the legislation.

In closing, we need to act, as members of Parliament, on the concerns of our constituents. I fully and completely believe that there are aspects of the Youth Criminal Justice Act that are not currently providing security to families and individuals who live in Dartmouth—Cole Harbour.

I feel, as a member of Parliament, that it is my duty to do what I can to make sure that the Youth Criminal Justice Act is tightened up, so that it does not lose the very good intention of the act which is obviously that children need to be dealt with separately. But the children in our schools and in our streets who are doing everything that they can under the law of the land and with the best intention, it is simply not right to allow them to continue to be offended against by young offenders who have a history of offending.

I will support the bill going to committee. I hope that at committee strong members of the justice committee, certainly our strong members from the Liberal side, will be able to effect some change which will make the bill better when it comes back to the House for final consideration. But I will support this and I will vote for this to go to committee.

[Myron Thompson, Conservative, Wild Rose, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I listened to the member's speech and on a big majority of it, I would agree with him totally.

The Nunn report, for example, was one of the best reports we have received in this place for a long time. The only comment he made that I might question was his last comment about the capable members in the justice committee, but I will not go there.

I also spent 18 years in a junior high school as an administrator and I can relate to his brother who did the same thing. What his relative would say would agree with a lot that I have seen in changes over the years in how we deal with youth.

I also know that if I held a number of town hall meetings in communities or with people from my riding, I would hear very much the same things about which he has talked. Crime is a very important matter in the minds of many people.

I also agree, when we are talking about young offenders, we are probably talking about 5% or maybe less of the entire youth. The majority of our youth in this nation are great kids, and I experienced that over the many years that I was in the school.

At the same time, one thing disappeared out of the schools over a period of time and it disappeared shortly after the Young Offenders Act and the Charter of Rights came into being. Discipline became less and less of an important factor in our schools. I think lack of discipline in the homes and in the schools is something that could lead to further problems with young people. They must know the meaning of discipline. When I was young, I sure as the devil needed discipline and I am glad I got it, and sometimes in a pretty strong way.

Would the hon. member agree that discipline is not allowed any more under the rights? We cannot do certain things in schools that once upon a time we could do. I am not going back to the draconian age. I am talking about recent years, probably the years the member was growing up, where discipline was a pretty important factor. Does he not agree that the failure of those of us in positions of authority to discipline when necessary has led to some of our problems?

[Michael Savage, Liberal, Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS]

Mr. Speaker, it is not that often, quite honestly, that the member for Wild Rose and I probably agree on a lot of things in the House. When I say I agree with the legislation, I agree to send it to committee because I think there are significant holes in it.

I am not sure what he meant by discipline. I remember being educated by the nuns. The nuns used to have a strap and I got to know it in grade 2. I do not want to see anything like that back in the schools, not that the member was necessarily recommending it. If that is the discipline, then no, I do not think we need that.

I have talked to teachers and principals who are frustrated and who feel they do not have a lot of control over the classroom. I do not honestly know how to control that, but I definitely do not want to go back to the days when fear ran schools. I want to go forward to the days when curiosity, innovation and creative thinking is encouraged.

I go into a lot of classroom of all levels all the time in my community. The kids get to know me after a while. The kids are good. As the hon. member said, most of the kids are very good. I do not believe that kids learn out of fear. I think they learn out of curiosity and intent.

[Catherine Bell, NDP, Vancouver Island North, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I listened intently to my hon. colleague's remarks. I also listened to the member for Laval who spoke earlier.

In my previous job as a vice-president of my union, one of the things I had the privilege of doing was going to visit the different work sites of our members. Some of those work sites are provincial prisons. One of the prisons I went to was the youth centre in Willingdon, in the Lower Mainland of British Columbia.

Some of the things I saw still haunt me to this day. I saw young people who were incarcerated there for crimes they had committed at a very young age, as young as 14 years old. I wondered why the kids were there. How did they get to this point? What was missing in their lives and how could we have avoided having them in that place?

My children were about the same age, and I thought, “There but for the grace of God go my kids”. They may have one little fight in a schoolyard and they could been in there.

Regarding his comments about the restorative justice system, could we envision, in the House, what it would look like for these kids to have some support and a system that respected who they were and—

[The Acting Speaker, Conservative, Andrew Scheer]

Order, please. I am having difficulty hearing the question. The hon. member for Dartmouth—Cole Harbour.

[Michael Savage, Liberal, Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS]

Mr. Speaker, my colleague raises a very good point, which I raised in my speech.

I believe one of the roles of government is to equalize opportunity and access, whether it is post-secondary education, or child care or access to the many services that kids need. That is why I think the Boys and Girls Clubs and community infrastructures are as important to reducing youth crime as are the punitive measures. However, I believe the punitive measures need to be realistic, balanced and in line with the crime that has been committed, particularly if it is repetitive.

My children are eight and eleven and they go to a French immersion school where I live. Because of that, they do not go to the community school. They are bused, and there are kids from all over the city. It is a great thing because they get to meet kids from all different backgrounds. However, some of the kids who go to school with my kids cannot go to hockey because it costs $350 to join, $500 to get the gear and it costs money to travel.

Is hockey that important? No, but the principle is to have an opportunity to be involved in things that keep them active, inquisitive, curious, healthy, physically fit, all those things.

Regarding access to breakfast, we can go into most of the elementary schools in my riding and they have breakfast programs. A lot of kids go to school with a bag of chips and bottle of pop because it is cheaper than an apple and milk. The federal government, and I proposed this in the last Parliament, should be involved in a healthy eating program, particularly for kids from low income backgrounds.

In short, kids do not all have the same opportunities. Particularly for kids who grow up in families that do not have a lot of access to that opportunity, they are much more likely to have interactions with the criminal justice system.

We have to recognize this and we have to accept that governments at all levels have a responsibility to equalize out that opportunity.

[Nancy Karetak-Lindell, Liberal, Nunavut, NU]

Mr. Speaker, unfortunately, the majority of inmates in our Canadian institutions are populated by aboriginal people. I think part of the reason is because of some of the situations in which they live, about which my colleague talked.

One of the initiatives we did under our Liberal government was crime prevention. We truly felt that a lot of those people, whether they were in young offenders' facilities who later probably went to a penitentiary, did not come from homes where they had the proper support.

I truly believe that instead of punishing people for having a bad start in life, we need to look at better ways of circumventing that route. Could our colleague expand on some of the preventative things that we should do in our country so our prison populations are not overly populated by aboriginal people?

[Michael Savage, Liberal, Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague who has done a lot of work in this area.

When we talk about crime prevention, we cannot prevent a crime that has already occurred. However, we can prevent a crime that has not occurred. This could be done by dealing with somebody who has committed a crime once and who may be likely to commit it again. In most cases, if we give people an opportunity, if we give them an equal start, if we invest in programs like the Kelowna accord or in PSSSP for universities, this would help.

As we all know, aboriginal Canadians are the victim of a lack of funding and opportunity. We have to do everything we can to ensure they have at least some kind of a chance to be what they want to be. We cannot afford to waste the opportunity as a nation either.

[The Acting Speaker, Conservative, Andrew Scheer]

It is my duty pursuant to Standing Order 38 to inform the House that the questions to be raised tonight at the time of adjournment are as follows: the hon. member for Thunder Bay—Rainy River, Canada Elections Act; the hon. member for Laval, Status of Women.

The first portion of debate on the bill is now over. We now move to the period where speeches are ten minutes and the period for questions or comments is five minutes.

[Rick Casson, Conservative, Lethbridge, AB]

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to rise to address this issue today.

We have listened to the debate go on and on. I want to point out that as late as yesterday, the justice critic for the official opposition had agreed, in discussing with the government side of the House, that the bill would be allowed to pass through the House today. Now it seems, for some reason, the official opposition has decided to start filibustering. Therefore, I move:

That this question be now put.

[Bill Siksay, NDP, Burnaby—Douglas, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I am happy to have the opportunity to continue this discussion on Bill C-25, An Act to amend the Youth Criminal Justice Act.

This bill, rather surprisingly, only amends two parts of the legislation. In particular, it adds deterrence and denunciation to the principles that a court must consider when determining a youth sentence, but it also clarifies the presumption against the pretrial detention of a young person and specifies the circumstances in which the presumption does not apply.

In a sense, it is very surprising that after all the bluster and the controversy that we have heard for years from the government and the government party, the Conservative Party, about youth crime and the Youth Criminal Justice Act, this is the kind of legislation that it brings forward. It is such an incredibly limited piece of legislation. It is very surprising, given all the chest thumping and the controversy that has been created over the years, to see this proposal when it finally comes forward being so very limited in scope.

Generally, the principle that young people should be treated differently in our criminal justice system is one that has a very long history in our legal system. It is something that has been established for at least 150 years. It has gone on for that length of time without any serious challenge. I think it is something that we have to maintain in this day and age as well. I do not see any reason that we should turn our backs on that important principle. Certainly it has been part of the legislation in Canada that deals with young offenders over the years. It was a feature of the Juvenile Delinquents Act, it was a feature of the Young Offenders Act and it is certainly a feature now of the Youth Criminal Justice Act.

We have adopted wholeheartedly in this country that youth should be treated differently in our criminal justice system. I believe that has served us well. We have had success in changing the lives of young people who have been in trouble with the law. That is something we should continue to work at and not abandon. The whole question of rehabilitation of young people is one that merits emphasis in our criminal justice system and through the Youth Criminal Justice Act.

There are people who would suggest, and often they sit on the Conservative benches, young people should be treated like adults in our criminal justice system, even with some specific crimes.

If we are going to move in that direction, it would seem to me that we have to give those young people similar responsibilities in other areas of their lives, not just the onerous responsibility of facing the full adult penalties of the criminal justice system, but the responsibilities of full citizenship in other areas like, for instance, lowering the voting age. We should make sure that voting and criminal responsibility are at the same level. I do not know that there are many people in the Conservative corner who would consider that kind of proposal. So, I think it is very important that we maintain the principle that youth should be treated differently in our criminal justice system.

That being said, there are issues related to youth crime that we need to address. Overall, in the last 20 years youth crime has declined and continues to decline. We have seen it decline at least 12% to 15% over the last 20 years. I think that is the result of good legislation in this area. The Youth Criminal Justice Act is a good piece of legislation.

There is concern at the moment about serious violent crime involving the use of guns and other weapons. That is something we are all concerned about. However, the reality is that overall, youth crime is going down, and it shows the effectiveness of the current legislation.

We do not know why there has been a spike in violent crime at this moment in time. Often there are those kinds of fluctuations in crime rates in specific crime areas, so it does merit our attention, but to overthrow the whole youth criminal justice system I do not think would be appropriate in that case. The Youth Criminal Justice Act has had the effect of lowering the crime rate among our youth since it came into effect.

There are other things we could be doing to address the whole issue of crime in our society. Certainly, policing and enforcement is one of the aspects that we should always look at when we are considering trying to reduce crime in our society. Unfortunately that is one area where the government has not kept its promise. More police officers have been promised and yet there has been no follow through on that promise yet.

We know that the opportunity for police to build relationships with young people is a very effective way of reducing youth crime and reducing crime generally in our communities. Certainly the work of police officers that are attached to schools in community policing demonstrates that very clearly.

There are other things that we should be pursuing. Certainly a restorative justice system would also go some way to ending recidivism in our criminal justice system. We know that whenever we incarcerate young people we are basically sending them to a school where they get more training in how to be offenders. We see that all through our criminal justice system but I think it is particularly true of young people. Anything we could do that helps young people understand their responsibility for the crimes that they have committed but keeps them in the community and builds relationships and restores relationships in the community is an important step to take.

Restorative justice programs have been shown to reduce recidivism by almost half. That is a very important example of how we should be moving and the kind of programs that we should be putting in place.

I have had the opportunity to participate in a restorative justice program after an act of vandalism at my house, albeit a very minor criminal infraction. I was very impressed with the way that worked to restore the relationships that had been altered by that and how elders from the aboriginal community, my partner, our neighbours and I all worked to see those relationships restored and responsibility taken for the actions of the young person involved. It was a very moving process, I have to say.

When we went in, we hoped that at the end of the process we would be able to see the young person as another one of our neighbours and greet that person on the street because a relationship had been restored despite his actions on my property. I think that we actually accomplished that.

I think there is something very positive to be said. Certainly the evidence from Quebec, which has spent a lot of time on restorative justice programs, has been very dramatic in terms of the positive outcomes of those programs. They are ones that we could a emulate across the country.

Sadly, in my riding of Burnaby—Douglas, there are people who would like to establish a youth restorative justice program, but there just is not money available to do that, either from the provincial government or from the federal government. This is certainly one place where we could stand to have a significant increase in funding, given the success of these programs for our communities in reducing crime and re-establishing relationships.

We know that incarceration does not do young people many favours. Canada does have a very high youth incarceration rate, one of the highest in the western world.

Just to wrap up, I want to say that I do not see the bill as changing very much. It does not change judicial discretion around pretrial release and in fact it only enshrines in law the current practices of the criminal justice system. We also know that deterrence and denunciation are not particularly effective when it comes to reducing crime overall and certainly that should be the goal of our criminal justice system.

I am not sure what the big deal is about this bill. Perhaps it merits more discussion at committee, but I would not want to see us fiddle in a very significant way with our youth criminal justice system because I think it is serving us well. That is not to mean that there could not be improvements made, but I think we are being well served.

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I listened with great fascination to my colleague's dissertation. He talked about the whole notion of treating young people separately, the historic jurisprudence behind it and how the Conservatives are saying no, they will treat the 12 year olds the same as they treat the 25 year olds.

There is one area where the Conservatives are very clear about treating one group of people very differently and that is the first nations people. I invite any of the get tough on crime people from the Conservatives to come to the James Bay coast or to the Nishnawbe Aski Nation territory where the police are woefully understaffed, where they are in situations that are just plain dangerous. Not a single officer in any of the non-native forces would ever put himself or herself in the situation the NAPS officers are in on a daily basis.

For example, in the community of Attawapiskat there are 2,000 people with only two police officers on duty. If one officer has to take someone out, that leaves one officer in a community of 2,000. In other communities like Moose Factory, the police station has to shut down at a certain point during the night because the officers are not getting paid for overtime.

The Conservatives believe that these people can be treated differently, that their crimes can be treated differently, that their police officers can be left with no support, no help and that for the victims of real crime, who are mostly our impoverished first nations, it is too bad, so sad. Meanwhile, the Conservatives are running around telling us that we are going to get tough on every little punk who is walking the streets in Ottawa or Toronto.

I would like to ask the member why he thinks that the government shows such casual disregard for the first people of our country and refuses to support the police in those communities with the adequate resources not only to ensure the health and safety of police officers but to ensure that the first nations communities are being kept with the same measure of safety that other Canadians take for granted.

[Bill Siksay, NDP, Burnaby—Douglas, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I wish I could answer that question. We would have much more success around this place if we could understand what is in the mind of the government when it comes to these sorts of things. One would think it is a no-brainer when it comes to the Conservatives' concerns about our criminal justice system, but sadly, it is one of the places where they are failing us.

There is no doubt that we need more police on the beat. That kind of policing serves all of our communities well, whether they are on the James Bay coast or in the Lower Mainland of British Columbia. We know that when police officers have the ability to build those kinds of relationships with the people they serve, including young people, aboriginal people, minorities and middle class neighbours in many of our communities, we are all the better for having that kind of relationship. However, if the resources are not being dedicated toward it and we do not have the people on the street doing that kind of work, then we do not have the benefits of those kinds of programs. Those programs are very crucial to what we should be about.

Policing is only one aspect of what we need to be doing in our criminal justice system, but we cannot ignore that piece. We also need to be talking about punishment in our criminal justice system and what works and does not work in terms of having people take responsibility for the crimes that they have committed. We also need to look at prevention. We have heard many suggestions this afternoon.

We have been speaking with people from the Federation of Canadian Municipalities, who have said there is a declining recreational infrastructure in our country. When they talk about a $123 billion infrastructure deficit, fully $40 billion of that is in recreation. If we had the best possible recreation centres and addressed that infrastructure deficit, we know it would have positive effects across the country, including positive effects in dealing with the youth crime rate.

I do not understand why we do not move in those areas and ensure that those kinds of possibilities exist for young people across Canada.

[Nicole Demers, Bloc, Laval, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I also listened to the remarks of my colleague with a great deal of attention. He made reference to many very important matters.

I wonder if my colleague can indicate to us how concerned he is to see the direction that the Conservative government is taking, when we see this justice bill, when we see the bill another member introduced yesterday concerning abortion, when we see other bills that members are introducing, concerning very right-wing ideas, when we see the refusal of the government to ask that a death sentence against a Canadian be commuted to life in prison.

What does this make him think of? Is he afraid that we would have a totally different country if this government had a majority?

[Bill Siksay, NDP, Burnaby—Douglas, BC]

Mr. Speaker, my colleague is right when she says that the government is pursuing the wrong direction in so many places.

I think that going down the route of establishing stronger criminal penalties without addressing the other key issues for dealing with crime in our society, without dealing with prevention and without dealing with policing is absolutely the wrong way to go.

I think limiting a woman's choice in reproductive technologies or in abortion is absolutely the wrong way to go. I think limiting young people's choice in the expression of their sexuality is also absolutely the wrong way to go.

There are many places in dealing with the kinds of criminal justice legislation that we have had where I am very troubled by the direction of the government, where I think it is going in absolutely the wrong direction and directions that I think would have serious consequences for our society.

[Nancy Karetak-Lindell, Liberal, Nunavut, NU]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to add to the debate on this very serious piece of legislation.

As always, I tend to speak about what I am familiar with, and those are the communities in my riding of Nunavut.

I have serious concerns about some of the elements of the legislation, in that I do not believe some of the harsh handling of young people fits the crime in most cases.

I am not against justice. I am not against the real sentence for very violent crimes, but putting everyone in the same category and assuming that they are all dangerous criminals is very scary to me, especially when I know that many of these young people in my riding of Nunavut commit these acts of crime because they are hungry or because they have difficulties at home. They see violence in their homes that I feel can be prevented through other measures.

Unfortunately, they may have FAE or FAS and do not realize the consequences of their actions. We put them into a system with which they are totally not familiar. We sometimes do not have enough preventive programs. I, for one, am a very strong advocate for prevention.

It is truly a sad moment when some of our kids end up in the criminal system and stay there when we have the opportunity to take them to that fork in the road and turn them one way or the other. We hope that in most cases they choose the road to good living. They have the opportunity to learn from their mistakes and apologize for their actions and then go on to lead a meaningful life in our society.

What I want for all of the kids in this country is to have a meaningful, healthy, happy life. It is not any different for us in our aboriginal communities and, in my case, Inuit communities in Nunavut. We have many opportunities for our young people but, due to many different circumstances, sometimes they do not always take advantage of that opportunity.

Some of my colleagues already talked about many of the preventive measures we could take, whether it be sports, arts or programs as simple as breakfast at the school. As I said, many of our kids who enter the young offenders system do it because they are hungry. They break in and steal food from homes or steal things that they can sell for money.

In a country as prosperous as Canada, it is truly a sad state of affairs when we have young people committing petty crime in order to feed themselves or for warmer things to wear in my part of the country. The more that we do in prevention, the more I think we can keep some of these kids out of the system.

The other problem for these kids is that some of them are being taken away from their homes. They end up in foster homes. We could do all kinds of things on the social side. We could have programs to keep more kids at home and to have better home situations so they do not need to turn to petty crime in order to survive.

I truly believe that with programs for crime prevention, we would be able to help communities come up with their own programs that could help kids at home before they ever enter into a life of crime.

Some detention centres are trained to run on the land programs. However, a lot of these kids, unfortunately, come from single mother homes with no fatherly influence and, therefore, are not able to participate in some of the livelihood that we still have in our communities. We still have many people in our Nunavut communities who participate on the land, whether it be for subsistence hunting or for other activities. Even though we are now very much in the workforce like everyone else, we still maintain a very close connection to the land.

What we have seen in some of the successful communities are programs to try and work with the young people either through the school or, for kids who are not always in school, through other programs. This is proving to be very beneficial, not just to the students and young people involved, but to the whole family and to the community as a whole.

We are still in some way trying to come to grips with the new way of doing things in our communities. We have people who are caught in between our traditional way of life and the new way that is among us today. However, we have been very successful as a people to blend the two worlds together and to give an opportunity to young people to learn to appreciate the land and what is around us again.

As I mentioned before, many of these young people are in a one parent home and that is becoming the reality with a lot of families in this country. We need to do more to support that because some of them live on a very low income and the parent, usually a mother, cannot provide other activities for her children as much as she would like.

The community and the social fabric of this country needs to take up that void where kids do not have the same opportunity as other kids in being able to have different activities that can take up idle time, which, in a lot of cases, ends up with bored kids looking for something to do.

I really want to see programs where the community has an opportunity to help with the upbringing of children because not every young family is able to do that on their own anymore, not with the high cost of living that we have in our part of the country. Even programs that help people to feed a healthy diet to their family is another angle that we can look at.

We do have food mail for many parts of the north, but even being able to provide a healthy diet for a young family is getting to be very difficult. As I said earlier, some of these kids are just looking for something to eat. When we take it down to that type of basic cause of why some of these kids commit crime, then having very serious consequences for these young people does not meet the crime.

We need more programs that help some of these young mothers, and some single dads too, or even young couples who need parenting skills, not having had the opportunity because they started a family very young. Those are the types of programs that we would definitely support in our communities.

Again, in speaking about the people in my riding, the real key for our communities is to be able to give everyone a proper start in life, and that includes having the support of community programs.

[Nicole Demers, Bloc, Laval, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague. I very much appreciate what she said, because she knows what she is talking about. She lives with the people of the far north, she comes from there and she knows all about the situation of the people she represents.

Yesterday, I was reading in a report that a woman in the far north, where women's economic security is extremely fragile, chose to call a women's shelter and say that she had been beaten, because she had no place to live. This happens frequently, because there is no affordable housing in the far north, where she comes from.

I wonder whether what is happening in the far north right now could be called a crime. The federal government has responsibility for the Innu, but it is not doing its part. It is not meeting the needs of the people in the community and is not addressing the extreme poverty that exists there.

Should we put all the Conservative members in prison because they are committing a crime of omission?

[Nancy Karetak-Lindell, Liberal, Nunavut, NU]

Mr. Speaker, I do not know if I would go that far, but certainly we need to bring attention to the real causes of crime. In many cases, yes, it is because there are so many people living in one home. We cannot afford to have homeless people. I was just up in my riding, where it was -30° on the weekend. We cannot have people living on the streets in that kind of temperature.

One of the initiatives we could do as a government and as a country is make sure that basic needs are met. In my riding of Nunavut, one of the biggest needs right now relates to the shortage of housing and the fact that there are so many social consequences of people not having a basic home. People are ending up in shelters, yes, and some people are going from community to community, home to home and house to house, which I think creates a lot of situations where crime can happen.

One of the things we need to address is the lack of social housing and affordable housing for people in my riding and other parts of the country, because that seems to be the problem that is at the root of a lot of our difficulties.

[Monique Guay, Bloc, Rivière-du-Nord, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise and speak today, because I have a personal interest in this bill. You have been in this House for a long time, longer than I have, and you will remember the pitched battle we fought against the Young Offenders Act. Once again, the government is treating us like children by introducing a bill that will require judges to enforce this legislation.

I would like to talk a little about young people. I have two children, and one of them went through a more difficult adolescence than the other, because I was raising them alone. My son had many more problems during adolescence than my daughter. We have to remember that during adolescence, young people change dramatically. A young person is no longer a child, but is not yet an adult, even though he or she is becoming an adult. Often, because of the extreme hormonal changes adolescents are going through, they want to be loved by everyone, they seek attention and they want to have a lot of friends. As a result, they may fall in with the wrong crowd and find themselves in situations they would not have chosen.

That does not make them dangerous offenders. We should not be deprived, therefore, of our parental role. Even if we are deprived of our role as responsible parents, and even if it is a single-parent family, that does not prevent us from being very close to our children.

In Quebec in particular, we have a lot of resources for our young people. That is what I wanted to tell the House about. In my view, we should make use of all these resources before deeming a young person incorrigible. I have rarely seen young people who are really incorrigible.

I have often been asked to go to schools and meet with young people. In Quebec we have centres for young people 13 to 17 years of age. They go to these centres in groups and are supervised there by adults who show them the right path. These adults arrange presentations and tell the young people about the various services available to them. They also arrange group activities, discussions and exchanges. This is very important for young people. They make friends here. There are a lot of youth centres in Quebec. We do what we can to help these youth centres survive.

My children went to youth centres as adolescents and it was very good for them. It is best, though, to start very early. We must not necessarily think that it starts in adolescence.

Poverty exists, and we need to deal with it. It is often the reason why young people do not eat breakfast, why there is no food in the home, why they are poorly housed and do not have clothing. They are laughed at in school because they are not stylishly dressed like the other students. These are all reasons why young people may get involved in criminal behaviour.

In Quebec we have the breakfast club for children in primary school. All the children in the class are given breakfast without exception so as not to discriminate. This enables children who did not get breakfast at home to have one like everybody else but not be identified as unusual. It is very important to include them rather than exclude them. It is when children are excluded that problems start.

Sending young people who are 14 to 17 years of age to prison means sending them to a school for crime. Studies have shown it. These young people try to make friends in prison, but they do not have the maturity and knowledge to handle an environment with which they are not familiar. So they are dropped right into a criminal milieu. It is totally unacceptable. These young people are deprived of their lives. They are deprived of a chance to become functioning adults some day. Rather than trying to rehabilitate them, we are putting them in prison where they have to get by on their own. They get no help or support.

As well, young people are often the ones who are abused in prison. Because they are young and have little knowledge, they are treated horrifically. When they get out of prison, then we can say they are real criminals, because that is what they have become. No one has looked after them and no one has tried to rehabilitate them instead of sending them to prison.

There are a lot of services in Quebec and that may be why we are so different from the rest of Canada. One of the things I want to talk about is the services in my riding. There is a centre called La Parenthèse. It is a youth centre. Young people go there voluntarily. When a problem arises at home, if a young person is using drugs or alcohol and wants to stop, a discussion is held between the parents and the young person, who can leave and live elsewhere, at this place, which is called La Parenthèse.

There are specialists at the centre who work with the young person to get him or her back on the right path and rehabilitate him or her. These young people also have chores to do in the house. They each have their own responsibilities. So they are required to take responsibility and an effort is made to help them break their abusive patterns. This is on a voluntary basis. It is excellent and it has a high success rate. Young people can rehabilitate themselves.

In my riding there is a huge secondary school. In the police services, we have trained police specialists to work with adolescents, with the problems of adolescents. They are not treated like criminals from day one for a first offence or a stupid mistake. We try to guide the young person. The parents are informed. The police sit down with the family and try to find solutions to rehabilitate the young person. This is extremely important.

There is also the entire question of where our parental authority comes into it. As I said earlier, this is extremely important. Personally, no one can take away my right to act as a parent with my child. No two children are identical. There are some children who are more difficult than others. There are children who are not necessarily living in poverty but who will have other kinds of problems.

I had problems with my own son, who is now 20 years old and on the right track. When he was a teenager, however, everything fell apart. Why? I could not say. He lost his father at a very young age and it was only in adolescence that it all came out. He began to stray off track, but we managed to get him back on the right path. I worked very hard with him. Our parental rights must be maintained. We must use the tools available to us in Quebec society to help us rehabilitate them. It can be done. Help can be found at CLSCs and other organizations.

There is an arts centre in my riding that brings young people in off the streets and helps them get by through art. The name of the organization is ICI par les Arts. This may seem quite simple to us, but I can assure this House that these young people do some extraordinary things. They create things with all sorts of materials. They produce art, which directs them away from their negative thoughts and misconduct.

In Quebec, there are also street outreach workers. They are not there for nothing. There are young homeless people and we must be able to help them. These street outreach workers work directly with young people to guide them, talk to them and help them find a place to sleep, if they are found on the street at night. It gets very cold in the winter and we do not want to leave our young people on the street. All these services exist. There are other services, but I cannot name them all.

I am being signalled that my time is running out. It is extremely important to think about rehabilitation and not criminalization. I care deeply about this. All Bloc Québécois members, including myself, oppose this bill, because it will simply increase crime rates among young people, not reduce them.

[Réal Ménard, Bloc, Hochelaga, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the member for Rivière-du-Nord for her very sincere and genuine speech. On the one hand, it gets us thinking about this terribly inappropriate bill. She has every reason to remind us of the fight our parliamentary team led in 1999, when we submitted 2,700 amendments in parliamentary committee. This led the Chair to make a ruling—a debatable one, I might add—limiting the possibility of amending a bill in committee at report stage.

On the other hand, the member for Rivière-du-Nord reminded us about finding the balance between work and family. I applaud her for remaining a committed and active mother. I have known her since 1993. Although we would be hard-pressed to find any signs of aging, since the member for Rivière-du-Nord has remained dazzlingly beautiful, it is true that I have known her since 1993. I know that she has always been very involved in the life of the Bloc Québécois as a party. Despite everything, she has managed to balance her political activities with her obligations as a mother. She has also experienced personal hardships, such as the loss of her husband. She should be thanked for continuing on in public life.

Perhaps my colleague could remind us how important it is to trust in the family. Perhaps she could remind us that when it comes to preventive detention, the subject of this bill, it would be a mistake to at times remove young people from a meaningful community or family setting. Her words must make the Conservatives think twice.

[Monique Guay, Bloc, Rivière-du-Nord, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for Hochelaga. I too have liked him since meeting in 1993.

It certainly is not easy to reconcile family and work, particularly with the work we do here and the schedule we keep, but it can be done. Had I lost my parental rights because my son had problems, I would have fought with all my might. I sought out the assistance needed to help him get out of the slump he was in and to leave behind his bad thoughts and bad ideas. I succeeded and he succeeded. Today, he is happy. He is a wonderful 20-year-old man who has a good job and functions well in society. That was made possible by rehabilitation and the agencies that helped me. They worked with Patrick, and also with me, because we worked together. I did not always do everything right. There is no such thing as a perfect parent. We targeted shortcomings on both sides and we tried, with help, to fix things.

That is very important. It is much more important than this bill, which treats us like children. I detest the fact that we are treated like children. It is another useless bill. It would be better, with our billions of dollars in surpluses, to invest in our existing agencies and to create new ones if need be.

I am certain that the Conservatives have similar problems in their ridings. They may not say so, but obviously problems do not exist in just our ridings. They are everywhere. However, I believe that the percentage in our ridings is lower than in theirs because we have agencies, we invest in our youth and we love them. Extraordinary work is being done in our society and everyone is working together. That is very important.

Rather than criminalizing a young person, let us try to help them turn the corner. We have to try to see how, as parents, we can help our young people grow up and become adults, fine adults who will function well in society.

[Colin Carrie, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Industry]

Mr. Speaker, I listened to the member and I appreciate what she had to say about her own personal situation and her family, but one of the things that I am challenged with is this: what about the victims?

I must say that one of the saddest things I have done as a member of Parliament is attend an anniversary service with the mother of an 18 year old son who was murdered by another 18 year old known to police. Her son was shot. The perpetrator was a young person who continually found himself in trouble with the police. He was in trouble over and over again.

We are not talking about little offences in this bill. We are trying to look at serious offences and what we are going to do to protect our citizens. That is the role of government. We are talking about proposed amendments that make sense for somebody in the situation in which that mother found herself. The person who shot her son was in trouble over and over again. There was no deterrence. That guy felt that that what he was doing was okay. He never got a slap on the wrist. He never got anything from the system.

Deterrence means--

[The Deputy Speaker, NDP, Bill Blaikie]

Order. I am sorry to interrupt the hon. member for Oshawa, but we have about one minute and we will give the hon. member a moment to respond.

[Monique Guay, Bloc, Rivière-du-Nord, QC]

Mr. Speaker, we cannot lump all young people together. Instances such as the one my colleague mentioned are extremely rare. They are so rare that we do not need a bill like this one. The police can do their job. If they did not, that is another story.

Most young people will not offend to that extreme. There may be one out of who knows how many thousands or millions. But we must not lump them all together and penalize the others. On the contrary, we must help them rehabilitate, as I said earlier.

We have been very successful in Quebec, and we will continue to be.

[The Deputy Speaker, NDP, Bill Blaikie]

It being 5:30 p.m., the House will now proceed to the consideration of private members' business as listed on today's order paper.

The House resumed from November 22 consideration of the motion that Bill C-25, An Act to amend the Youth Criminal Justice Act, be read the second time and referred to a committee, and of the motion that this question be now put.

[Ruby Dhalla, Liberal, Brampton—Springdale, ON]

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to stand before you today and speak to Bill C-25, An Act to amend the Youth Criminal Justice Act.

It is an act that is extremely important to many of my constituents in Brampton--Springdale. When we take a look at the recent deaths of youth in my riding, they have caused extreme fear, angst and anguish among those living in our community.

As one of the fastest growing cities in the country, Brampton has become a true symbol of hope for so many. However, the recent deaths of youths across Brampton have left many feeling shocked, dismayed and with a feeling of profound sadness. From youth who have been killed by gangs to people dying as a result of drunk drivers, families not only in Brampton but across Canada are suffering.

Many constituents in my riding have written to me to express their frustration about these senseless acts of violence. They, like many Bramptonians, are calling on the federal government to take a stand against the violence that is plaguing our communities.

What we need is a comprehensive crime strategy, one that commits to putting more police officers on our streets, more prosecutors in the courts, and protecting the most vulnerable, our children and seniors. We must ensure that our police officers have the resources and tools that they need to do their jobs, and we must demand that government bring forward legislation which will make people think twice about their actions.

However, in talking to many of these constituents and Canadians across the country, one realizes that the answer to fighting crime is not the republican or the Bush strategy of locking everyone up and throwing them in jail.

To ensure the safety of all Bramptonians, we need an effective program to fight crime, one that has input and involvement from our young people. Spending money today on skills training and providing youth with opportunities is going to ensure that if we combine that with strategies to fight crime, it will actually prevent it. It will be money that is saved in the future on putting people in prison.

We need to listen to the youth of Canada. To help jump-start this process in my own riding of Brampton--Springdale, I have created a youth advisory council which will provide student representatives from all the schools in Brampton--Springdale an opportunity to speak openly and directly to their elected officials and community organizations on issues that matter to them, on issues of violence, gangs, and drugs in their schools and neighbourhoods.

It is my hope that this youth advisory council will empower students, community members and elected officials to take a stand against violence, the violence which we are discussing in this particular act today. The youth advisory council will work closely with all stakeholders and organizations to discuss strategies that will actually prevent crime, initiatives to create a safe city and rehabilitate criminals.

The Liberal Party has been trying to put an end to violence in our neighbourhoods by offering to fast-track many of the pieces of justice legislation. Unfortunately, many of these bills have not moved forward. In fact, last fall, we offered our support to the government for fast-tracking six of these criminal justice bills, but unfortunately, rather than accepting our offer, it chose to only fast-track one of the bills.

These delay tactics have resulted in Canadians having to live without effective legislation. We need to put aside political gamesmanship. We need to put aside political partisanship and ensure that we get results for the people that we are representing.

We acknowledge that the Youth Criminal Justice Act has been a significant improvement over the old young offenders legislation, and we now see that there are gaps in the legislation, specifically with respect to repeat violent youth offenders. We must address these gaps, but we must ensure that this bill is not undermined by any of these amendments that are being brought forward today.

We have been stating for some time that the Conservatives need to look at the report that was issued by Justice Nunn in Nova Scotia for reasonable reforms to the Youth Criminal Justice Act to address the problem of repeat youth violence. We believe that Justice Nunn, who led a public inquiry on this issue, actually struck the right balance with the recommendations that he provided.

Some of the changes that are being proposed in this particular bill today are actually similar to the recommendations made by Justice Nunn.

However, there are some changes that are contained in the bill which have not been supported by nor come from Justice Nunn. We need to ensure that the changes brought forward actually concern a judge's ability to detain repeat violent offenders pre-trial.

We must ensure that when we talk about this bill and the amendments being brought forward that there is the right balance to achieve the goals to prevent youth violence across the country. In particular we take a look at this bill and realize that the Conservatives are attempting to reintroduce deterrence, a sentencing principle which many experts across the country have warned is a mistake.

Martha Mackinnon of Justice for Children and Youth, a legal aid clinic for low income youth, has stated that the Conservatives are addressing a perception that has actually been exacerbated by politicians and the media. She has criticized the government's move to bring back general deterrence for youth and has pointed out that there is no evidence that deterrence works for young people.

It has been said that this bill ignores many of the important concerns Canadians have about legislation which is going to be fair and adequate and which is actually going to produce results. Canadians and Bramptonians are looking for real leadership when it comes to fighting crime in Canada.

We need to have a comprehensive and integrated strategy that talks about the root causes of crime. We need to have a strategy which is comprehensive and talks about the rehabilitation of those who have committed crimes. We need to ensure that we provide assistance for those who are the victims. It is only going to be by putting aside our partisanship and our gamesmanship that we are going to ensure that we have legislation which is fair and adequate, and ultimately produces results for our end goal, which is to help the children of Canada.

[Réal Ménard, Bloc, Hochelaga, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my hon. colleague for her speech. It brought back fond memories of the time when we were both sitting on the Standing Committee on Health. Unfortunately, I no longer have the pleasure of sharing that experience with her, but I am convinced that the member for Québec does so brilliantly.

Our colleague has concerns, and rightly so, about this being a somewhat isolated bill, about the government's lack of vision and scope when it comes to strategies to fight poverty or help young people.

We in the Bloc Québécois have had longstanding concerns about the whole issue of poverty reduction. On many occasions, we introduced bills or motions on the subject. For example, we have introduced a motion to amend the Canadian Human rights Act to add social condition to the prohibited grounds of discrimination. It is pretty incredible that all the provinces are subject to that prohibition, but not the federal government.

My hon. colleague is right also to be concerned about the bill not being appropriate because it is not respectful of the provinces' demands, and those from Quebec in particular.

I would like her to share with us her views on an eventual anti-poverty strategy. What should such a strategy contain? I imagine that she will not be able to stop herself from referring to the wealth of experience in Quebec, where anti-poverty legislation was passed under Bernard Landry's PQ government.

[Ruby Dhalla, Liberal, Brampton—Springdale, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. member for his great question and also for his concern in regard to fighting poverty in this country.

We have had a chance to see the extensive number of poverty levels. In a country such as ours which is probably one of the leading nations in the world in terms of our economic surplus and our economic prosperity, a million children continue to live in poverty.

Research has shown that those children who are living in poverty are perhaps in some way, shape or form going to commit some of the crimes that we are talking about in this very bill.

We need a poverty strategy that talks about targets, which has benchmarks and ultimately has a vision and a plan. That is why it was a great honour for me that the leader of the Liberal Party introduced his poverty plan, the 30:50 plan. This plan would ensure that over a period of five years poverty would be reduced by 30% for Canadian families, and children living in poverty would be reduced by 50%. We need action and we need a game plan. In that regard, Quebec is to be commended for its great policy in regard to early learning and child care which is going to ensure that we not only prevent poverty, but provide the tools and mechanisms for families to succeed.

[Peter MacKay, Conservative, Minister of National Defence and Minister of the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency]

Mr. Speaker, I listened to the hon. member's very thoughtful speech with respect to this bill. I could not agree more with some of her commentary with respect to the need to focus on some of the root causes and some of the programming that has to accompany our youth criminal justice system. That is exactly the essence of what we are trying to accomplish here.

One of the fundamental underpinnings of our justice system is an element of denunciation. The need to send a message of general and specific deterrence is implicit in our justice system. It is used by judges, prosecutors, aid workers and lawyers throughout the justice system.

To that point, I would ask the member whether she acknowledges that the element of deterrence and denunciation which is encompassed in this bill is a necessary part of the approach to reforming and bringing about better behaviour on the part of young people. That, coupled with the necessary programs envisioned, the necessity to help young persons along when it comes to anger management, when it comes to rehabilitations for drugs and alcohol, all of these things are part of a total package, but denunciation has to be at least part of that overall approach. Would she agree with that?

[Ruby Dhalla, Liberal, Brampton—Springdale, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the experts across this country have stated that reintroducing deterrence would be a mistake. That is why we on this side of the House are recommending that the bill go to committee and that we ask the experts and the witnesses to put forward solutions which are actually going to achieve results to reduce crimes committed by young people in Canada.

[Réal Ménard, Bloc, Hochelaga, QC]

Mr. Speaker, in the history of the Bloc Québécois, the question of young offenders has been extremely important. Those who have sat in this House since 1993 or 1997 will recall that we had a colleague by the name of Michel Bellehumeur, who today has been raised to the bench. He was the member for Berthier—Montcalm and was our critic on justice and matters relating to the Attorney General. In 1999 he fought a fine battle on behalf of Bloc Québécois members. The minister at that time was Ms. McLellan, from Alberta. I am not sure whether I am recalling good or bad memories for the House, but she was the justice minister. She was succeeded by Allan Rock and, after that, Martin Cauchon.

At the time, we were examining a bill that was extremely negative concerning practices of the Government of Quebec. The National Assembly had unanimously passed a motion demanding that the bill be withdrawn. The Quebec Minister of Justice at the time was a Quebec City lawyer. We all know how the Quebec City area has always appreciated wisdom in the field of justice. The Quebec City lawyer, now minister, Linda Goupil, formally wrote to the Government of Canada asking for withdrawal of the bill.

What were the issues involved? The Government of Quebec was very resistant to pretrial detention and any kind of measure that had the consequence of prematurely incarcerating people, especially young people. Let us remember that the Liberal bill wanted to refer young people of 14 and 15 to adult courts.

The philosophy of the National Assembly, regardless of government, whether Parti Québécois or Liberal, was to use the right measure at the right time. In some circumstances it could be appropriate to send a youth to a youth centre, while in other cases, the young person should be kept in the community under the guidance of a responsible adult.

There are actually few cases where early incarceration is the appropriate avenue. Of course, it cannot be totally excluded. We can understand that there may be cases of very violent youth, with psychotic behaviour, who have difficulty in controlling their sex drive. Obviously, no one in this House would want that kind of young person to go free in the community. However, that is the exception, rather than the rule.

Minister McLellan’s bill nevertheless had one merit. Although it was a badly defined bill that, in far too many cases, would send young people into adult courts, it did address the issue of pretrial detention.

We made the following observation. The federal and provincial ministers and those who analyzed the issue of young people in the justice system recognized that instead of providing meaningful interventions or offering measures of support, they were opting for the most repressive measures by allowing pretrial detention.

The bill that is now before us not only re-opens that debate over pre-trial detention but it would also deal with an extremely unsettling principle, that of including the principle of deterrence among the very objectives of the Youth Criminal Justice Act.

We are well acquainted with the principle of deterrence. It is common knowledge that my colleague from Abitibi—Témiscamingue is a renowned jurist, a progressive spirit in all circumstances. In any case, that is my wish. I believe that my colleague from Quebec City will join me in paying tribute to the member from Abitibi-Témiscamingue and acknowledging his wisdom in the area of law.

Even though we know that the goal of deterrence is found in section 718 of the Criminal Code and that it may be appropriate to resort to it, the fact remains that there is a very specific reason why Parliament did not include it in section 2 of the Youth Criminal Justice Act . In terms of youth criminal justice, deterrence must not be the priority. Naturally, when someone is kept in prison, in detention, the judge will bear these considerations in mind when handing down a sentence; however, this must not be our priority.

I would like to read an excerpt from Supreme Court decision R. v. B.W.P.; R. v. B.V.N. It deals simultaneously with two appeals. It makes it very clear why it is undesirable for deterrence to be included in the stated objectives in the Youth Criminal Justice Act. It says:

Unlike some other factors in sentencing, general deterrence has a unilateral effect on the sentence. When it is applied as a factor in sentencing, it will always serve to increase the penalty or make it harsher; its effect is never mitigating. The application of general deterrence as a sentencing principle, of course, does not always result in a custodial sentence; however, it can only contribute to the increased use of incarceration, not its reduction. Hence, the exclusion of general deterrence from the new regime is consistent with Parliament’s express intention to reduce the over-reliance of incarceration for non-violent young persons. I am not persuaded by the Crown’s argument—

Those are the words of Justice Charron who wrote the decision. She continues:

I am not persuaded by the Crown’s argument that the words of the preamble referring to the public availability of information indicate that Parliament somehow intended by those words to include general deterrence as part of the new regime. The reference in the preamble to the desirability that certain information be available to the public, in and of itself and in context, cannot reasonably support such an interpretation.

So we can see in which direction the government wants to take us. I know that all the Bloc Québécois members will oppose this bill and will ask that it be withdrawn. Furthermore, this bill is not what the National Assembly wants. Again, focusing on deterrence, an objective of criminal law or penology, is not the way to address the issue of youth justice. The exemplary nature of sentences is the deterrent, and that can only be achieved by longer sentences.

I know that other Bloc Québécois members will expand on this, but I am calling on the government to be very careful about the precedents it could set. It would be very irresponsible for members elected by the people of Quebec to support a bill like this one. That does not mean we should not look at the issue of youth crime, but I must remind everyone that youth crime is going down, as is crime in general.

Since my time has expired, I will stop here, but I would like to say that the Bloc Québécois will not support this ill-advised bill, which is legally unsound and does not respect the wishes of the National Assembly.

[Peggy Nash, NDP, Parkdale—High Park, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to address the bill on youth crime. While we believe the bill falls short in many ways, we believe it should be debated and amended in committee.

As previous speakers have said, the bill contains two specific sections, one dealing with youth and pre-trial custody and the other dealing with sentencing provisions. We support the notion that judges should be allowed the discretion to impose pre-trial restrictions on those who pose a serious threat to society. The section dealing with pre-trial detention maintains judicial discretion and simply entrenches principles that are already being practised by most courts, so it is not a huge change.

The sections in the bill dealing with sentencing principles are more problematic. There is no evidence to suggest that the adult principles of deterrence and denunciation will have any positive outcome for public safety. Blurring the differences between adults and youth is something that the courts and surely society does not sanction. Therefore, we believe this part needs to be amended and improved on.

I will take a step back and speak a bit about some of the challenges that youth face today.

I come from the city of Toronto. I was there today when the United Way of greater Toronto released its report called “Losing Ground: The Persistent Growth of Family Poverty in Canada’s Largest City”. I want to share with the House some of the findings of this very serious report, which I believe ought to ring alarm bells with the government if it is serious about crime prevention and the need for greater safety in our communities.

Let me cite some of the findings from the United Way study.

The study found that the median income of Toronto families with children under 17 had fallen well behind the median income of families throughout the rest of Canada. It found that one in five two-parent families lived in poverty. That is twice the rate of families in the rest of Canada.

The study found that over 50% of single parent families lived in poverty compared with one in three at the beginning of the last decade, in 1990. One in four Toronto families struggled with poverty. Our poverty rate in Toronto is at 28.8% compared with 19.5% in the rest of Canada. Therefore, we are 10 percentage points higher in the city of Toronto for family poverty.

A lot of people are taking on high debt and we are finding bankruptcies. Insolvency rates in Toronto were up 52.3%, between 2000 and 2005, compared with a 16.8% increase nationally. Eviction applications have increased by 26% over the last seven years. Debt management caseloads have increased 50%, between 2001 and 2007. Payday loan and cheque cashing outlets have increased from 39 in 1995 to over 317 in 2007, with most concentrated in high poverty neighbourhoods.

I believe these statistics are even more pressing and compelling than even these numbers show because Toronto is the most expensive city in the country. Therefore, people who are experiencing these greater levels of poverty are trying to live in the most expensive city in the country.

Behind all these statistics, as devastating as they are, are individuals, families and children trying to survive in extremely stressful and hostile circumstances.

How did we get here? We have seen a massive de-industrialization in the city of Toronto. We have lost over 125,000 manufacturing jobs over the last few years. These were jobs in which people made a decent wage with benefits, with some security and stability of hours of work. They were able to support themselves and their families.

The government will say that jobs have been created. Where are those jobs? They are increasingly in the low wage, precarious, part time, contract jobs. Many people working in these jobs, even if they manage to get 40 hours a week, or the equivalent of a full time job, are living below the poverty level. More than one million people working in the city of Toronto make less than the poverty level; that is they make less than $10 an hour, which is disgraceful. We have these precarious jobs.

Then the previous Liberal government abolished our national minimum wage. We have no national minimum standard that would protect these workers from falling below the poverty line, which is why I introduced a bill to re-establish a national minimum wage and set it at $10 an hour. This would help workers get out of poverty.

One of the major challenges for families in the city of Toronto is to find affordable housing. The previous government got out of providing affordable housing. We have no national housing strategy. The real estate market in Toronto is sky-high. People trying to pay rent or maintain a mortgage are finding the costs really unsustainable.

I hear from many people in my community who tell me, especially single parents trying to pay $1,000 a month in rent when they are working in a fairly low wage job, that it is simply untenable.

What does it mean for children growing up in this environment? It means their parents are working longer hours. The parents are often away from home. The children do not have supervision when they need it, or the guidance and the resources that are needed.

If we truly want to prevent crime among young people, if we truly want to make alternatives to negative activity in society, if we want to make those more attractive, then we have to invest in families. The government has to invest in a city such as Toronto, which ought to be the engine of our national economy.

A situation that I find quite shocking is the rise of payday loan companies. They charge outrageous and exorbitant levels of interest. These companies are blossoming in poor neighbourhoods. People become locked into debt perhaps to get an advance on a paycheque. Suddenly they are into these spiralling loans that can charge hundreds of percentage points on a very small loan and suck people in.

Another problem that people in Toronto face and that affects young people is when a parent loses a job or they are between jobs. They cannot access employment insurance. Almost 80% of unemployed workers in the city of Toronto do not receive benefits from employment insurance. Therefore, they are denied the benefits they pay into.

The challenges are huge. I believe the best way to deal with youth crime is to invest in prevention. We need to invest in affordable housing. We need to get the loan sharks and the payday loan people out of the communities. We need to provide clear banking alternatives for people. We need to invest in good paying jobs that allow people to support themselves and their families. We ought to invest in programs for young people that help them succeed in school, develop leadership qualities and prepare them for the world of further education or the world of work.

Clearly, we are failing our young people and our families. I believe the report today from the United Way is a national shame. Every Canadian ought to hear an alarm bell. We ought to take action on this report immediately.

[Christian Ouellet, Bloc, Brome—Missisquoi, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I wish to commend the hon. member on her clear presentation on poverty issues.

I would like her to get into the problems in connection with housing in particular, because we very recently received a new report from the Co-operative Housing Federation of Canada on the number of households in difficulty. If I am not mistaken, 1.85 million Canadian households, or more than 3 million people, are in core housing need.

The hon. member talked about the situation in Toronto. In this report, I notice that the situation is pretty much the same across Canada and very poorly addressed.

I would like the hon. member to explain how important housing is in connection with the poverty of households, particularly single parent ones.

[Peggy Nash, NDP, Parkdale—High Park, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my hon. colleague for his question.

Affordable housing does play an important part in the rise in poverty. In Toronto, housing is expensive, especially for single parent families. These families cannot afford the housing they need. The problem is that the federal government has abandoned Canadian families, as we can still see in Toronto, and in Quebec as well.

This is a matter of real urgency because we live in a northern country. Living and surviving on the streets is not an option. To promote successful families and prevent crime, we must invest in families and affordable housing. This is an urgent matter across the country.

In light of this report today, and the one released last week about affordable housing, this is indeed an urgent matter. It is truly a national disgrace that no immediate action was taken. It is a disgrace that the federal government is not acting.

[Marc Lemay, Bloc, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I listened carefully to what my colleague had to say. I have a specific question for her. There is talk of repression and deterrence with young offenders.

I would like my colleague to explain something. I heard her say that she was from the greater Toronto area. Our Conservative friends tell us that Toronto has a street gang problem, and I would like to understand. Has my colleague experienced this problem? Does she think Bill C-25 could solve the problem of street gangs in the Toronto area?

[Peggy Nash, NDP, Parkdale—High Park, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his question.

Yes, there are problems related to street gangs in Toronto, as there are in other cities in this country. However, I do not see anything in this bill that would prevent young people from joining street gangs.

I already spoke about the issues of poverty in Toronto, but much could be done in terms of training young people and investing in youth leadership programs. We must invest in youth so that they can have a secure future and can aspire to success, instead of seeing street gangs as the only alternative.

[Rodger Cuzner, Liberal, Cape Breton—Canso, NS]

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to rise today and take part in this debate on Bill C-25. Some excellent points have been brought up through the course of this debate. I hope to add to them.

I bring to the debate 25 years of experience in coaching and working with young people through recreational activities as a former recreation professional. I am comfortable in speaking to the fact that the vast majority of the young people I had an opportunity to work with were very good young individuals. They were fairly focused. They understood the difference between right and wrong. For the most part, they just wanted to make their way in this world and find their own place and in some way try to contribute to whatever they were involved in at the time.

Unfortunately, a lot of these average young Canadians might make a bad decision on occasion. They could be with the wrong group on a particular night or in the wrong place at the wrong time, or whatever the circumstances might be, and sometimes the results are not great. However, I have known a number who have benefited from the current approach to dealing with youth crime.

The Young Offenders Act was improved upon by the legislation brought forward through the Youth Criminal Justice Act, but again we stand here tonight to try to improve it. I am comfortable in saying that the Youth Criminal Justice Act was an improvement over the Young Offenders Act, but there are gaps. There are aspects that certainly deserve to be looked at again and improved upon so we can better deal with these particular issues.

I think crime changes from community to community. Some of my colleagues from urban areas have spoken about their experiences. There is not as much gang related crime in rural areas, not that this is a youth crime, but we do see our share.

We have been very active in my own community in Cape Breton--Canso. The Cape Breton Regional Municipality and the police services board, under the direction of Dave Wilson and Myles Burke, have done an excellent job.

The past chief, Edgar MacLeod, just recently stepped down. He was a leading advocate in this country for community based policing. He did a tremendous amount of work in community based policing and had a very solid line in with the youth of our community. I know that went a long way toward finding out the needs, the wants and the concerns of the youth in our community. I think that is at least the beginning of communication with young people at risk. It is a positive step.

These individuals are to be commended for their efforts.

Our justice critic, the member for Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Lachine, joined us in Cape Breton, where we sat down with a number of different stakeholders to talk about some of the issues around youth criminal justice and other justice activities. What we heard from most of the stakeholders is that when we are talking about youth, the Nunn report, which has been referred to during the course of the debate, has very significant measures that can go a long way toward ratifying some of the gaps in the Youth Criminal Justice Act.

All of us here in the House know of the terrible tragedy of Theresa McEvoy, a 52 year old mother who lost her life when a 16 year old offender drove his car into hers. It was a terrible tragedy and it was significant because just two days before it happened he had been released from custody.

The young offender had 36 charges against him at the time, but the courts could not hold him. There was miscommunication on the part of those doing the administering, but nonetheless, the officials did not believe they had the power to keep this young person incarcerated, so he was on the streets and that terrible tragedy occurred.

In June 2005 the Nunn commission was struck. Eighteen months later, it delivered its report. I want to read from the report for members. As I have said, the Youth Criminal Justice Act does serve the vast majority of young people in this country very well. Those young people who come in contact with our legal system are very well served by the act. Mr. Justice Nunn said in the report that the act:

--has been highly successful in the manner in which the vast majority of youth is handled....

The challenge is whether the [Youth Criminal Justice Act] in its present form is adequate to deal with that smaller number of repeat offenders that the justice system is concerned with on a regular basis.

Much credence was given to this report. It was an excellent report as it was tabled, but also, there was input from those who deal with those issues on a day to day basis. I want to put this on the record as well. This is a comment from Mr. Justice Nunn's report:

--I must make it absolutely clear and not open to question that all the witnesses I heard--police, prosecutors, defence counsel, and experts--agree with and support the aims and the intent of the act. They accept it as a vast improvement over the previous legislation. All are convinced it is working well for the vast majority of young offenders, though it needs to be fine-tuned to provide effective means to handle the smaller, but regular number of repeat young offenders.

The two issues that are identified more specifically and which we hear about the majority of time when we speak with stakeholders are violent offences and of course repeat offences.

With regard to the violent offences, Justice Nunn boiled it down. His concern was pretrial detention. His concern was that the Youth Criminal Justice Act went too far in restricting any pretrial detention. In order to strike a balance between the rights of young offenders and public safety, he recommended that the definition of “violent offence” be changed to include “endangerment to the public”. That is significant. I am sure that we on this side can support that. His recommendation was the change in that context.

The other issue was repeat offenders. I want to talk about repeat offenders because again we go back to the classic adage that a few apples spoil the whole bunch. I do not think that is uncommon, but the recommendation that came from Justice Nunn, and I know that we on this side can support it, is:

--that the federal government should amend the Youth Criminal Justice Act so that the requirement for a demonstrated “pattern of findings of guilt” is changed to “a pattern of offences”....

In this case, I believe the young man who was involved in the McEvoy tragedy probably would not have been out had that change already been made to the legislation. I hope we will see that as this goes forward.

I believe this legislation as put forward today should go to the justice committee. We should hear expert witness testimony and then it should be brought to the House for a vote. We certainly support the movement of the legislation to committee.

[Christian Ouellet, Bloc, Brome—Missisquoi, QC]

Mr. Speaker, hon. members have been talking about poverty as a cause for youth crime. I would like to ask my colleague how he sees the current role of police.

We now have a police force that we could describe as trying to stop crimes, not prevent them. There used to be constables in the cities and police officers walking a beat. They knew everyone and were close to young people. There is something else going on now. I live in a riding that only has small towns. There were plans this year to bring in people who would play the role police officers used to play and no longer play, and that is to be close to young people to give them advice and to help them. The current government blocked all those plans. It seems to me that it is not just through legislation that the crime rate could be brought down.

My question for the hon. member is the following. Does he think a change in attitude and a different concept of the role of police, which the government could develop, could change the attitude of many young people?

[Rodger Cuzner, Liberal, Cape Breton—Canso, NS]

Mr. Speaker, as I said in my comments, we have been very fortunate in my own riding that community-based policing has been a priority for the local police department. However, there are also a number of my communities that are policed by the RCMP as well and I know that they make every effort to engage with young people. In one particular community, Cheticamp, a French Acadian community on the west coast of Cape Breton, the officers are very well-engaged with the community.

However, what the member said is exactly right. I think if we were to walk up to a group of young people who were ready to perpetrate an act and asked them whether they knew that would get them three years in jail, or whatever that term might be, I question whether that would be a deterrent. However, if there is a relationship with local law enforcement agencies and local law enforcement officers, I would suggest that out of respect for the law and out of respect for those members, maybe that act would not take place.

[Roy Cullen, Liberal, Etobicoke North, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I know my colleague, the member for Cape Breton—Canso, has a lot of experience working with young people and I certainly appreciated what he had to say.

Regrettably, in my riding of Etobicoke North, there has been a lot of youth violence, gangs, and drugs, and it is one of the ridings that the member from the Bloc was asking about. Fortunately, there was a police raid last year where they rounded up 50-odd young people involved with gangs and drugs. So things have been more quiet since. I am hoping that they stay that way because it was a terrible problem.

What is often misunderstood is that our Liberal government made changes to what used to be called the Young Offenders Act. We brought in the Youth Criminal Justice Act and with that, we made a number of changes. I will just cite a couple.

One is that with the legislation we allowed for transfer of information back and forth between the schools and the police, which is an important thing, and the police are using that information with good effect.

A second change is that under the Youth Criminal Justice Act, and it is often misunderstood, a judge, at his or her discretion, can try a 14-year-old as an adult if this is, in the wisdom of the judge, the appropriate way to proceed.

I think those are some additional teeth we put into the act. However, ultimately, I think it comes back to the young people. What do we do with them at a certain young age? We cannot lock them up forever. They are going--

[The Acting Speaker, Conservative, Andrew Scheer]

Order, please. I do not like to cut off the hon. member, but I do have to leave enough time for the hon. member for Cape Breton--Canso to respond. So we will have to end the question there and I will hand it over to the hon. member for Cape Breton--Canso.

[Rodger Cuzner, Liberal, Cape Breton—Canso, NS]

Mr. Speaker, I was enjoying the preamble to his question. However, with regard to the points that were being made by the member, obviously, we have to invest with issues of poverty, with issues of keeping our youth active, and investing in infrastructures in local communities, so that we can keep these young people active.

To be fair to the government, too, the minister of defence had mentioned deterrences through this legislation. The vast majority of the old information suggests that deterrence is not a significant factor. I know that there is some new information that we have access to now that might suggest otherwise. I think that is why it is important to bring this forward to committee, so that we can hash this out, have the experts present their information, and go forward from there.

[Marc Lemay, Bloc, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak to this very important debate. What we are talking about is the future of our young people in our communities. From the outset I want to say that I am against this bill and that the Bloc Québécois is also against it. There need to be very specific examples. People need to realize, and I hope the members opposite will realize, that rehabilitation and reintegration exist and are working. What is more, this works much better than repression and deterrence.

In 32 years of practising criminal law, I spent a number of years working with young offenders. We saw the Young Offenders Act, the Youth Criminal Justice Act and all sorts of legislation to try to deal with youth crime. I can assure you that in Quebec, this works. I do not understand why it does not work elsewhere.

In the 1970s, my colleague from Hochelaga will remember, there was the hippie culture. In the 1990s, it was something else and now we have street gangs. I guess the purpose of this bill is to try to address these street gangs that very quickly recruit our young people and incite them to commit crime. We are going down the wrong path.

There are plenty of examples. I attended meetings of the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights for several months. Experts who appeared before the committee said that cracking down on crime is working in the United States. That is not true. All kinds of evidence and statistics were provided. The Conservatives are basing their bill on false data from the United States. Cracking down has not reduced the crime rate. That is simply not true. The homicide rate in the United States has not dropped despite the fact that they put more people in jail than anyone else and even though they have the death penalty. Are the Conservatives trying to reopen the debate on the death penalty with this bill? I would not be surprised if that was what they wanted. I hope that is not the case and that they will provide some reassurance to that effect.

A basic tenet of law states that onus must not be placed on the accused when seeking interim release if doing so would violate the presumption of innocence. Therein lies the problem. That is a fundamental principle. Why reverse the onus? There are articles in the Criminal Code that cover this, and they have applied until now. Young people who committed repeat offences were not released. That is not the problem; the problem is reintegration.

I do not know what has gotten into the Conservatives. They need to understand, once and for all, that putting people in jail as often as possible and for as long as possible does not stop crime. The real causes of crime—as they themselves will say—are poverty, poor social environment and so on. It seems strange that even though they know this, they have never put forward any solutions to these problems.

When I was with clients in court, sentences were decided case by case. The judge had to explain the sentence to the individual. It is hard enough for a judge to determine an appropriate sentence for individuals over 18.

Now imagine the problem they have with those under 18. The closer a person is to 14, the harder it is.

A young, 14-year-old person, whether the Conservatives like it or not, does not think the same as someone who is 18, 20, 22 or 24. Kids should be kids. Yes, crime does exist among young people and it must be dealt with severely. I agree—I am not saying that we should all give them our blessing and trust them implicitly. They must be dealt with by the courts and sanctioned appropriately.

I would point out that, as legislators, we talked about sanctions for young offenders and not sentences. There is a significant difference. The sentence must then be explained, the sanction that is about to be given to an individual. The younger the offender, the more careful we must be, the more we must customize the sanction, and focus on rehabilitation and reintegration. This is what I want to explain to the Conservatives, given that “rehabilitation” and “reintegration” do not seem to be part of their vocabulary.

Someone who commits an offence—and that is what we are talking about—must be given the opportunity to return to society. We must explain to them and make sure they understand the risks, and take steps to ensure they do not reoffend. Among young offenders—dozens of whom I have represented—it is foolish to believe there is any reverence for crime, that they want to return to crime, that they like committing offences, that they like breaking and entering, that they like committing murder. This is all false. It is an urban legend.

Quite often, the young person is put in a certain situation. Here are some examples. The most common crimes committed by young people are breaking and entering and car theft, or using illegal substances, of course. It does not involve hard drugs, but rather using marijuana and hashish. However, when someone begins using cocaine, certain measures must definitely be taken. I am not saying that we should not intervene, but that we must do so while considering the needs of young people. And what young people need is rehabilitation and, above all, reintegration.

We have to remember that the young person must return to society and become a productive member. Bill C-25 provides for the opposite. Consequently, they will start out slowly by keeping youth in a crime school. They even want to send young people to adult jail more often. I would like my friends opposite to go and see what goes on in a penitentiary. That is no place for a young person. We have to think in terms of rehabilitation and reintegration.

My wise colleague from Hochelaga spoke of Supreme Court decisions where the justices stated:

Parliament has sought preferably to promote the long-term protection of the public by addressing the circumstances underlying the offending behaviour, by rehabilitating and reintegrating young persons into society and by holding young persons accountable through the imposition of meaningful sanctions related to the harm done.

As I have only one minute left, I will conclude by saying that with this bill we run the risk of going in the wrong direction. We run the risk of being entangled in something very difficult from which we will not be able to extricate ourselves, namely repression and sanction.

What we should be doing is talking to our young people, explaining to them, making them understand and reiterating that crime does not pay, that you must live up to your obligations and that a solution must be found when a sentence is handed down. We have to explain this to the youth so that he accepts the sentence. If he does not, he is headed straight to the school of crime known as prison.

[Harold Albrecht, Conservative, Kitchener—Conestoga, ON]

Mr. Speaker, in this debate I think one of the greatest dangers we face is the danger of polarizing the differences between rehabilitation and deterrence. We are not talking about an either/or approach.

My colleague mentioned that we were talking about putting people in prison for as long as possible but that is not at all factual. My colleague must have missed the announcement that our government made in terms of the $22 million that we are investing in prevention and rehabilitation programs.

One of the objectives of this bill is to deter and prevent youth from entering deeper and deeper levels of criminal activity. I remember a parent in my riding begging the judge to have her son sentenced to a treatment or jail facility so he would be protected from further criminal activity.

Does my colleague not agree that within the huge spectrum of different treatment options that we have, such as prevention, rehabilitation and restorative justice, which are all important, one of the key factors needs to be the element of deterring behaviour that would end up causing further damage, not only to the victims but to the offender himself or herself?

[Marc Lemay, Bloc, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

Mr. Speaker, there is a fundamental difference. I do not share the opinion of my hon. colleague across the floor. If he would amend the bill by removing clause 2, I am sure we could agree easily.

However, as soon as anyone says, as it does in clause 2, that the judge should add deterrence to the sentencing criteria, this goes against a Supreme Court ruling. Actually, this would mean setting aside rehabilitation, social reintegration, and the notion of guiding and protecting young people. No!

At some point, what is the judge going to say? That since this is the offender's 15th or 18th break and enter, he or she will be put away for three years. That is what will happen. However, a young person who commits 15 breaking and entering offences must have some sort of a problem. To date, in such a case, questions would be raised, the situation would be looked at, and the family and background would be examined. We would try to understand why this person committed such offences and make decisions accordingly.

Under the proposed amendment, unfortunately, we would lock them up and throw away the key, if possible.

[Joe Comartin, NDP, Windsor—Tecumseh, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I rose initially to speak to what is in effect a motion before the House to close off debate, a motion moved by the member for Edmonton—Sherwood Park. I actually was rising with mixed feelings. On the one hand, because it is important that the debate on this bill continue for an extended period of time, I was going to be critical of my colleague for Edmonton--Sherwood Park. However, on the other hand, since I already spoke once to this matter, the motion now allows me to speak a second time and make additional points. Therefore, I actually want to thank the member for making the motion.

Hopefully, the motion will also give enough time to other members of this House who are bringing forward good points, as we just heard from my colleague from the Bloc and earlier from my colleague from Parkdale, about how we go about strengthening our youth criminal justice system without impairing the steps forward that we have made over the last 20 or 30 years.

I practised law during that entire period of time before I came to the House and a good deal of my early career was spent dealing with youth crime. It was different legislation at that time. It was much more punitive in nature. The law did not have much emphasis on rehabilitation. It recognized the difference between youth and adult crimes but was much more limited.

Over the years, our society, reflected in the legislation that Parliament passed, has moved forward. As that was going on, we saw a continuing reduction, until very recently, in crimes generally, both by adults and youth, and specifically with regard to youth crime, we saw some very substantial drops in the rates of youth crime. This decline corresponded with us reducing the times that youth spent in correctional facilities and emphasized the amount of time they would spend either in the community receiving treatment and counselling, et cetera, or in facilities that were of a psychiatric and psychological nature where very intensive treatment would be available for them.

What happened, and both the federal government and the provincial governments were at fault for this, is we saw in the middle nineties, in budgets that were passed by the former prime minister when he was finance minister, and we saw it in a number of the provinces, most notably in Ontario under the Mike Harris and Ernie Eves administration, substantial cuts to those treatment programs. We also saw cuts that affected the quality of life for those who are more vulnerable in our society.

There has been the commencement of an analysis by sociologists and criminologists to try to explain the spike in crimes that we have seen, the development, as we heard from some of the other speakers, in many more street gangs forming, noticeably over the last four or five years, but which started even earlier than that. It is interesting to go back and look at the increase in the crime rate, particularly among youth and the spike that we have seen in the last three or four years.

Mr. Speaker, I wonder if we could have some order in the House. It is really very distracting to speak when we have conversations going on.

[The Acting Speaker, Conservative, Andrew Scheer]

I think the hon. member raises a good point. If there are any members who wish to carry on conversations with their colleagues could they please use one of the lobbies on either side of the House so we can all hear the hon. member for Windsor—Tecumseh.

[Joe Comartin, NDP, Windsor—Tecumseh, ON]

Mr. Speaker, what we have seen is the spike and we have seen it most noticeably in the last three or four years in our crime statistics. We have seen it particularly coming out of crimes committed by youth gangs.

If we go back and study the sociological data, a good number of individuals committing those crimes were in their early to late adolescence or early teens at the time when these financial cuts came about and when the impact of the cuts to those programs, whether it was the treatment programs, affordable housing or basic social assistance, were felt. We saw a 22% cut in social assistance in the province of Ontario in one budget.

Those cuts had a substantial impact on the ability of mostly single parents to provide even the basic necessities. We are seeing this analysis coming at this point, and I think it will be a few more years before we can say whether it is a valid analysis, but at the very least it should say to us that we need to be very careful about how we deal with youth crime. How do we treat it, handle it or reduce it?

A simplistic analysis that we see in the bill, and particularly in the second part of the bill, says that all we need to do is introduce some new sentencing principles, take them from the adult sentencing principles that we have now and say that we need to denunciate these crimes, deter these crimes and use those sentencing principles to do it.

There is overwhelming sociological evidence that deterrence works very little, as does denunciation even in adult crimes. There is even better evidence that it does not work at all in youth crimes.

It is good that we are continuing to have this debate because it allows us to hear more stories and information from other members of the House that this bill is not the way to go or tinker with the youth criminal justice system because it is not effective and, in fact, we may have unintended consequences.

We know that if we put people who are psychologically vulnerable into certain settings they come out more hardened, experienced and better criminals in the sense that they learn while they are in those custodial facilities from other more hardened criminals how to commit crime better. They oftentimes come out more bitter and more vicious. We know those things from all sorts of studies.

This simplistic analysis of simply saying that we need to denunciate, we need to deter and put those principles into our youth criminal justice system flies in the face of overwhelming factual evidence to the contrary.

We hear from the Conservative government that it is spending money on treatment programs. As I said earlier, the analysis we had from across the country was not $10 million or $20 million a year in additional funding. We have some makeup to do for all those programs that got cut, both federally and provincially, all those funds that stopped flowing to help build a better society, whether it is for recreational or treatment programs. We cut those funds and they have not been put back.

I think one of the speakers earlier this evening talked about $22 million going back in. The analysis we made, in assistance with the network of communities across the country that did the analysis, is that at a minimum we needed $100 million a year. If we could find all that money in the budget to give tax breaks to large corporations in the billions of dollars, could we not have found more money for these programs? Even though the government may be spending $22 million, it actually is not since it has not got around to spending it all. However, it could have spent another $80 million if it had not given those billions of dollars in tax breaks to large corporations that did not need them.

[Brian Murphy, Liberal, Moncton—Riverview—Dieppe, NB]

Mr. Speaker, in his comments, the hon. member referred to words like “denounciate”. I have not found that one, but I am sure he means denounce and deter. He said there is an attempt by this bill to import denunciation and deterrence into the Youth Criminal Justice Act. If I understood him correctly, he would be against the importation of the adult concepts to youth criminal justice principles.

I wonder if he thinks that the two references that I know of by the Quebec Court of Appeal and the Ontario Court of Appeal with respect to the imposition of an adult sentence on a youth being unconstitutional and against section 7 of the charter. Does he think those references anew would lead to a similar result with the importation of adult sentencing principles?

I fully realize that an adult sentence is quite a bit more stiff when it comes to section 7 than adult sentencing principles, but does he not think there might be words of warning in the two court of appeal judgments that might assist us in committee at least, if the bill gets that far, in sculpting away some of these adult concepts to make the law in fact constitutional?

[Joe Comartin, NDP, Windsor—Tecumseh, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I will start by saying that I recognize my friend in particular because of his Irish ancestry is much more eloquent than I am and may have better pronunciation. The principle is denunciation. It is denouncing certain conduct, so he is correct from that perspective.

More seriously, with regard to the question of the constitutionality, both courts of appeal were dealing with the legislation as it is worded now, which does not permit for there to be adult sentencing principles incorporated into the legislation. Both courts of appeal were very clear and, quite frankly, very forceful in the language they used that lower courts could not incorporate those concepts into the legislation.

If this bill were to get through, and certainly the opposition parties are all feeling that it should not as it is worded with these sentencing principles in it, this bill would be challenged under the charter from a couple of perspectives, at least the issue of proportionality, that youth have to be treated differently and the seriousness that we apportion to those crimes. That will come up.

Overall, the right of a country to expect that youth are going to be treated differently from adults would be very much part of that challenge. As opposed to those two court of appeal decisions which did not deal with the charter issues, we will see that--

[The Acting Speaker, Conservative, Andrew Scheer]

Questions and comments, the hon. member for Edmonton—Sherwood Park.

[Ken Epp, Conservative, Edmonton—Sherwood Park, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to begin by simply correcting the record. It was not I, though I could have easily done it, but the member for Lethbridge who made the motion to which the hon. member referred.

I would like to counter some of the comments that have been made, particularly from the Bloc member but also from the member from time to time, though not as strenuously, and that is that we on the government side do not have concern for young people and how to prevent crime. That is a false statement. It is false and I want to set the record straight.

To give an example very quickly, one of the saddest visits I ever made was to the youth detention centre in Edmonton. It is incredibly sad to walk in there and see young people who have been found guilty of crimes, such as knifing fellow students in the school yard or using a weapon to commit crimes, maybe theft at a store or something. I have a great deal of compassion and concern for how we keep those kids out of there in the first place. If I ever had a chance to make a speech, I could enlarge on that.

[Joe Comartin, NDP, Windsor—Tecumseh, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I want to apologize to the member for Edmonton—Sherwood Park for that misinformation. It was done in all honesty. I understood he had moved the motion.

I have been in those kinds of institutions as well. I sat on the boards of a number of institutions that dealt with individuals. I have also dealt with the victims of youth crime. The bottom line is that simplistic solutions are not the answer and there are parts of this bill that are introducing simplistic solutions that will not move this forward at all.

Back to my basic point, the government needs to be spending more money if we are going to deal with the spike in youth crime in this country.

[Bernard Bigras, Bloc, Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am very happy to rise today to speak on Bill C-25, An Act to amend the Youth Criminal Justice Act. With this debate, I feel as though I am reliving some previous debates we had here in the House of Commons. A few years ago, the Bloc Québécois waged a strong offensive against the then Liberal government regarding the Young Offenders Act. I remember that my colleague from Berthier—Montcalm, Michel Bellehumeur, who was the Bloc Québécois justice critic, voiced what the legal community and the National Assembly were calling for. What is more, my colleague defended the Quebec model against the repressive model put forward by the federal government at the time. We were proposing and defending rehabilitative and preventive approach.

Essentially, quite apart from Bill C-25, the real problem lies there. Before we debate the bills we should adopt in the House of Commons, we need to take a long, hard look at the approach and the model we are using when, in our justice system, some people, groups and governments are trying to shift the burden of proof to adolescents and use pretrial detention, with the effects that can have on adolescents. That is where the problem lies.

Quebec made a choice to work with adolescents. It decided not to simply view detention as the only way to respond to acts that could be criminal, but to bring together social stakeholders who work with our young people and involve educators and families so that young people can have a healthy environment. If adolescents do things that are not acceptable, it is because they are being seriously affected by various social problems. It is because they are in an environment where poverty is a reality for them. It is because young people are having more and more difficulty in finding jobs. It is because they feel they have no future.

When these young people commit a wrongdoing, it is because there is a fundamental problem, a societal problem upstream. What do we have here to deal with this situation? We have a government which is using the stick to deal with these social issues, with the problems relating to youth employment, or with the deadlock that young Quebeckers and Canadians are facing. We must ask ourselves whether this is the proper approach to put young people back on the right track. We, on this side of the House, do not believe it is.

We believe that rehabilitation and prevention must prevail. Inequalities are getting worse. Delinquency is becoming a way of life for an increasing number of young people. The exclusion of young people in the workplace, and in their environment, is becoming a major issue. Rather than coming up with a justice system that uses the stick against young people, we should provide adequate assistance to this generation, whose members often no longer hold any hopes.

What we are promoting today is a model that has proven successful, that has allowed us to have a homicide rate that is three times lower than that of the United States.

Of course, because we read major newspapers, every now and then we see that some young people committed a wrongdoing. In fact, what the federal government is trying to implement here in Canada is an approach similar to the one used in the United States, whose effectiveness has not been demonstrated.

For example, the homicide rate is three times higher in the United States than it is here, in Canada. So, did this approach based on repression help improve the situation? Of course not.

It is the same thing with violent crimes committed by young people. It is true that, in Quebec, the latest figures for 2006 point to an increase in violent crimes committed by young people. However, that is the only such data. All the other available data show that this type of violence is not increasing. Come to think of it, the government's approach is not aimed at the proper group.

What is the purpose of Bill C-25? According to clause 1, a judge must presume that the pretrial detention of a young person is necessary if:

1(2)(a) the young person is charged with a violent offence or an offence that otherwise endangered the public by creating a substantial likelihood of serious bodily harm to another person;

1(2)(b) the young person has been found guilty of failing to comply with non-custodial sentences or conditions of release; or

1(2)(c) the young person is charged with an indictable offence for which an adult would be liable to imprisonment for a term of more than two years and has a history that indicates a pattern of findings of guilt—

What is the government trying to accomplish with clause 1? Two things. First, it is trying to use presumption against young people and transfer the burden and the responsibility to them even though the problem is a genuine, social one.

Second, the bill seeks pretrial detention of adolescents even though we know that trials often result in not guilty verdicts. Adolescents would be kept in jail even though the verdict could turn out not to be a guilty one. Imagine the impact of that on adolescents in their formative years.

The battle we are fighting today over Bill C-25 is the same battle my colleague from Berthier—Montcalm fought several years ago over the Young Offenders Act.

In conclusion, we are defending the Quebec model here, a model that promotes prevention and the rehabilitation of our young people, as opposed to the federal government's approach, which is about repression and detention, and which is not at all the approach that should be used when young people need help.

[Ken Epp, Conservative, Edmonton—Sherwood Park, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I mean no bad ideas about this, but I cannot resist asking a question of members of the Bloc, who are always saying they would like us to adopt the Quebec model. I just wonder about the facts. I do not believe that Quebec is crime free. I believe there are substantial problems in Quebec, at least there have been in the past, unless it has changed recently, with organized crime and with biker gangs just like in the rest of the country.

I would like to know why, in the member's opinion, the Quebec model is so superior when the results do not seem to show, to me at least, that things are substantially better.

[Bernard Bigras, Bloc, Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, QC]

Mr. Speaker, in this House, we do not claim that the Quebec model is better than another. The Quebec model is simply different. We see how the Conservative member is attempting to standardize the penal approach here in Canada. He confuses motorcycle gangs with youth under 18. That is basically what he has just said, and that is completely different.

Can we allow minors, adolescents—even though they committed reprehensible acts—to be put into the same system as consenting individuals over 18?

We have to work with our youth to put them on the right track, first of all by understanding them, being there for them and helping them develop. We will not help them by throwing them in jail.

[Brian Murphy, Liberal, Moncton—Riverview—Dieppe, NB]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to know whether the Bloc Québécois member will support the first part of this bill.

As you know, the bill has two parts. The second part will not have the support of all opposition members. However, in our opinion, we can come to an agreement on the first part because it results from the recommendation by Justice Nunn from Nova Scotia.

I would quite simply like to ask whether the member and the Bloc Québécois support the first part of the bill.

[Bernard Bigras, Bloc, Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thought I was clear. The problem with this bill is not a few clauses. The problem is the actual principle and basis of this bill, as well as the approach it takes.

For us, it is clear that it is not a question of supporting the principle itself or negotiating based on one part compared to another. We do not agree with the approach taken in this bill. We will defend the Quebec model because it gives the best results and has been proven.

The House resumed from November 26, 2007, consideration of the motion that Bill C-25, An Act to amend the Youth Criminal Justice Act, be read the second time and referred to a committee, and of the motion that this question be now put.

[Dominic LeBlanc, Liberal, Beauséjour, NB]

Mr. Speaker, I am extremely pleased to rise in this House to speak to a bill as important as Bill C-25, An Act to amend the Youth Criminal Justice Act.

A few months ago, my colleagues in the Liberal caucus, especially the hon. member for Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Lachine and the hon. member for Yukon, spoke in this House about the Liberal Party's serious concerns about the direction this government is taking by adding denunciation and deterrence as sentencing principles that a court may consider when imposing a sentence on someone convicted under the Youth Criminal Justice Act.

In previous debates, the House has heard a lot of discussion around how the Youth Criminal Justice Act could be improved.

I think all members would acknowledge that the Youth Criminal Justice Act is a significant improvement over previous legislation, the Young Offenders Act, for example. Legislation as important for the protection of the public, as the Youth Criminal Justice Act, from time to time needs to be examined, to be updated and to reflect the different circumstances that may lead Parliament in its wisdom to make amendments.

This bill proposes to do two things. It proposes to add denunciation and deterrence as sentencing principles that a court may consider when it imposes a sentence on someone convicted under the Youth Criminal Justice Act. It also facilitates the use of pretrial detention in cases where a youth has committed a violent crime, has breached current conditions of release or has been charged with an indictable offence for which an adult would be liable for a term of imprisonment for more than two years and has a history which would lead the court to conclude that there is a pattern of findings of guilt.

Those of us in the Liberal caucus, who have looked at the legislation, have concluded that the government has gone a considerable distance, and in a positive way, to deal with the breakdown in the system, particularly around pretrial detention of some of the most violent young offenders.

This aspect of the bill merits considerable approval in the House. It attempts to strike the right balance between protecting the public and also recognizing that the objectives of rehabilitation and integration are obviously important when dealing with a young offender.

Where we have some considerable difficulty, however, is with respect to the government's intention to introduce deterrence and denunciation as principles in sentencing of young offenders.

Many colleagues have spoken in the House about a report done in Nova Scotia by Justice Merlin Nunn, following a tragic incident in the province in 2004 involving the death of a woman, Theresa McEvoy, who was killed in her vehicle by a 16-year-old person joyriding in a stolen car at the time of this tragic incident. At the time, the particular young offender had been released by a court despite having 38 criminal charges filed against him.

In June 2005 the Government of Nova Scotia called a public inquiry to look at how the charges against that youth were handled and issues relating to why he was in fact released, which led to the tragic death of Ms. McEvoy. Justice Merlin Nunn was named by the Government of Nova Scotia to conduct this important inquiry.

Those of us in the Liberal caucus, who have spoken previously on the legislation, have urged the government not to simply cherry-pick from Justice Nunn's report, as it has attempted to do in the bill, but to look in a comprehensive way at all the recommendations made by this eminent Nova Scotia judge, who had extensive public hearings and who considered a wide range of issues. From our perspective, Justice Nunn made a number of very thoughtful recommendations to rebalance the legislation to deal with such difficult issues as pretrial detention of violent, repeat young offenders.

The bill focuses only on a partial response to some of the recommendations made by Justice Nunn.

In his report Justice Nunn talked about finding a better balance in the Youth Criminal Justice Act in terms of focusing on rehabilitation and integration. Justice Nunn does not believe that the concept of having denunciation and deterrence as important sentencing principles will lead to a better balance and to modernizing the Youth Criminal Justice Act. The Conservatives are attempting to introduce these elements in sentencing, which to some extent import adult sentencing principles into youth criminal justice legislation.

Section 718.1 of the Criminal Code, dealing with adult sentencing, addresses the issue of proportionality. The Youth Criminal Justice Act has had a different set of values when considering sentencing, and we have some hesitancy in seeing the government move toward adult sentencing principles of the Criminal Code as they would apply to the Youth Criminal Justice Act.

As I said a minute ago, of the two elements in the bill, there should be broad support, and certainly in our caucus, around the issue of pretrial detention, allowing the court to impose pretrial detention on some of the most violent, repeat young offenders.

The Supreme Court of Canada, in a decision on June 22, 2006, said that deterrence and denunciation with respect to sentencing were not principles found in the Youth Criminal Justice Act. The court's opinion was persuasive with respect to the need to focus on rehabilitation and reintegration when one was dealing with a young offender.

Many experts in the youth criminal justice field have expressed concerns that the two particular principles the government is attempting to import into this legislation have not proven to be effective in dealing with youth criminal justice matters.

Jail time for young offenders is obviously an issue that is very complicated. Many observers have said, and I think correctly, that it should be a last resort in incarcerating a young person. All too often prison time and jail time can be the best training ground for crime. Prisons have often been referred to as schools for criminal activity. As much as possible, young persons should be put into a system that focuses on rehabilitation and reintegration in the community. We should not simply lock them up and throw away the key.

In his report Justice Nunn directs his attention very appropriately to the issue of jail time. He says, and I will quote from his report: “Many of these critics believe that jail is the answer: “There they’ll learn the error of their ways”. He goes on to say:

These critics pay little attention to contrary evidence, nor do they understand that [for a youngh person] jail [is often not recommended and] does not correct or rehabilitate, but rather often turns out a person whose behaviour is much worse than it was. Others espouse the vengeful adage “adult crime—adult time,” paying no attention to the fact that it is a youth crime and not an adult crime.

As debate on second reading continues, we will be listening and looking forward to making amendments at committee. We believe the other recommendations of Justice Nunn, which my colleague, the member for Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Lachine, identified in her speech, need to be added into the legislation.

[Guy André, Bloc, Berthier—Maskinongé, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I was listening to my colleague from the Liberal Party comment on Bill C-25. First of all, this bill seems to be modelled on American practices. It leans more toward cracking down and getting tough on youth.

In Quebec, for many years now, we have been developing an approach focused more on rehabilitating and reintegrating youth. Some people do indeed commit serious crimes and must be punished, but our approach seeks to identify what these youth need. It does not necessarily criminalize them right away or send them to detention centres, and possibly to adult detention centres, as this bill would have us do. I do not believe that is a good way to rehabilitate and reintegrate youth.

I would like the hon. member to explain why this bill seems to be modelled on the American approach, when we know that the homicide rate in the United States is three times higher than it is here in Quebec and Canada.

[Dominic LeBlanc, Liberal, Beauséjour, NB]

Mr. Speaker, my colleague from Berthier—Maskinongé has done a fine job bringing into focus a model that the rest of the country can emulate. To my knowledge, Quebec is very advanced in the areas of youth criminal justice and the treatment of young offenders. He has clearly stated the important principle of rehabilitation, which remains paramount to the Liberal Party in discussing youth justice issues.

I agree with what he said about many bills put forward by this Conservative government being inspired from failures of the Republic model in the United States, a model that never worked by the way. In Nova Scotia, Justice Nunn produced an important report on all these issues. He reviewed all the evidence relating to how to protect society and rehabilitate young offenders. We believe that his report deserves special attention. This is why we will be proposing amendments to that effect in committee.

[Tony Martin, NDP, Sault Ste. Marie, ON]

Mr. Speaker, in the member's assessment of the bill and in looking at the whole question of youth justice and the criminal justice system, did he factor in at all the whole notion of restorative justice? Has he thought about it much?

I know that a lot of research has been done. A lot of people have worked in that area and are bringing restorative justice forward as a way to reduce recidivism among youth who find themselves in trouble with the law. Plus, it adds a whole new element to the way that we grow and develop a community and the community responsibility and response in regard to this terrible challenge of youth and crime and youth who find themselves in difficulty with the law.

Could the member share with me how he sees this piece of legislation perhaps impacting on the movement to have more of a restorative justice approach to dealing with youth and the law?

[Dominic LeBlanc, Liberal, Beauséjour, NB]

Mr. Speaker, my colleague from Sault Ste. Marie raises what I think is a very good point. The legislation is a very narrowly focused piece of legislation, as I have said, designed basically to deal with two elements of the Youth Criminal Justice Act. From our perspective, it does not take into account much of the important innovation that has taken place around restorative justice.

I have two federal prisons in my constituency, in Dorchester, New Brunswick. I have had a chance to meet a number of people involved in those prisons, including social workers, people from the John Howard Society and a remarkable gentleman called Siegfrid Janzen, who in his eighties had done a number of community initiatives around restorative justice and had made great progress.

We think those innovations need to be looked at in a comprehensive way around the Youth Criminal Justice Act. We think that to focus narrowly on sentencing and pre-trial detention takes away from other very important aspects.

[Paul Crête, Bloc, Montmagny—L'Islet—Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to address this bill today. I remember a few years ago, when the Bloc Québécois fought an epic battle regarding the Youth Criminal Justice Act. Our justice critic at the time, Mr. Michel Bellehumeur, had tabled 3,000 amendments to the bill, and over 2,800 of those had been deemed in order. These proposed changes by Mr. Bellehumeur—who is now a judge—were based on the approach that has been in use in Quebec for several years.

Indeed, when it comes to youth justice, we must really promote rehabilitation. Young offenders must understand the consequences of the bad decisions that they have made, and of the actions that they have taken. They must realize that they did not do the right thing, and we have to help them reintegrate society and become good citizens again. We must avoid sending them to what is known as “crime school”, by slowly putting them on the path to penitentiaries, because these young people may then make inappropriate contacts and end up making the wrong choices. It has been demonstrated—again in the 2007 data—that Quebec's approach results in lower crime among young people, while there is an increase in all of the other provinces of Canada.

That was an epic battle indeed. In the end, we lost the vote in the House and the act was amended. However, a court ruling helped reduce the impact of the decision made by the federal government in office at the time, which was influenced by the American model and which felt that this was the way to go. Ultimately, the results achieved were not as bad as expected. However, the Conservative government is now going on the offensive again and wants to introduce measures that will again target youth behaviour, rather than focus on rehabilitation.

In that sense, the point of view the Bloc Québécois supports in this House is shared by all of Quebec. Our point of view is in direct opposition to the Conservative government's vision. Let us remember that the Minister of Justice said that children as young as 12 should be thrown in jail. Then we were told that the statement was being quoted out of context. However, the spirit in which this bill was tabled, the spirit in which they want it to be adopted, reflects the attitude that young people should be punished. According to this draconian policy, the justice system should punish young people, not rehabilitate them. The bill before us is not in line with choices that Quebec has made in the past. In Quebec, the crime rate has dropped.

For example, clause 1 of Bill C-25 states that the judge should presume that pre-trial detention is necessary if a young person is charged with a violent offence, has been found guilty of failing to comply with non-custodial sentences, or has been charged with a crime for which an adult would be liable to imprisonment for a term of more than two years and has a history that indicates a pattern of findings of guilt.

This is the same line of thinking that motivated the government to impose mandatory minimum sentencing in all adult cases. They want to box young people in. That kind of attitude can have a very negative impact when it comes to youth crime. We have seen how Quebec's justice system works for minors, and it is important to have an approach that makes it possible to find real solutions that will result in the rehabilitation of young people, not the opposite.

The clause before us may seem appealing at first glance, but we have to take a closer look. By attempting to transfer the burden of proof to youths, the Conservative government is challenging a basic principle of the justice system, the presumption of innocence. As we have so often seen, charges do not necessarily result in a guilty verdict. Teenagers who are detained prior to trial, and who are then found innocent, will have been subjected to the awful consequences of detention even if they did nothing wrong.

With the presumption that is weighing on him, a young person will have to prove that he does not pose a threat to society even before being found guilty of an offence. Moreover, this will even have an impact on his day-to-day life. To his classmates, it will be as if the young person was found guilty before the fact, which is not necessarily a happy choice. In our opinion, this clause is not in line with the logic that should prevail on the issue of youth crime.

Clause 2 makes a major change in sentencing criteria. It states that, from now on, sentences can be aimed at denouncing unlawful conduct or deterring the young person and other young persons from committing offences. This seems benign in and of itself, but it is anything but. It represents a fundamental shift and goes against Quebec's traditional position. Moreover, the Supreme Court issued this opinion on this issue:

Parliament has sought preferably to promote the long-term protection of the public by addressing the circumstances underlying the offending behaviour, by rehabilitating and reintegrating young persons into society and by holding young persons accountable through the imposition of meaningful sanctions related to the harm done.

This is not the spirit of the bill before us. For that reason, we believe that we are right to be opposed to the bill as introduced.

According to the Supreme Court, the fact that deterrence is not among the objectives of youth sentencing is a very significant deliberate omission. We have found that the spirit in which the federal government acted is meeting with a great deal of opposition from stakeholders in Quebec who are concerned about the whole youth crime package. We would therefore like the federal government to reverse its decision and reconsider the issue so that the approach developed in Quebec can continue to apply appropriately.

Our fear is that Bill C-25 is merely the first step. It is not necessarily surprising to see the Conservative government put forward measures like the ones in Bill C-25. It is not very surprising, coming from a party that tolerates the fact that its Minister of Justice is so blinded by his ideological approach that he is contending that the only way to eradicate the supposed wave of youth violence is to increase public safety, restore public confidence in the justice system and sentence young people to prison, even children no older than 12.

The law currently states very clearly that incarceration should be an exceptional measure and that the judge must give priority to extrajudicial measures before incarcerating a youth. So it is obvious that the bill's proposed amendments to sections of the act go against the spirit of judicial intervention in this sector. For these reasons, the Bloc Québécois believes that this bill should not be passed as is.

The former minister of justice said that it was acceptable to incarcerate young people aged 12 and up. At the time, there was a concern that this statement implied that the Conservatives' goal was to change the sentencing principles in the act to make incarcerating youth the rule, instead of the exception. Now we see that the minister did not make a mistake, but that this is the path the Conservative government wanted to take. This is why we will vote against Bill C-25 as it stands now.

In conclusion, I would like to remind the House about the epic battle fought by Michel Bellehumeur, the member for Berthier—Montcalm at the time, which was supported by all the Bloc Québécois members. Our strength in that battle came from the fact that we had the support of all of Quebec.

The scope of Bill C-25 is much less broad, but it still has the same goal and would still have us copy the American model. The Bloc Québécois says no to this approach and it is representing Quebeckers on this issue.

[Claude Bachand, Bloc, Saint-Jean, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I want to begin by congratulating my hon. colleague on his very good presentation. I guess I am not telling him anything he did not already know when I say that, under constant pressure from the Bloc Québécois, the government eventually recognized that there are after all two peoples in Canada: the Quebec nation and the Canadian nation. The bill before us today really highlights one of Quebec's distinguishing features. This is what I would like to question my hon. colleague about.

With its heavy-handed approach, is the government not reinforcing the idea that there are indeed two nations? On the one hand, the Quebec nation believes in rehabilitation, solidarity and providing whatever help it can to young offenders. On the other hand, on the government side, not only can a “made in USA” approach be perceived, but I would go as far as to call it a Republican approach, which contrasts even more starkly with Quebec's distinguishing feature.

In addition, I think my hon. colleague will agree with me that Quebec seems to have achieved greater success in that area, with its lower crime rate. By investing in these young people to rehabilitate them, we are showing that Quebec's society got it right. I would like to hear my colleague on this Quebec approach, as opposed to the Canadian or “made in the USA” Republican approach.

[Paul Crête, Bloc, Montmagny—L'Islet—Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague from Saint-Jean for his very relevant intervention. I would remind him that in May 2001, the National Assembly of Quebec called on the federal government to consider Quebec's approach. The text read:

That the National Assembly call on the Government of Canada to make provision within the criminal justice system for young persons for a special system for Quebec under the Young Offenders Act, in order to fully reflect its particular intervention model.

At that time, we will remember, the nation of Quebec had not yet been recognized in this House. A Bloc motion lead the debate on that issue, and the Prime Minister agreed to recognize it. The time has come for concrete actions to illustrate how this nation is different and today provides a very concrete way to do so. The Conservative Party needs only to recognize that the nation of Quebec wants a different model and that even if the rest of Canada wants a more Republican approach, modelled on the U.S. Republican Party's punitive approach, that is not the approach Quebec wants to take. If the concept of nation means anything, this would be a concrete way to prove it, and recognize that Quebec could have a different model.

Unfortunately, the Conservative party says one thing and then does another. For example: the nation was recognized, Bill C-25 is still being debated and there is no specific measure to allow Quebec to withdraw from its application. Quebec's approach has produced some interesting results. Youth crime is handled differently; rehabilitation is possible. We want that approach to continue.

Thus, we must be clear that we are against the approach in Bill C-25. In the past, there was an epic debate on this whole issue. Today, there are specific measures, but the federal government's attitude remains the same. Whether Liberal or Conservative, the government wants to impose the same repressive right-wing American model on everyone, while Quebec's model is exemplary and has been recognized. Earlier I heard some members from the Liberal Party of Canada cite it as an example.

I hope that we will come to recognize the background of this issue, the battles that have been fought and the way youth justice is applied in Quebec, so that this approach can continue to be used in that province. I also hope that the repressive approach in Bill C-25 will be dropped.

[Brian Masse, NDP, Windsor West, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise today and speak to Bill C-25, An Act to amend the Youth Criminal Justice Act. The bill has two potential consequences to the Youth Criminal Justice Act. In particular, I want to focus on the possibility of a pre-trial detention for a young person. The bill also adds denunciation and deterrence of unlawful conduct to the act's principles in sentencing.

The New Democratic Party has concerns about these two elements and also the vacancy of other public policies to prevent crime and in particular issues facing youth.

Our party is supporting the bill. We are indicating though that we do want to see amendments prior to the bill being passed. These two issues are very significant and have several consequences that relate to youth and justice in our society. We believe that the bill in its current state does not address those issues.

I want to touch now on a couple of those issues. The first one is with regard to the first part of the bill which is a little bit different in the sense of treating young people and making sure that they are detained longer. At the present time the judicial system has that capability. What this legislation will do is codify existing practices.

The concern that the NDP has around this is that it could to some degree also take away the opportunity or impose a structure for judges that we believe would be a step backward. We think that this is one of the things that should be looked at.

As well, one of the things that is going to be happening with regard to this issue is really a deterrence as a principle of sentencing. This issue is very debatable in terms of the justice file right now and also in terms of how to prevent crimes and provide an opportunity for restorative justice.

I have spent four years and was involved in five programs with helping youth who were at risk. These youths either had some type of issue with regard to the law, committed crimes and were punished, or alternatively they were viewed at risk because they were out of school and unemployed. These youths were seen as persons who would eventually end up in those circumstances if they did not either decide to go back to school or find a job.

What I have found is that to this day those programs are not supported enough, not only in terms of the federal programs but also provincially. We heard some discussion about Quebec and that province deserves some kudos in terms of the way it has led the way in many respects in this country on making sure that youth and youth issues are looked at in a preventive style.

In my community it can be said that those programs, whether it is St. Leonard's House or New Beginnings, have been very successful because they were designed so that street level youth would have an opportunity to be able to turn their lives around.

Some of those programs I ran and still being run today. This was done with a philosophy of a small investment of the correct prevention strategy. The programs made sure that people had choices in front of them, as opposed to feeling that they had closed doors. This led to greater decision making and resulted in either finding employment or going back to school and obtaining the skills and training that would provide employment. What we see with Bill C-25 is a deterrence to sentencing.

The Supreme Court looked at this in Regina v. B.W.P. I want to read a small excerpt in terms of the discussion that came out of that decision, so people will understand what this mode is going to do. It said:

When general deterrence is factored in the determination of the sentence, the offender is punished more severely, not because he or she deserves it, but because the court decides to send a message to others who may be inclined to engage in similar criminal activity.

It is not necessarily what a person has done that is going to increase the sentence for a particular crime, but it is to send a message to others. This has generally been a philosophy adopted in the United States. Quite frankly, I am not sure that it has worked successfully there. Perhaps in some jurisdictions there may have been some modest improvements, but overall in terms of North America we actually have higher rates of incarceration of youth. One of the things that is interesting about this debate is that we do have some issues related to that in our own country.

One has to wonder whether that is going to be the way to ensure that youth are not going to make subsequent decisions or other poor choices that are going to lead to criminal activity and that will have consequences for them and society.

One can lay out programs and services like the ones I provided at the multicultural council or New Beginnings in my riding of Windsor West where individuals can be successfully unplugged from the wrong people they are hanging around or even from gangs. They can also be provided with a host of opportunities that undermine the person's attraction or so-called easy decisions at the moment that lead to poor choices and get them in subsequent trouble. They have the opportunity to turn things around.

These programs will not get to everybody. There is no doubt about that. There are some individuals who will have to face the justice system straight on. The fact of the matter is that this country has not done enough for the programs to make sure youth will make the right decisions.

I can think of a few individuals who went through the program in my riding. They had been involved with the wrong people and had been in and out of custody numerous times but, at the same time, when they were provided the stability of counselling, an opportunity to feel that they would be constructive in their place in society, as well as the economy, they became successful.

This is what I cannot understand. The government is not acting on those opportunities. It has talked about announced funding and so forth, but it has very rarely delivered.

This bill is not as comprehensive as it probably could be because there are some outstanding legal court challenges coming forth that will affect the way the government can go forward, but it is important to note that prevention still is not at the top of the order by the government.

The fact of the matter is there are supposed to be police officers in different municipalities and the government has yet to deliver on that. I recently spoke to the chief of police in my riding about this issue and there is still no support that was promised by this administration. It said it was going to put more police officers on the streets of this country and has yet to deliver on it.

That is interesting. The government makes these announcements, but they never come to fruition and it never delivers on them. The government does it in all kinds of fashions, whether it be this issue or other simple issues like infrastructure projects, where it does not sign agreements with its partners, be it the provinces or other municipalities, to get the money flowing.

These are problems because the government is not providing a vision on how we should move forward. We also lack the opportunity to uproot some of the most important issues that centre around youth criminal justice and that is to make youth feel that they are going to have a good future, engage in good choices and, most importantly, feel like productive members of society.

There are individuals who are going through troubled times in their lives and I have not even touched on the issue of mental illness and the lack of supports. In my province of Ontario there are individuals who are not getting the proper medical and psychological support which would enable them to maintain productivity in terms of being citizens and not engaging in activities that harm other individuals or making bad decisions that have significant consequences. This is really important. With every dollar that we put toward prevention, we can save double or triple that when it comes to incarceration later on.

This is an important bill. The act has been amended several times. It has been debated hotly politically, but at the end of the day we have to do something that is going to be an improvement for youth, so that those who have to go through our justice system, and create victims who are affected by these poor decisions, are going to receive the penalties through the justice system in a full and accountable way.

At the same time, the government and society have to do a lot more to provide opportunities to help youth make the right decisions or, if they have made wrong decisions and are willing to turn things around, have the opportunity to do so. That comes with support and a community that is inclusive.

[Larry Bagnell, Liberal, Yukon, YT]

Mr. Speaker, it is opportune that we have several justice bills before us this week. It is a good chance for the three opposition parties to point to the failure of the whole justice agenda of the government. I would like the member to comment on that.

The government has failed in a number of areas. It has failed the rights of Canadians as related to court challenges. It has been a disaster as related to capital punishment. It has been a disaster as related to alternative sentencing, and only the opposition parties held the government back from making mistakes in that instance. It has been a disaster as related to reforming the legal system through the Law Reform Commission. It has been a disaster in reducing aboriginal overpopulation in prisons.

It has been a disaster in crime reduction factors. When the government first came to power, crime in Canada was going down, but just a week ago the government had to introduce a bill to increase the number of judges because crime has not decreased dramatically.

Our position in the Liberal Party is that one of the reasons for this is that the Conservatives are not focusing at all on things that would reduce crime, such as prevention of the root causes, as well as an area where we had some success, alternative sentencing for youth. The government is also not dealing with the determinants of crime. Also it is not focusing on not putting everyone in prison longer in cases where, as the experts have told us at committee time and again, it actually is going to increase crime.

There are a lot of areas on which my colleague would agree. He has a lot of experience and he could depict the areas where he could offer more productive ways to reduce crime in Canada.

[Brian Masse, NDP, Windsor West, ON]

Mr. Speaker, my colleague is right in his intervention when he says there are all kinds of issues out there, such as capital punishment and the current court challenges situation.

He mentioned one issue, though, that I think needs some attention and that I did not get into due to lack of time, but I do want to read for members a little research on the issue of the aboriginal population. I think it is an important connection to prevention and also to the systemic issues we have. The research states that currently:

Aboriginal youth are overrepresented in the youth criminal justice system. While aboriginal young people comprised only 8% of Canada's youth population in 2002-2003, they made up “44% of admissions to remand, 46% of sentenced custody admissions and 32% of probation admissions, and 21% of alternative measure cases reaching agreement”.

The point is that we know just from this evidence that there are systemic problems in dealing with our aboriginal youth and that we in this House collectively have failed in many regards to resolve this situation.

On an issue like that, we would hope to find non-partisan ground to change things around. Quite frankly, this is an international embarrassment to our country. It is well known outside our borders what we have done in Canada with regard to our aboriginal people. Although there has been some recent success on some issues with regard to residential schools and the apology, at the same time we know we have systemic issues.

I would offer to my hon. colleague as a suggestion to the House that we support those programs that work with youth. From my perspective of formerly doing this type of work, we should make sure to have regular and routine funding. We always had a problem with that. We were always going after a small amount of funding to keep the program going as opposed to having long term, stable funding that is accountable and fully reviewed. That has great expectations attached to it, but it also has a measure of stability so that the professionals involved can make sure there is going to be continuity. That, and working with the youth in local populations, is how to provide opportunities for people to make better decisions, because there is that connection.

It is something I would like to see and which we can control. When we provide funding we must make sure it is long term, stable and predictable. The community organizations providing this work will have no problem whatsoever with being accountable and being reviewed, but at the same time they need to be supported appropriately.

[Carole Freeman, Bloc, Châteauguay—Saint-Constant, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to participate in today's debate at second reading of Bill C-25 to amend the Youth Criminal Justice Act. This bill has two main purposes. First, it broadens the circumstances allowing for custodial remand and, second, it adds denunciation and the deterrence of crime to the principles of sentencing. In addition, Bill C-25 clarifies that the presumption against the pre-trial detention of a young person is rebuttable and specifies the circumstances in which the presumption does not apply.

I want to make it very clear from the beginning that this bill is very much in line with the Conservative ideology, which consists of punishing the offender rather than preventing the offence. We have become accustomed to seeing this from this government since the Conservatives came to power in 2006.

So that our listeners may fully understand the impact of Bill C-25, I will comment on each of the provisions included in the bill and explain how this bill reacts to a deplorable situation, rather than preventing it from occurring in the first place.

The first provision states: a judge must presume that the pretrial detention of a young person is necessary if the young person is charged with a violent offence or an offence that otherwise endangered the public by creating a substantial likelihood of serious bodily harm to another person; the young person has been found guilty of failing to comply with non-custodial sentences or conditions of release; or the young person is charged with an indictable offence for which an adult would be liable to imprisonment for a term of more than two years and has a history that indicates a pattern of findings of guilt.

Those who are hearing this provision for the first time may consider the amendments appropriate and even logical since they refer to serious situations and offences. However, by transferring the burden of proof to the young person, the government is tampering with a fundamental feature of the justice system: the presumption of innocence. This is not the first time this government has tried to amend this aspect, but it must realize that we regularly see proof that not all charges lead to a guilty verdict.

In such a case, a youth who is detained before his trial and then is found innocent, will have experienced the often undesirable consequences of detention even though he did no wrong. In addition, because of the burden of proof on his shoulders, the youth will have to prove that he does not represent a risk even before being accused. The fact remains that we must avoid increased costs to communities to comply with the additional requirements. This logic is even more pertinent for those who are quite innocent but penalized by Bill C-25.

I have spoken often of the social and monetary costs of massive and preventive imprisonment in speeches on previous government justice legislation. Bill C-25 specifies that, henceforth, the sentence may have the objective of denouncing unlawful conduct or deterring one or more young persons from committing offences. Once again, anyone not very familiar with the law could find that this provision makes sense and would be a reasonable solution to a recurring problem. However, that is not the case at all.

This very ideological provision rejects the federal government's previous approach and runs directly counter to Quebec's traditional position. First, the fact that deterrence is not one of the objectives for youth sentencing in the Youth Criminal Justice Act is revealing. Why? Because the federal government in power at the time resisted imposing punishment for the sake of punishment and wanted to address the root causes of crime. It sought to focus on the reintegration of youth, often called for by parliamentarians in Quebec's National Assembly. However, the Conservative amendment is attacking efforts to not marginalize youth who make mistakes and to not send them to prison, the university of crime.

I want to emphasize that Quebec has already taken a stand in this matter. With regard to young offenders, it has traditionally opted for an approach based on rehabilitation and reintegration, a position strengthened by the passage of time and the results achieved.

When the federal government passed the Youth Criminal Justice Act, which replaced the Young Offenders Act, it was heavily criticized by the Quebec government for having ignored what Quebec had done in this area.

Specifically, the Government of Quebec felt that the new act undermined its approach, which is based on the reintegration of young offenders rather than on the seriousness of the offence. I remind the House that Quebec’s approach has enabled it to achieve the lowest rate of juvenile crime and recidivism in Canada.

Quebec has already challenged the constitutionality of certain provisions in the act before the Quebec Court of Appeal in view of the inflexibility shown by the federal government toward Quebec’s own specific approach.

It is clear, therefore, that although Bill C-25 may seem reassuring, it actually harbours objectives that are injurious to individuals and to Quebec.

The Bloc Québécois was vehemently opposed at the time to the reform of the Young Offenders Act, deeming it worthless and even dangerous because of its likely effects on the long-term reduction of crime. At the very least, Quebec should have been exempted from it. Quebec should be allowed to pursue its own approach based on the needs of young people and emphasizing prevention rather than rehabilitation.

Getting back to the Youth Criminal Justice Act, the government seems to have forgotten that the current act already permits the incarceration of violent young people who are at least 12 years old. It defines a young person as “a person who is…twelve years old or older but less than eighteen”. It also states unambiguously that incarceration should be the exception and judges should look first to extrajudicial measures before considering imprisonment.

It is obvious, therefore, that Bill C-25 is a backward step based on an unproven, punitive approach. What is worse, I remember that the former justice minister, my hon. colleague from Provencher, was toying with the idea of extending the act to include children as young as 10. How telling, Mr. Speaker, are the real intentions of this government.

Once again, the Bloc Québécois is proposing an approach that is suited to the situation in Quebec and defends its fundamental interests, this time in regard to justice.

First of all, we firmly believe that prevention remains the most effective approach. We need to address the causes of crime. This means that we have to prevent crime instead of waiting to repair the damage after a crime has been committed. Not only is it the most effective approach, but we believe that it is also the most beneficial, both socially and financially.

It could not be any clearer. As I have said on previous occasions, we must first deal with poverty, inequity and all forms of exclusion. In fact, exclusion breeds frustration, which in turn can lead to violence and crime as an outlet for these frustrations.

In the context of Bill C-25, youth justice should not be an exception. Young people should benefit from a healthy environment, they should not be living in extreme poverty and they should have access to affordable education. In all these areas, Quebec has made choices that set it apart, and we support these choices. As I mentioned earlier, the approach chosen by Quebec is yielding good results, thereby proving the lack of merit of the ideological and sensationalist shortcuts proposed by this government.

Of course, the Bloc Québécois is fully aware of the fact the young people commit crimes and that they must be brought to justice. It is the government's duty to use all the tools at its disposal to ensure that Quebeckers and Canadians can live in peace and safety.

In this regard, the measures that are brought forward must have a real, positive impact on crime, an effort that goes beyond sheer rhetoric and fearmongering. We need more than a mere imitation of the American model, which is yielding unconvincing results.

Like my colleagues, I also deplore the lack of seriousness with which the Conservative government brings in amendments or measures that reflect on the foundations of our justice system.

In conclusion, Bill C-25 should have been more than a response to mere impressions.

It should build on what is already working well and also allow Quebec to continue—

[The Acting Speaker, Conservative, Royal Galipeau]

I am sorry, but we have to move on to questions and comments.

The hon. member for Yukon has the floor.

[Larry Bagnell, Liberal, Yukon, YT]

Mr. Speaker, I think the theme this week will be the failure of the Conservative government to deal with crime.

We had dozens of expert witnesses in committee who gave us direction. As a member of the justice committee, how does she feel about the fact that the witnesses gave us suggestions on how we could reduce crime in Canada and the government ignored them? It must be very frustrating.

Being on that committee, I have found that people have studied this for years and have given us examples on how to reduce crime. It is very sad for the victims of crime, who will be victimized again. More Canadians will be victimized because the government is not making changes to the agenda to follow what the experts have told us about reducing crime.

Could the member, who is a very thoughtful member on the justice committee, comment on that?

[Carole Freeman, Bloc, Châteauguay—Saint-Constant, QC]

Mr. Speaker, first, I want to thank my colleague for his two-part question on how to reduce crime and on the solutions that could be used.

As regards reducing crime, there are models that exist. Currently, this government is very much influenced by the American and Republican ideology which, as confirmed by the statistics, is not producing any positive results. It does not reduce crime.

We have here a model that has proven its effectiveness, namely the Quebec model. There is absolutely no question about that. As the hon. member for Beauséjour mentioned earlier in his speech, the Quebec model should serve as an example to all legislatures, beginning with this government.

Quebec is currently the province with the lowest crime rate. That also applies to young people. When there is such a model around, we should follow it, push for prevention and rehabilitation, and work with young people right from the beginning. It so happens that this legislation deals with teenagers. It is at this stage in their lives, when young people may take a bad turn, that we must salvage and rehabilitate them, we must invest in prevention, instead of sending them to jail, to a place where, instead, they will learn about crime.

This approach, which the government is once again trying to impose on us, does not work. Studies and statistics constantly show that this approach does not yield any positive results and does not solve any problem. On the contrary, it creates more.

To answer my colleague, there are measures available. The Quebec model includes many of them. More importantly, these are effective, as is clearly confirmed by all the statistics.

[The Acting Speaker, Conservative, Royal Galipeau]

The member for Saint-Jean has the floor for a brief question.

[Claude Bachand, Bloc, Saint-Jean, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I know that my colleague has legal training. I want to congratulate her on her speech and ask her whether she agrees with me that we are seeing the government get tougher on young offenders. I remember being here when the then Liberal government introduced a young offender bill that was very harsh. It seems to me that the bill before us today is even harsher.

I would like to hear the member's opinion, as a legal expert and as a parliamentarian, on taking a tougher stance against young offenders.

[The Acting Speaker, Conservative, Royal Galipeau]

The member has only 20 seconds left to answer the question.

[Carole Freeman, Bloc, Châteauguay—Saint-Constant, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am in total agreement with my colleague. Not only did the National Assembly vote unanimously against the previous bill, but this bill will have even more serious consequences—

[The Acting Speaker, Conservative, Royal Galipeau]

The hon. member for Moncton—Riverview—Dieppe has the floor.

[Brian Murphy, Liberal, Moncton—Riverview—Dieppe, NB]

Mr. Speaker, this is an important debate on an important aspect of criminal justice. I want to open with a little anecdotal story from my and my community's past, greater Moncton.

I was elected to council for the city of Moncton in 1992. We had an older councillor, who was over 80 years of age, named Al Galbraith. He is now deceased. He was a veteran of World War II. He was a very fair-minded individual, but a law and order councillor. We all know those types who speak from the benefit of age and experience.

We were having some problems with loitering and lack of curfew being followed in some of the poorly lit parks in the city of Moncton at the time. I was newly elected and like all newly elected people I was going to save the world very quickly and easily. He was the old sage councillor and when we went on a radio show together, he talked about the problem of youth congregating in a darkly lit park. I thought perhaps we should toughen the curfew laws and look to the law side of it, the black letter. The older councillor suggested that if children were congregating in a place without lights, perhaps we should put lights in the park or provide opportunities for youth to congregate elsewhere. It struck me at the time that there were more ways to effect better laws and to have good laws followed than just enact new laws and that we had to look always at the resources in the community and what we would do to raise a community.

I do not want this to be seen as an endorsement of Senator Clinton, but it is a village that we are raising and the attempts to raising the village come not always from the law and from this place.

Nevertheless, we are talking about Bill C-25. Just like that park in the north end of Moncton, it would have been really easy perhaps for the government to turn on the light over its desk and read all of the Nunn report. It appears that it only got to one of the six recommendations.

The part of the bill that deals with the revolving door of custody is a good start. It will have to be fixed at committee. However, the Conservative government once again is in the dark with respect to criminal justice issues by not following the whole of the Nunn report. It has not even adverted to the review of the Youth Criminal Justice Act, which will be upon us very shortly. It also has not embraced other aspects that come from without the Nunn report.

My colleague, the member for Beauséjour was very clear in his remarks, as our justice critic, that the part of the bill that dealt with custody of repeat offenders or those charged with serious offences under the Youth Criminal Justice Act was a good start and that it could be fixed. I do not want to spend any more time talking about it because there is so much to the Canadian public what the government is not doing to keep our community safe. It did not follow the other aspects of the Nunn commission report, which was the very germane, sensible and logical response to a horrific incident involving Ms. McEvoy. Being in neighbouring New Brunswick, it rocked the province of Nova Scotia for the period in question.

In short, with Bill C-25, the government could have at least copied the recommendations in the Nunn report. If the government needed a set of crayons, we could have got them for it. However, it only copied one of them and, at that, not so well.

Then there was the slip-in of the issues of deterrence and denunciation.

What the government does not realize is that from time immemorial there has been legislation that bifurcates the responsibilities and the penalties to be meted out to adults on one side and youth on the other. If we are only to return to an era where everybody, in some sort of Dickensian novel way, gets treated the same way, everybody gets thrown in the debtors' prison and the poorhouse respective of age and circumstance, then that is what Canadians should know. Maybe they should know that the government wants to return to that sort of era.

We have had youth crime legislation, whether it was the Juvenile Delinquents Act, the Young Offenders Act and now the Youth Criminal Justice Act, for some time, and we do not act in a vacuum.

It is quite interesting to note that upon the enactment of the YCJA in 2003, it was the subject of a reference from the province of Quebec in respect to constitutionality and also its legitimacy on the world stage.These are important matters dealing with children and the way children are raised in our communities.

The bill does not talk about punishment. It talks about justice to the community. What are we to do with our youth? None of the principles of deterrence or denunciation were in the YCJA. The most offending aspects of the YCJA in international law deal with those provisions in sections 61 to 72, regarding the imposition of adult sentences, or the mode of trial in adult court, for young offenders.

Sometimes we live in a bubble that media outlets and certain Conservative demagogues propagate, such as having no laws covering this, or we are a lawless society, or our youth are running rampant across the country committing crimes. That is not the case.

The YCJA has provisions that have been challenged for their constitutionality and their international human rights legitimacy with respect to trying youths as adults. It is important perhaps to remember and to remind Canadians that we have legislation on the books to deal with the problems that face our communities. In certain circumstances children and youths have been tried as adults. What is wrong with the principles of deterrence and denunciation is that they import a concept from the Criminal Code of Canada into the YCJA.

Justice Nunn talked about a lot of things. The McEvoy incident was horrific. It rocked the community. There have been instances like the McEvoy incident across the country. As parliamentarians we should be dealing with things like this.

Let me be clear. We on this side of the House would have welcomed both here in the House and in committee a more comprehensive Bill C-25. Alas, amendments to Bill C-25, incorporating more of the Nunn recommendations, might well be out of order. They might be further than the concept that this very narrow bill suggests.

The government chose to import one concept of the over six recommendations. It inserted from its political quiver an agenda of punishment, of incorporating concepts that did not belong in the act. The government chose to try to get a reference to the Supreme Court of Canada to get the whole YCJA thrown out. Maybe that is the whole ploy here. Incorporating the principles of sentencing of deterrence and denunciation will put the YCJA in jeopardy.

It is important to remember this. We often talk about what we add to legislation, but often there are teeth to pieces of legislation. The Criminal Code and the YCJA are no exception.

Reading the very monosyllabic but frequent Conservative press releases on criminal justice, one might be surprised to read that there are principles of sentencing in the YCJA. On a good and fair reading, these principles might make Canadians feel that judges are given the task of interpreting these principles and ensuring that our communities remain safe.

Section 38(3) states:

In determining a youth sentence, the youth justice court shall take into account

(a) the degree of participation by the young person...

(b) the harm done to victims and whether it was intentional...

(c) any reparation made by the young person...

(d) the time spent in detention...

These alone speak to the community interest.

How many times at justice committee and in the House have we heard, for example, the member for Wild Rose say that victims are never part of any determination by judges or lawyers in any of the discussions on criminal justice across the country?

I stand here today as a representative of a community where an 83-year-old veteran councillor had the sense to say that we did not have to deal with all the law. Sometimes we just had to turn the light on in the park and read the laws that exist. I wish the government had done that.

[Kevin Sorenson, Conservative, Crowfoot, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciated the member's story about the lessons he learned as a young councillor. Certainly, we always can learn lessons from those who have gone before us. I know that this government is looking at all kinds of ways, a comprehensive package, to deal with the Youth Criminal Justice Act.

The member has gone on at quite length, as have a lot of his colleagues, as to the failure to embrace all the Nunn recommendations. Is the member aware that Nova Scotia's attorney general supports BillC-25? Is he aware that the minister has worked closely with the Nova Scotia government, as well as listened to what those ministers have had to say, and that they are supportive of this?

[Brian Murphy, Liberal, Moncton—Riverview—Dieppe, NB]

Mr. Speaker, I am aware that the Conservative government in Nova Scotia signed on to the Atlantic accord and it signed on to this piece of legislation. I am quite familiar with the attorney general in the province of New Brunswick, I might remind the member. I am not aware that any attorney general in this country has said that Bill C-25 has implemented all of the recommendations of the Nunn commission. I do not know of any attorney general in this country who has said that the Nunn commission recommendations are all that there is to say about the YCJA.

The question to the public of Canada clearly has to be why the Conservatives did not implement all the recommendations of the Nunn commission report. They would not have had a lot of opposition from this side. I cannot speak for my colleagues in the other parties. It was here to take.

I am advised by legislative clerks that we cannot now amend it to add all of the recommendations of the Nunn commission because they would make the bill wider in scope. The question I have is why these recommendations did not get further along. Surely the attorneys general of all provinces, including Nova Scotia, would have approved of all of the recommendations.

[Michael Savage, Liberal, Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS]

Mr. Speaker, I always enjoy listening to my colleague from Moncton when he speaks on any issue, but especially on justice issues. He echoes a concern that I had when I had a chance to speak to this, which is that the government made much ado about Justice Merlin Nunn's recommendations.

The Nunn report is a very impressive piece of work that looks at a whole number of issues to do with youth justice coming out of the McEvoy incident. I should say for members opposite that having the support of the Nova Scotia government these days does not count for much in Nova Scotia, after the way that it has mishandled files continually, from the Atlantic accord through many others.

One of the things that Merlin Nunn specifically says in his report is that in fact, while there are some flaws, Canada's Youth Criminal Justice Act is one of the best pieces of youth legislation in the world. I wonder if my colleague could just expand on that.

[Brian Murphy, Liberal, Moncton—Riverview—Dieppe, NB]

Mr. Speaker, the member for Dartmouth—Cole Harbour is an excellent MP. He lives in a community where many of us in Atlantic Canada send our children for their university education. We are concerned about youths living in Dartmouth--Cole Harbour and the greater Halifax area. We know that there have been some instances of crime down there that concern the member very greatly. It is gratifying to know, and the public should know, that the member has worked very hard on criminal justice issues and that the system will work.

The question he might ask and the people of Nova Scotia might want answered is where the 2,500 police officers are that were promised by the government in order to help enforce laws like the YCJA, which indeed, to answer the question, is a splendid piece of legislation. It needed all of the Nunn report recommendations implemented to make it an even better piece of legislation.

[Dean Del Mastro, Conservative, Peterborough, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I do not know where to begin.

The hon. member just referred to the YCJA as a splendid piece of legislation. I think that sums up his lack of understanding about the YCJA and its implications on my community. I know that law enforcement officers in my community want specific changes made to the YCJA. In fact often they will not even press charges on youth offenders because they feel that there will be absolutely no implications on their actions whatsoever when it comes to court, that in fact it is practically not worthwhile.

I would like to ask the member very openly, does he not have people from his community who come forward regularly and ask for changes to the YCJA? I know I do. This is a very important bill.

[Brian Murphy, Liberal, Moncton—Riverview—Dieppe, NB]

Mr. Speaker, I am not accustomed to such questions from this side, but I welcome the member's question. I know he is as tough as a Peterborough Pete, but where he is sort of off, and the Petes have not won the Memorial Cup for awhile either, is that the people in my community are asking for their community to be a little bit safer and they would like to see a policeman now and then. They would like to know why Riverview, for instance, has gotten such a shaft with respect to federal funding for the municipal police force, which is the RCMP. They want to know where the policemen are that the government promised, to enforce the laws that would make their community just a little bit safer.

[Guy André, Bloc, Berthier—Maskinongé, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am worried but I am nonetheless pleased to speak today to Bill C-25, An Act to amend the Youth Criminal Justice Act.

The bill that has been introduced by the Conservative government very clearly shows the approach this government intends to take to the criminal justice system. In the bill, this government is not trying to improve outcomes for young offenders, young people who are experiencing social and emotional problems in Quebec; rather, it is trying to hinder the development of those young people.

This is not the first time I have spoken regarding a bill introduced by the Department of Justice. Those bills have all taken the same approach to the criminal justice system, an approach based on repression and detention. Bill C-25 contains two important provisions.

First, it is intended to change the youth criminal justice system by providing that sentences imposed by judges may have the objective of denouncing unlawful conduct or deterring young persons from committing offences. By adding deterrence, the federal government is now going down the road of punishment for punishment’s sake. We are forgetting about prevention, rehabilitation and social reintegration. In short, the government’s purpose in introducing this bill is to increase the severity of sentences imposed on young people.

Second, and I believe this is the most controversial aspect of the bill, it now provides that judges will be able to presume from now on that detention of a young person before trial is necessary where the young person has committed certain acts. The bill lists those acts.

What is the government trying to do in this provision? In short, it has two objectives. First, it wants to use the presumption against young persons by transferring the burden and responsibility of proof onto them, the young persons, when very often the problem is social, psychological or family-related.

Second, the Minister of Justice is proposing to detain a young person before his or her trial starts, when very often, from what we can see, the trial will end with a not guilty verdict.

When we look at this amendment we see that the government is attacking a fundamental aspect of our judicial system, the presumption of innocence. Because of the presumption of innocence that a young person must now shoulder, the young person will have to prove that he or she is not a risk even before being found guilty.

This means that young people might end up in prison when their trial has not even begun. A young person would end up in the school for criminals, that is, in prison. He or she would be incarcerated in a prison, with adults, without having committed a crime, without having been convicted. These young people will then certainly suffer from bad influences that once again will hinder their own development.

I was a social worker for many years, and I worked with youth and young offenders. I have no doubt that detention would have a very negative impact on teenagers at such an important stage of their development.

The main problem with this bill is that its vision for youth criminal justice is diametrically opposed to Quebec's vision. In Bill C-25, the federal government is presenting a model inspired by the American method, a Republican method based on repression and detention. Quebeckers have chosen a model based on rehabilitation and prevention.

Over the past 30 years, regardless of the political party in power, the Government of Quebec has always been guided by the belief that we should focus on prevention and rehabilitation.

This is not the first time the Bloc Québécois has opposed the federal government's attempt to change the youth criminal justice system. Members will recall that some time ago, the Bloc Québécois vigorously opposed the Liberal government when it proposed reforms to what was then the Young Offenders Act, now known as the Youth Criminal Justice Act.

At the time, the Government of Quebec and many other stakeholders, such as youth groups, youth shelters, street youth workers and organizations that oversaw the Young Offenders Act and that applied alternative measures for young offenders, opposed a critical element of the proposed reform, which was that young people aged 14 or 15 could be subjected to adult sentences and be tried in adult court. We opposed that measure because we believed then—as we do now—that the proposed legislation would hurt young people. We opposed it because we favoured an approach based on rehabilitation, prevention, and social reintegration through measures that met the needs of young people in the justice system.

Bill C-25 gives us another opportunity to reject this reform proposed by the Conservative government. because we still believe that the Quebec model should predominate, because it is more successful. Statistics prove that. In its model, Quebec decided to work with young people, listen to them and punish them severely if need be, of course. The Quebec model involves all the social stakeholders who work with youth. It is a comprehensive approach, to ensure that these young people have a healthy environment and can be the best they can be.

We are convinced that prevention is still the most effective approach to justice and always will be. We need to attack the causes of crime, which, as we know, are often linked to poverty or lack of parental support. Attacking the causes of delinquency and violence, rather than trying to repair the damage once it is done is the most appropriate and, above all, most profitable approach from both a social and financial point of view.

Unfortunately, the federal government is once again suggesting a model inspired by our neighbours to the south and not by Quebec, whose prevention-centred model has stood the test of time.

Is this really the right approach to reducing youth crime? No. What we are defending is a model that has proven itself, a model that has meant a crime rate three times lower than in the United States, a model that has helped Quebec reduce its youth crime rate by 4%, according to Statistics Canada, while the rate in all the Canadian provinces has gone up.

The government has to imitate the American model, which produces less conclusive results. The Quebec model based on rehabilitation and reintegration gives real results. These statistics prove it.

In closing, I invite all the members opposite to take a look at the Quebec model, rather than always looking to the Americans for inspiration. They will see that Quebec's approach is far more successful in the fight against crime. The Conservative members and ministers from Quebec are well aware—at least, I hope so—that Quebec's approach is better.

[Larry Bagnell, Liberal, Yukon, YT]

Mr. Speaker, this debate has been largely about the government's failure to deal with crime. I appreciate how the member put forward the fact that we need to spend more on prevention and on dealing with the root causes. The Liberal Party totally agrees with the member. We have been making that case over and over again.

Other failures include the failure to deal with alternative sentencing, but I am sure the member knows of success stories in Quebec in that regard. There is the failure to deal with Canadian rights through the court challenges program, the failure to reform the justice system through the Law Reform Commission, the government's shameful treatment of judges, and its lack of a plan to reduce the preponderance of aboriginal people in our prisons.

Now in this bill, rather than following the recommendations of the Nunn commission, which put forth very thoughtful ways to improve youth justice, the government has brought forth something totally different, deterrence, which the experts before the justice committee told us would not work at all, particularly with youth.

I wonder if the member could comment on the failure of the government's crime strategy, especially in areas where he has expertise and experience.

[Guy André, Bloc, Berthier—Maskinongé, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my hon. colleague from the Liberal Party for his question, on which I will gladly comment, of course.

This government seeks to criminalize youth and throw young people in jail. We are not saying that we are opposed to that approach. It might be appropriate in the case of serious offences committed by young offenders. However, approaches more closely focused on prevention and rehabilitation are required.

In Quebec, we have developed a youth response network. We have youth homes and streetworkers available to provide support. We also have organizations involved in crime prevention.

For example, when a minor commits a first offence, alternative punishment is sought. Conciliation measures are also put forward. We have a set of tools in place: the youth protection branch, remedial teachers in schools, and anti-poverty programs.

This government, however, is not contemplating such tools. It is not inclined to implement support measures for youth from environments conducive to crime.

A comprehensive approach to youth is indeed required. This government has eyes only for the United States, which inspired it this bill among other things.

[Tony Martin, NDP, Sault Ste. Marie, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to put a few thoughts on the record this morning concerning Bill C-25.

Right off the bat let me say that I agree with my colleague from the across the way who spoke earlier, the member for Moncton—Riverview—Dieppe. When I came to this place almost four years ago, I came here with a sense of mission, as I did when I went to Queen's Park in 1990. Based on the community work I did, I wanted to change a number of things and I wanted that to happen immediately. Alas, I discovered it was not going to be that easy. In fact, it takes much effort, with support from government, to make the kind of change that is necessary if we are going to experience and enjoy the result of change, particularly if it is a positive change.

One of the things that always disappoints me more than anything when I see a bill like this come forward is the missed opportunity it represents. We have a bill here focused on dealing with a very difficult challenge that we all face with our young people as we try to keep them on the straight and narrow.

There is no one, and I include myself, who does not want to reduce the number of people who get into difficulty with the law in our communities. There is no one here, I do not think, who would not get up and speak very passionately about the need to keep our communities safe.

However, there are different ways of approaching this. It takes more than one bill with a couple of small items in it to actually effect the kind of larger, longer term difference we want to see in our communities. We would like to reduce the recidivism rate going forward and we would like to see young people participate in more constructive and positive ways when they find themselves in trouble with the law.

Those of us who have family know this in a very personal way. We see our young men and women who go out into the world, having received the support, love and care of family, sometimes not being able to cope with what comes at them and then acting in a rather irresponsible or thoughtless way and finding themselves in trouble with the law.

If we go down this road the government wants to take us down, and which so many in our country today seem to think is the answer to this question of young people and the law, particularly young people involved in violent crime in our communities, we in fact will end up losing more young people than we actually save, than we actually get back on the straight and narrow. More than anything, that is what concerns me about this bill.

I remember going to Mississauga about a year or so ago and talking with a gathering of people from the community around the question of poverty. A number of parents at that meeting, particularly female immigrant parents, said to me that they were as concerned as anybody, including me as an MP and including the government, about how their young people were behaving in the community sometimes and how they were getting themselves into trouble. They very clearly said to me that the way to deal with them was not to just bring in harsher punishment or to throw them in jail, where they enter into a whole new culture of negative behaviour that then affects them when they ultimately get out.

They told me and all the others gathered that night that we need a more comprehensive approach to this, which includes a government that is committed to making sure that our young people can get the schooling, training and education they need to participate in the life and economy of their communities in a positive and constructive way. That will give them a sense of self-satisfaction, allow them to grow as human beings and contribute in the way that most of us do as we successfully live out our lives.

As for those parents, those mothers in particular, it could be seen in their faces that they were very disappointed and frustrated with this lack of understanding and the lack of commitment by government to actually step up and come forward to provide them with those resources, opportunities and support as they tried to keep their young people in school and keep them on the straight and narrow.

These parents are the people who keep our economy going. In many cases, these are the single mothers who work all night cleaning buildings, making beds and serving food, only to come home to a house that has been left for large chunks of the day unsupervised, with young people coming home from school or not going to school at all. They were crying out for a more structured framework to be provided to them so that their young people could participate in behaviour that was more constructive and productive.

They saw that in juxtaposition to the fact that in their community, as in so many communities across this country, in the evenings and weekends at night, for example, schools are closed because there are no resources to provide supervision, to turn on the lights and to do the janitorial work necessary, or even to provide the insurance that is so often required when public facilities are made available to a community.

I would be very pleased to have an opportunity in this place to talk more fully about these questions of youth, the criminal justice system, crime and the activity of some young people in our communities, so that we might together look at the Quebec model, which has been presented this morning on a couple of occasions. Quebec found a different way to deal with this challenge that we all face and are very concerned about. Quebec has gathered the community around this question of keeping our young people on the straight and narrow. It has begun to introduce concepts which flow out of the thinking that is often referred to as restorative justice.

I remember attending a gathering of foster parents led by the Children's Aid Society in my community at which a priest from Los Angeles talked about his work with gangs in the inner city of that community. In 2007, when I heard him speak and had the chance to talk to him, I learned that Los Angeles officials had gone beyond the more punitive approach to dealing with and trying to fix a very difficult challenge in terms of our young people getting into trouble with the law.

Officials there are now themselves searching out more creative restorative justice types of approaches to dealing with this problem. They know that in bringing this kind of response to this challenge communally and together, we stand a better chance, first of all, of helping some of these young people, of keeping them out of the criminal justice system, of actually changing their ways and reducing recidivism so they do not continue to repeat this behaviour. More than that, officials find that these young people become very constructive and productive members of the neighbourhoods in which they were previously seen as a difficulty.

We in this caucus are going to be supporting the bill to move it forward, not because we agree with a lot of what is in it but because we would like to have more opportunity to actually dialogue, discuss and try to find some common ground with the different approaches and parties that exist here in the House of Commons, and so that we might find some way to bring some real, constructive, positive change to this very difficult task that we face as a community today.

[Claude Bachand, Bloc, Saint-Jean, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to congratulate my colleague from Sault Ste. Marie, whom I greatly admire. I think he represents a party that is on the left of the political spectrum, a bit like the Bloc Québécois.

I am surprised and a little disappointed that now, when the bill is at second reading, his party is saying that it will vote in favour of the bill and will try to amend it later. Canada's political left usually defends a social conscience. The bill before us today flies in the face of this social conscience by, for example, preventing young people from being rehabilitated. By treating them like adults and imprisoning them as a preventive measure, we are taking a tougher stance on young offenders. I find it difficult to understand how a party that is proud to represent the left could say that it will try to amend the bill. The solution would have been to do what the Bloc Québécois is doing and say that the bill is completely unacceptable and that the government must withdraw it.

I would like my colleague to explain how he can reconcile a party with a social conscience with a bill that, in my opinion, looks like something straight out of the American right wing.

[Tony Martin, NDP, Sault Ste. Marie, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to clarify our position on this bill and our wanting to enter into further discussion about the appropriateness of this approach.

Normally it is at committee where we get the opportunity to roll up our sleeves and with other parties have that very frank and honest discussion with each other and bring forward amendments that we think might improve or make better what has been tabled.

As my colleague from Windsor—Tecumseh, the critic for our party, said earlier, we support the notion that judges should be allowed the discretion to impose pretrial restrictions on those who pose a serious threat to society. The sections dealing with pretrial detention maintain judicial discretion and simply entrench principles which are already being practised by most courts.

The sections of the bill dealing with sentencing principles are the most problematic. There is no evidence to suggest that the adult principles of deterrence and denunciation will have any positive outcome for public safety.

Furthermore, they shade the differences between adults and youth, something we as New Democrats, the courts and society do not sanction. We will seek to delete this section and introduce an amendment which would require judges to take into account the concept of the protection of society as the sentencing principle.

[Larry Bagnell, Liberal, Yukon, YT]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the member's thoughtful speech. He asked for an opportunity to discuss more positive solutions to reduce youth crime. I will give him that opportunity now to elaborate on those.

There was a very thorough study regarding the bill before us done by the Nunn commission. Instead of bringing forward most of the recommendations, a majority of them were ignored and the Conservatives brought in the element that, as the hon. member said, has proven not to work.

The discussion today and this week will be generally on the failures of the government to reduce crime. Most of the members who spoke today suggested alternatives. The member is quite familiar with alternative sentencing. There was a wonderful session in Ottawa a month or so ago on alternative sentencing. It was a great group which showed how effective it was. The government tried to get rid of a lot of that. It is one of the few success stories for youth.

There was no answer on how to reduce the aboriginal presence in the justice system, which is far too great.

[Tony Martin, NDP, Sault Ste. Marie, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I do want to respond ever so briefly to the member. Yes, all kinds of different, creative and successful approaches have been tried in other jurisdictions. We need to look at them as well.

From my own background, I did a lot of work with youth before I got into politics in 1990. I explored approaches like restorative justice, community development, investing in community facilities so that young people have a place to go to hang out and to do some constructive things. There are a million different ways we can deal with this.

I know there is a problem. When we pick up the paper and read of another shooting in one of our big cities, we all become that much more concerned and afraid that perhaps this phenomenon is taking over, but it is not.

There are responses that we could bring to this that would be more constructive and successful in the long run.

[Thierry St-Cyr, Bloc, Jeanne-Le Ber, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to address the House on the subject of Bill C-25, which we are debating today.

The Bloc Québécois is totally opposed to this legislation which, once again, is on the wrong track, because it is focusing on repression rather than prevention and rehabilitation. In this regard, it is sad to see a party such as the NDP, which claims to be progressive and which presents itself as such, support the government when it is pushing the Canadian justice system along the path taken by George Bush in the United States.

When I was preparing my presentation, I entitled it “Illusion and Hypocrisy”, because this is what the bill is about. On the one hand, it creates the illusion of increased safety, the illusion that this legislation will solve problems when it is obviously not the case—as can be shown by the statistics. On the other hand, it is also tainted with hypocrisy, because while this government pretends to target crime, it facilitates the use of all kinds of firearms. One wonders about the logic of imposing harsher sentences for the crime, while allowing a larger number of firearms to circulate. It is hard to see any consistency here. My presentation is going to deal with these two issues.

I begin with the illusion aspect. This government, with the support of the NDP, is presenting a whole philosophy based on repression. Under this approach, sentences will be increasingly stiffer and harsher to help reduce crime. However, that will not work.

Why? Because if we put ourselves in the shoes of a criminal, potential criminal or young offender, we realize that the fear of getting caught is a much more effective deterrent than the length of the sentence. Most criminals commit crimes because they are convinced that they will not get caught. If they thought that they were going to get caught, they would try to find other crimes they think they would get away with. That is true for murders, rapes, robberies and any other crime. A criminal never calls the police before committing his crime. He does his deed because he is sure that he will get away with it. He has confidence in himself.

If we want to make a real effort to reduce crime, we must focus our effort on the means at our disposal to catch criminals. They need to know that they will be caught. Of course, that requires money. It is more difficult and demanding than simply passing legislation, but it is a lot more effective.

The perfect example of the principle of deterrence is capital punishment. In the United States, several states use capital punishment. Everyone will agree that it is the ultimate punishment. One cannot imagine a harsher sentence than capital punishment. And yet, in the United States and in several other countries that use capital punishment, the results are unconvincing. Crime rates in the United States are three times higher than in Canada and four times higher than in Quebec. Following the same logic, we would have to find something even more horrible than capital punishment to deter people from committing crimes. Obviously this does not work because this is not what motivates people.

The Quebec model proves that the present government's repressive approach, supported by the NDP, is not the right way to go for Quebec and probably not for Canada either. In Quebec, measures focused on prevention and rehabilitation are yielding results. Indeed, Quebec has better statistics than the rest of Canada for all crime indicators. There is no denying it, the figures speak for themselves.

And we must not forget, particularly in the case of young offenders, that it is all well and good to send them to prison, but is that not the best crime school?

Consider, for example, a young offender who, early on in life, takes a wrong turn and commits minor offences. To send that person to prison with serious offenders, real criminals—is that not the best way to ensure that he or she becomes a hardened criminal? There is something illogical and ineffective about this approach. It would be a much better idea to keep him or her away from criminals doing time in prisons and find ways to encourage rehabilitation.

This bill creates an illusion and will produce no concrete results in terms of reducing crime. Furthermore, this bill is very hypocritical. While this government, supported by the NDP, introduces bills in this House to give the illusion that it is resolving the problem, it is diminishing the gun registry. Since the beginning, it has been trying to weaken the registry to make it less and less effective, less and less relevant. This government pretends to be tough on crime, yet it allows weapons to circulate indiscriminately and would eliminate an extremely useful tool for the police.

Obviously, the gun registry is not perfect. It does not prevent all crimes, but it can help prevent some crimes, as we have seen. It can also help the police when it comes time to go to the scene of a tragedy or hostage taking. It can tell them if there is a weapon on the premises where such an incident is taking place.

Of course, some people plan their crimes, committing premeditated murder, for example. Clearly, those people would not register their weapons before committing such crimes. However, there is another category of murders, those that are more passionate, impulsive, less calculated. In such cases, those people might use guns they have in their homes to commit those crimes. Thus, it would be useful for the police to know what weapons are on the scene.

The registry is relevant. All police forces and stakeholders in Quebec want it to be maintained. Yet, the government is doing everything it can to weaken it.

Recently, we had another example of this government's hypocrisy in a related matter, firearms marking. Regulations to this effect are to be implemented enabling the police to trace the owners of firearms left at the scene of a crime. There is consensus on these regulations. It is something that all police forces are asking for. Yet the government has again delayed implementation of these regulations. It makes you wonder who this government is defending by delaying the implementation of the firearms marking policy.

While nothing is being done to truly prevent crime, they are creating the illusion of attacking the problem by developing an increasingly repressive system. It is not surprising to see the Conservatives, the allies of the United States and of George Bush in particular, adopting this repressive approach. However, it is surprising that the NDP, which claims to be a progressive party, has allied itself with the government and its ways of repression. I am quite disappointed. I hope that the NDP members will come to their senses and that this House will defeat this bill, which is nothing but illusion and hypocrisy.

[Dennis Bevington, NDP, Western Arctic, NT]

Mr. Speaker, I agree with my colleague across the way from the Bloc that in many cases if we look at individual communities we may find answers to some of the problems that are associated with youth crime.

I want to highlight one briefly. It is the community of Déline in the Northwest Territories which has a population of 800 aboriginal people, a community much like many of our other aboriginal communities across the Northwest Territories. The exception is that it has not had a young offender charge for a period of five years.

Why is that? It is because the community has taken hold very carefully of the young people in the community to provide them with the kind of mentoring in sport, school and activities in the community which brings the young people together. It emphasizes as well bringing back the basic family traits, bringing the elders in with the young people and putting them out in camps on the land.

These things all bring results. This suggests to me that most of the problems inherent in youth crime are focused on the society. Is this not the case? Is this not what the member's observation intended?

[Thierry St-Cyr, Bloc, Jeanne-Le Ber, QC]

Mr. Speaker, indeed, crime is rooted in well-known societal problems: poverty, the difficulties experienced by youth in taking their place in society, and violence that is passed down through generations. Therefore, this House must attack these problems as well as those of poverty and violence. This House must not waste its time studying this bill, which gives the illusion of security but which focuses on repression and is hypocritical. The NDP should not support it. We must deal with the real issues right away.

The House resumed consideration of the motion that Bill C-25, An Act to amend the Youth Criminal Justice Act, be read the second time and referred to a committee, and of the motion that this question be now put.

[Judy Wasylycia-Leis, NDP, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, first, I am delighted to be able to spend a few minutes addressing some concerns and viewpoints with respect to Bill C-25, a bill which seeks to make some changes pertaining to our youth criminal justice system.

Second, I want to say to the Conservatives to stop playing games and to stop making this issue into one that is a political football instead of getting down to work and making serious attempts at finding reasonable solutions based on the input of all parliamentarians.

I for one find it rather curious that the government has just now brought in a couple of small changes to our youth justice system. It has merely tinkered with it and has not made the big overhaul that the government claims to the public that it has done, and to which we apparently are already in opposition. I would suggest to the Conservatives that if they want a serious debate and if they want to craft the best legislation possible, they ought not to be suggesting that they have already introduced a massive overhaul of the Youth Criminal Justice Act and that the NDP is already in opposition and therefore we are not prepared to sit down and deal with some of the tough problems that we all know are confronting us. I find that offensive and I wish they would stop.

What we are dealing with today is a very small piece of legislation, a couple of changes, hardly that which the Conservatives promised, hardly that which we have asked for, hardly that which provincial governments have asked for. In fact, I want to reference the significant work by the Manitoba NDP government in trying to get the federal government to make some real changes that would make a difference to some of the serious situations we are dealing with.

There is nothing in this legislation that actually deals with car theft and the use of cars as a weapon by young people. Gary Doer and the Manitoba NDP government were here in Ottawa trying to persuade this government to make some changes in that regard, particularly providing stronger penalties for youth involved in serious crimes, especially those involving auto theft. The Manitoba government and Gary Doer were here calling for first degree murder charges for gang related homicides. The Manitoba government and Gary Doer were here calling for the classification of auto theft as an indictable violent offence. They also were here calling for making shooting at a building and drive-by shootings indictable offences.

Are any of those in the bill? Are any of those in any legislation around us? No, we are still dealing with a government that is creating an illusion of being tough on this issue but basically is doing very little. I would suggest that we try to make this legislation into a much more substantive piece that in fact would get at the root of the problem, that does not tinker at the edges but in fact makes a real difference.

My colleague from Windsor, our justice critic, has already made clear remarks on record suggesting what this bill is and where there are problems. He talks about the move toward deterrence, when in fact there is little recognition sometimes among young people about even the punishments that are associated with the crime at hand. He talks about the question of pretrial release and the fact that this is very seldom used today.

We know that this bill misses the main point. What we do need is some tough legislation to deal with some very serious problems. Let me say that there is no shortage of examples around the hardship that is caused in our communities by young people who have used a car as a weapon, or engaged in other violent crimes.

For the record, I want to send condolences again to three families that have been through this in a very difficult way over the past six months. They of course are no secret to members of the House and are well known in the media. They are pretty horrific cases. Rachelle Leost, who had three young kids, was actually on her way to work when she was hit by a young driver who had stolen a car. She was killed. We also want to recognize Erin Pawlowski, a 35-year-old man who was viciously beaten on his way home from work, who later died from his injuries. We do not know for sure if the offenders were young offenders, but there certainly is that possibility. Finally, Mr. James Duane died while riding his bicycle. He was hit by a stolen car driven by a young person at the corner of Burrows and McGregor in my constituency of Winnipeg North. Those are three horrific crimes that involved, we believe, young people and therefore need to be addressed in this legislation.

These incidents and others like them are by no means to suggest that we are seeing a sudden rise in youth crime. There are no statistics to support such a statement. Nor can we say, as many have tried to suggest, that areas like Winnipeg North and the inner cities and north ends of our cities are hotbeds for youth crime. The problems we are dealing with are everywhere. They are not isolated in my constituency. They are not isolated in certain populations. They happen because our society has not done all it could and governments have not all they could to stop the incidence of crime by looking at the root causes and working at early stages to try to stop these incidents from happening in the first place.

I want to reference a few of the people in my constituency who are working daily trying to deal with youth crime. They need the support of government, but they still really are not getting the acknowledgement nor the financial support from the federal government that they deserve.

In my own constituency, in Point Douglas, which is probably the poorest neighbourhood in all of Canada, there is a group of citizens who have decided to take matters into their own hands with the support of the provincial government to call for a crack free zone. They are trying to identify crack dealers and crack houses and report them and make sure that those houses are shut down. Under the Manitoba legislation, we have innovative provisions for doing just that, something that should be replicated across the country.

We have in that very same neighbourhood citizens working on unslumming the neighbourhood, not gentrification, but unslumming. They are working with housing groups and local organizations to repair and renovate houses, to try to get rid of those who want to abuse their privileges and make our neighbourhoods into drug zones and areas of high crime and violence.

We have just had reports in Winnipeg about another group, the ambassadors for the North End. They are a group of young people who actually patrol the streets around Selkirk Avenue and neighbouring areas to try to prevent the incidence of crime. They are getting support from the provincial government. They need to be recognized by the federal government.

We have many youth at risk programs. We have the North Point Douglas Women's Centre, the North End Women's Centre. We have the North End Community Renewal Corporation. All of these organizations believe in working together to try to get at the root causes of youth crime.

That is best said when we look at some of the people who have written about what it means to live in poverty, and not in a functional family, without access to supports or employment. Here is one example, a piece written by Rhian Brynjolson in my riding. She said this:

One very young boy recently drew me picture. In it a boy is looking in the mirror. The image in the mirror is a boy with horns and a devil's tail. “The boy is wondering if he is going to be a bad guy when he grows up”, he explained. I looked at the boy, knowing of the abusive situation he had survived, and I wondered too.

That is one example. Let me give one more. This one is written by Christine Burrows, who is actually a retired kindergarten teacher and coordinator of the Point Douglas community safety team. She talks about what it is like to be without proper supports:

Since you are not travelling around in a car, you're just hanging around your immediate neighbourhood, so you never see those signs in stores and outside factories saying “Help wanted”.

The whole idea of finding a job is difficult and daunting, so you just hang out on the street and couch-surf.

Then one day a drive-by recruitment car stops to talk to you. They don't care about your school record, there are no forms to fill in, they offer you a job, you can do the job, it doesn't mean getting up early and you can keep your hoodie on. Perfect! The pay is pretty good and it's illegal, but hey, it's not just like a few relatives haven't been in the slammer from time to time, no big deal. Besides, you won't get caught.

You are now a drug dealer's mule, you carry illegal narcotics for the man, you run stuff from one place to another, you're a success, cash in your pocket and you can wear a tough attitude.

I could go on with many more examples. I could talk about the fact that in Winnipeg, we know that many of the youth who commit crimes are actually FASD victims. They have fetal alcohol syndrome disorder, a neurological disorder for which they cannot always account for their actions. Yet we have a government that refuses to put in place proper programs for FASD, nor is it prepared to support our motion to put labels on alcohol beverage containers warning women that they should not drink during pregnancy.

All kinds of things can be done. I would urge the government to begin to look seriously at this problem, not as window dressing, and stop making victims out of our young people who really have every reason to want to contribute to our society if given half a chance.

[Yves Lessard, Bloc, Chambly—Borduas, QC]

Mr. Speaker, the members of the Bloc Québécois are rather surprised by the NDP's position on Bill C-25.

If I understand correctly, some members want to ensure that the bill passes second reading. However, all the arguments presented would normally lead us to believe that the NDP will vote against it. Why? Because the very foundation of this bill goes against the principles defended by the NDP. Its foundation is one of repression. They are supporting the repression of young people and adolescents, while what seems to be working so far is guidance as a means of prevention.

For example, the United States still has the death penalty for the most serious crimes. We all know what kind of results that produces. The crime rate is three times lower in Canada and four times lower in Quebec. Why? Because the strategy established by both governments, the policy maintained, is one of prevention. In Quebec, that policy is even more energetically applied.

How can the NDP now justify its position, which favours repression over prevention?

[Judy Wasylycia-Leis, NDP, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my hon. Bloc colleague for his question. I would like to reply in English, since it is a very complex question.

I want to say for the member and everyone in the House, as I tried to in my speech, that what we find most reprehensible about this legislation is what is not in it and the lost opportunity to deal with what is required when it comes to youth crime. We have always said that there must be proper emphasis on prevention, protection and punishment.

The NDP is prepared to send the bill to committee because it needs to be enhanced. What is in it is very insignificant and problematic. There needs to be more reflection on what is there and changes made.

I want to specifically reference the two parts of the bill that my colleague from Windsor has already addressed. The first is the question about youth being released pretrial. My colleague has already said that in most cases, particularly heinous crimes, that kind of pretrial release does not often happen. Some judges are still involved in pretrial releases. The proposed bill will help clarify that situation and ensure there are clear provisions when a youth crime is heinous and serious enough that it requires more stringent action than is normally the case.

The other part of the bill deals with the issue of denunciation and deterrence. As my colleague from Windsor has also said, we need to try to understand whether that section of the bill would help in any way the young people who would be involved in the most serious and egregious of crimes when it comes to destruction of property and dismemberment or the deaths of individuals.

We know deterrence may not be that useful for some young people because they do not recognize the punishment or they never stop to think about the implications of their crimes. However, when we look at the most heinous of crimes, we also have to think about how we get youth to deal with what they have done and understand that there are significant punishments for those very serious crimes. We cannot ignore that end of the equation. Maybe the Bloc sees that we can but I do not think so.

The bill is not perfect. What we suggest is get it to committee, hear from witnesses to find out what the couple of limited provisions do and would mean and find ways to enhance the bill to make it more effective legislation that truly gives our legislators the kinds of tools they need to make a difference.

I mentioned some of them already. I mentioned the Manitoba government's presentation to members of Parliament, who are trying to deal particularly with the use of cars by youth as weapons. I mentioned three horrible deaths, a young mother, a young man and a working age man. They were killed in the prime of their lives because of that kind of incident. We know we have to stop it. We have to be strong on this. At least with the bill going to committee we can get somewhere—

[The Acting Speaker, Conservative, Andrew Scheer]

Resuming debate, the hon. member for Chambly—Borduas.

[Yves Lessard, Bloc, Chambly—Borduas, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am particularly glad to join in the discussion of this bill because it gives me an opportunity to highlight the rather exceptional guidance and prevention work being done by many organizations in our society and in Quebec with young people. In my own riding of Chambly—Borduas and in the city of Chambly itself, the organization known as POSA has had a remarkable impact and is doing the most exemplary work with young people.

In this type of debate, we need to think about the other stakeholders in our society who are helping young people to find direction in their lives. Often, these are young people who have nothing to do.

I want to come back to the latest remarks of my New Democratic colleague. She said that what is of greatest concern about the bill is what is not in it. That astounds me because what should concern us most of all is what the bill actually says. There are two things the bill says. First, exemplary sentences are needed to deal with youth crime. That means from now on we will be using an approach that is currently reserved for adults. I will come back to that point. Second, pre-trial detention will be permitted. It is rather troubling that a young person, a teenager, would have to prove that he or she is not a danger to society even before a trial begins. That is rather troubling because it is a presumption that the teenager could be guilty.

In court, it often happens that a person is not found guilty of the crime that he or she has been charged with. This means that even before the trial takes place, if a person does not want to be imprisoned as a preventive measure, he or she must demonstrate to some degree that they did not commit that crime. People will say that is not how it is going to happen. The person need only demonstrate that he or she is not a danger to society. However, if a serious crime has been committed and the person was not involved in the crime, he or she will have to show that they were not involved.

Already, we are focusing on evidence that should be presented during a trial. There is something perverse in that; something that implies in some way that the presumption of innocence no longer applies at the first stage when we are dealing with young people. That is sometimes understandable when we are looking at measures that apply to adults because an adult may have a criminal background suggesting that he or she could re-offend or represent a danger to society based on previous evidence or charges brought before the courts.

This is the approach as things now stand and the NDP is aligning itself with that approach. That the New Democrats would take such a position surprises me a great deal. As for the Conservatives, not much about their take on crime surprises us. They are not very interested in prevention. Repression is the focus and if they can make the penalties tougher all around they will do so.

This approach also flies in the face of the youth crime policies that have been in place in Quebec for more than 30 years. These prevention-based policies have proven themselves. As I said earlier when I asked my colleague a question, the current system in Quebec, with its focus on prevention, has led to a significant reduction in youth crime. As a result, there are four times fewer criminal cases in Quebec than in the United States and 25% fewer than in Canada.

Canada as a whole has three times fewer criminal cases than the United States. Yet the Conservatives are copying the American model. We know the result. The heaviest U.S. penalties are still banned here, such as the death penalty, which cannot even produce such results.

What is most important? To turn these young people into criminals and set them on a course that will inevitably lead to the same situation as in the United States? That will multiply the number of criminals once these young people are adults.

Quebec is not in favour of that. Not only is the Bloc Québécois opposed to that, but in 2003, the National Assembly of Quebec unanimously passed a motion to maintain the system in Quebec.

In addition, the measures proposed in clauses 1 and 2 of Bill C-25 are not insignificant. They run counter to a whole philosophy of Canadian law. The Supreme Court summarized the principles behind youth sentencing in this way in a 2006 judgment:

The YCJA introduced a new sentencing regime, and its wording can only support the conclusion that Parliament deliberately excluded general deterrence as a factor of youth sentencing. By virtue of section 50(1) of the YCJA, the provisions of the Criminal Code on sentencing, save certain listed exceptions, do not apply to youth sentencing.

They do apply to adult sentencing. I could go on since my point is proven many times in this Supreme Court ruling.

What is happening today is not routine or unimportant. This principle will be changed. The sentence imposed on a youth will from now on be imposed as a deterrent the same way it is for a hardened adult criminal. However, experience shows that if we take that route we will keep turning out more criminals, and hardened ones at that.

I again invite our colleagues in the House of Commons to vote with us on this bill, including at second reading, so that we do not sanction this principle here in the House of Commons. This is not theory. This is not a Conservative philosophy that should prevail here. This is not the Canadian tradition of justice, nor is it Quebec's tradition, far from it.

Our colleagues would be making a serious mistake by voting in favour of this bill, including at second reading.

We believe the amendment made to the legislation in 2001 was a mistake because it created an opening for excessive court handling of youth crime. This has considerably complicated the reintegration of young offenders.

The focus here should be on providing guidance for these young people, prevention measures, and funding for agencies like POSA, in my riding, as I was saying earlier. That is our position. That is why we will vote against this bill.

[Christian Ouellet, Bloc, Brome—Missisquoi, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I wish to congratulate my colleague from Chambly—Borduas on his very clear and truly fundamental presentation.

I take this opportunity to ask the member if he could elaborate on those organizations dedicated to helping young people in his riding, like others across Quebec. Could he tell this House whether most of the help is provided in the street, in big buildings, in schools or elsewhere? Where does it take place?

I think that a great deal of prevention has been carried out in Quebec. Quebec could be taken as a model, and inspiration could be drawn from our experience.

I would very much like our colleague to elaborate on that.

[Yves Lessard, Bloc, Chambly—Borduas, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague from Brome—Missisquoi who, by the way, is doing a great job on the whole issue of social housing.

I wanted to mention it because the issue of housing is not extraneous to crime. In fact, as has been said, faced with poverty, individuals have to deal with a whole set of factors, such as inadequate housing that is too expensive and the lack of affordable housing.

Employment insurance is part of the problem. In fact, 60% of the unemployed do not receive any employment insurance benefits. This situation leads to impoverishment and young people with nothing to do. When parents are poor, children are poor also.

My colleague is quite right. Various measures are being taken in my riding. Cities are hiring street workers; this was unprecedented in semi-urban or rural ridings. It is now part of our reality.

I was speaking earlier about the organization POSA. With limited means, these people are able to rent a small space where they create tools for youth who they find in parks and in the street, and some of whom have already committed petty crimes, as is often the case. They get them interested in, for example, the arts, trades or different aspects of life. They try to reintegrate youth by helping them to identify their interests. Every young person has an interest and help is available. They do extraordinary work. They could show us how to work with these young people.

[Michel Guimond, Bloc, Montmorency—Charlevoix—Haute-Côte-Nord, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am glad to take part in the debate on Bill C-25 to amend the Youth Criminal Justice Act.

I am very mindful of the great struggle of the Bloc Québécois over many years; a struggle led by our former Justice critic, who is now a judge of the Quebec court. I would like to acknowledge the work of our colleague and friend, Michel Bellehumeur, the former member for Berthier—Montcalm.

That struggle has not been in vain. However, we are forced to recognize that it must continue, especially in the face of this Conservative government. It is a right-wing government with a tendency, in terms of the justice system, to adopt a much more punitive approach rather than an approach based on rehabilitation.

We can recall the trip made by a member on the other side of the House, at a time when the Conservative Party was known as the Reform Party. They changed the name. It is a little like Coca-Cola—New Coke, old Coke or Coke zero—in the end it is still Coca-Cola. Whether the party changed the name to Canadian Alliance, the Reform Party or, now, the Conservative Party, it is the same party with the same individuals, and it is the same right-wing ideology that prevails in that party.

When they were in opposition, the Conservatives, in their Reform Party days, went so far as to subsidize a trip by one of their colleagues to study what they call “batting” in Thailand, I think. In that country, young people who do wrong are punished with strokes administered with a bamboo rod. That is what is known as “batting”, with penalties of 50 or 100 strokes. We know those are absolutely useless approaches and that it is totally impossible to export such practices to Canada.

As my colleague for Chambly—Borduas has properly stated, you will understand that the Bloc Québécois is opposed in principle to Bill C-25. In terms of justice, the Bloc Québécois firmly believes that the most efficient approach is, and always will be, prevention. We must attack the causes of crime. I will not repeat the remarks just made by my colleague. He described criminal activity that can be caused by poverty. However, I would add a slight qualifier to what he said.

No connection has ever been established between crime and people from a poor background. Young people from very comfortable backgrounds sometimes commit crimes. Unfortunately, a poor choice of friends, bad habits and drug dependencies can sweep young people down the wrong path. I would not want to play stepmother to my colleague from Chambly—Borduas, but I just wanted to add this nuance, that there is no direct connection, no causal relationship, between poverty and crime. It should be said, though, that poverty often provides fertile soil for the growth of the gangrene of crime among our youth.

We need, therefore, to attack the causes of delinquency and violence rather than waiting until the damage has been done and trying to repair it. The most judicious and beneficial approach, from both a social and financial point of view, is prevention.

Justice for young people is no different in this regard. Young people need to grow up in a healthy environment and not in extreme poverty; they need an affordable education system, and so forth.

Much is made of Canada’s current economic prosperity. We have been hit hard, though, by downturns in manufacturing and forestry. In general, the various governments in power over the last few years have just boasted about economic prosperity and the incredible surpluses they have racked up.

Despite all that, it is still true that 1.5 million children in Canada live below the poverty line. If there are 1.5 million children living below the poverty line, it is because their parents are poor. These children do not have multimillionaire parents. I hope we understand that. These are children from poor families. There are 1.5 million children who often do not have what they need. They have no money. There is nothing in the refrigerator, and these children go to school on empty stomachs.

Talk with people in the field of education. The principals of primary schools in certain areas where there are pockets of poverty have to keep a refrigerator in the staff room filled with string cheese, fruit, fruit juice and yogourt because young people come to school without having eaten. That is the reality. The government needs to understand this instead of just boasting that its budget surplus has reached $11.6 billion.

The Bloc Québécois is aware that there are young people who commit offences. Some people might want to accuse the Bloc Québécois of putting its head in the sand, of not recognizing that there is a crime problem among some young people. However, we know that there is a crime problem and it is completely unacceptable. It is unacceptable. On the other hand, there is a way of treating the disease and healing the wound of the gangrene festering in some of our young people.

There are acts that have been committed by young offenders and they must answer for them in the courts. The Bloc believes that the government has a duty to take action and use the tools available to it so that Quebeckers and Canadians are able to live peacefully and safely. However, the measures brought forward must have a genuinely positive impact on crime, and must be more than just words, more than mere rhetoric, more than fine high-sounding pronouncements to try to put everyone to sleep, or more than a campaign based on fear.

As well, it does not necessarily have to be a model copied from George Bush's United States. We could talk about that at length. The result is familiar to us all: the United States has a high crime rate. Despite the fact that some states apply the death penalty, the United States has a homicide rate three times higher than in Canada and four times higher than in Quebec. In the United States, they still apply the death penalty. Anyone who believes that the death penalty operates as a deterrent is mistaken. The best way of deterring crime is to tackle the sources of the problem and have treatment that will be effective in the long term for our young offenders.

The Bloc Québécois also deplores how lightly the Conservative government is taking these amendments to measures that reflect the very foundations of the justice system. By shifting the burden of proof to the accused on the question of pre-trial release from detention, Bill C-25 offends the presumption of innocence, which is a fundamental principle of law. The Bloc Québécois completely understands that pre-trial detention may be necessary for certain individuals, but in those cases the measure must be the least restrictive possible in the circumstances.

I see I have one minute left, Mr. Speaker, and so I would like to say that in the past, Quebeckers have opted for a system of individualized justice, based on a flexible judicial process, adapted to each case, with the positive results that we are familiar with in Quebec. When it comes to the youth criminal justice system, we have traditionally opted for rehabilitation and reintegration in order to rescue these young people from the vicious circle of crime.

[Brian Masse, NDP, Windsor West, ON]

Mr. Speaker, one of the important things about the bill and the challenge we have with it is perhaps the consequence of taking some of the progressive elements out of the criminal justice system that need to be worked on, such as prevention. Despite the government not bringing forward the prevention strategies, part of the Youth Criminal Justice Act has it as its core now that the content of declaration of principles include prevention of crime. It also talks about help for young people who have committed crimes to make the right decisions.

Does my colleague have some specific examples in Quebec about those types of programs?

Ontario has been successful on a series of community based programs that help youth fix the mistakes they have made by either getting retraining, or ensuring they are getting proper counselling and also even going back to school and having that type of a comprehensive program.

A number of those organizations have suffered from lack of funds. They have been able to get at issues related to gang violence or issues in the community related to their specific problems out of the way because they have had that support.

Does my hon. colleague have other ones in Quebec that need the same support?

[Michel Guimond, Bloc, Montmorency—Charlevoix—Haute-Côte-Nord, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his question. In a previous life, before becoming a member, I had the opportunity to practice law, and worked in youth law in particular. In Quebec, the whole point of reception centres and social service centres is to work with young people instead of judging them and sending them to prison or to places that would help feed in to their anger and develop their criminal tendencies.

It is true that if a young person deserves to be punished, it is because he has done something wrong. If he stole a purse from a 91-year-old woman—this happened to one of my aunts—if he pushed her down and she broke her wrist, we do not just give him a little swat on the bottom and tell him not to do it again; that will not do. We must provide them with guidance and support and explain why what they did was wrong. In Quebec, with the youth centre formula, we have reception centres for boys and others for girls, where there are more secure wings for young people who have committed much more serious crimes.

The youth are supervised by social workers and live in a structured environment. They can take courses while they are still at the reception centre. When they turn 18, they have some skills as they enter the job market. There is a transition period, a short time before they turn 18, when the youth live in a group home, where they are much more autonomous. Quebec has been successful in treating its young offenders—

[The Acting Speaker, Conservative, Andrew Scheer]

The hon. member for Trois-Rivières should know that there are two minutes left for questions and comments.

[Paule Brunelle, Bloc, Trois-Rivières, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I congratulate the hon. member for his speech.

He is absolutely right when he talks about poverty which, unfortunately, is not declining in Canada, as the Liberals had promised us. This was an aggravating factor, and also the violence that exists in our society.

Having said that, there is no doubt that the Quebec model, which is based on rehabilitation and social reintegration, is important, at least to us. Our children are precious, and we want to keep them. We could talk at length about how we succeeded in reducing crime in Quebec, thanks to all these reintegration initiatives. I should also point out that the process begins in school, where remedial teachers take the children under their wing when the problem occurs.

[Michel Guimond, Bloc, Montmorency—Charlevoix—Haute-Côte-Nord, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I want to quickly add a comment.

My colleague has put a lot of emphasis on the Quebec model. If the Conservative government had been honest when it passed the motion to recognize Quebec as a nation, it would have recognized that Quebec has a system that is different, that is independent and that is working. One simply has to look at the statistics on youth crime. We are not at the top of the list but, rather, at the bottom of it.

If the motion proposed by the Conservatives really meant something, this government would accept the Quebec specificity, and it would recognize that the Quebec system for handling offenders is the best one that exists.

[Carole Lavallée, Bloc, Saint-Bruno—Saint-Hubert, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would first like to congratulate my colleague, the member for Montmorency—Charlevoix—Haute-Côte-Nord, on his excellent analysis of the Bloc Québécois position, the situation in Quebec, and Quebeckers' attitude and values with regard to delinquency. No one can have failed to understand that Quebeckers favour rehabilitation and prevention over deterrence, which is what this Conservative government is determined to impose on us.

Since his analysis was so thorough and since my colleague from Montmorency—Charlevoix—Haute-Côte-Nord did such a good job of recounting his experiences, I would like to approach the issue from the standpoint of Quebeckers' values.

First, I would like to reiterate the Bloc Québécois position. I want to explain why we are really opposed to Bill C-25 in principle.

The Bloc Québécois firmly believes that prevention is still the most effective approach to justice and always will be. We have to attack the causes of crime. Attacking the causes of delinquency and violence, rather than trying to repair the damage once it is done, is the most appropriate and, above all, most profitable approach from both a social and financial point of view.

Could this be any clearer? The first step must be to deal with poverty, inequality and exclusion, which create a fertile breeding ground for frustration and its outlets, which are violence and criminal activity.

Youth justice is no different. Young people need a healthy environment, free of extreme poverty, and they need access to affordable education. In each of these areas, Quebec has made choices that set it apart. We have only to think of tuition fees, which are among the lowest in North America, the network of day care centres, which has served as a model in this area, and so on.

Obviously, the Bloc Québécois is aware that young people commit criminal acts they must answer for. It is the government's duty to take action and use the tools at its disposal to help Quebeckers and Canadians live in peace and security.

The measures that are introduced will really have to have a positive impact on crime and go beyond mere rhetoric or campaigns based on fear. They will have to be more than a weak imitation of the American model, which has had less than stellar results.

Where young people are concerned, the Quebec model, with its focus on rehabilitation and reintegration, produces real results, as my colleague from Montmorency—Charlevoix—Haute-Côte-Nord explained.

Bill C-25 should have, on the one hand, focused on what is already working and, on the other hand, allowed Quebec to pursue its successful approach based on rehabilitation and reintegration so that today's young people do not become marginalized in the future.

I would now like to explain another aspect of this bill that is important for Quebec. On November 27, 2007, this Parliament made an important decision, recognizing that Quebeckers form a nation. Incidentally, just last week, the last time I mentioned this in the House, two Conservative members started laughing, as though they had pulled a fast one on Quebeckers, as though they did not believe at all in the value of this recognition for Quebeckers. They thought they had tricked us, which is why they were laughing. Fortunately, those members are not here right now, so they cannot laugh.

This recognition was the result of a motion moved by the Bloc Québécois in this House a few days earlier. Thus, the Conservative government, which did not believe in it at all—as we saw again last week, in many ways, and Bill C-25 only reinforces that—set a trap for us and tricked us. It was a trap set for the Bloc Québécois. They thought we would completely fall for it.

From now on, given that the Conservatives have adopted this motion, they must be taken literally. We must ignore their laughter and believe in the motion they passed. The Conservatives must put their money where their mouth is. With Bill C-25, we do not see how they can do that, since we do not see how they are respecting the different values of Quebeckers, who form a nation.

They must therefore recognize the fundamental rights of Quebeckers, the fundamental rights of a nation, which can be expressed as different values. Bill C-25 clearly reveals the values of the Conservative Party, which include repression, law and order, and prison for the bad guys.

However, Quebec's values of rehabilitation and prevention cannot be seen in it.

Perhaps when I talk about the nation, it may seem to have little to do with Bill C-25. On the contrary. It is at the very heart of this bill.

I want to say a few words about how Quebec addresses crime, although my colleague from Montmorency—Charlevoix—Haute-Côte-Nord made an excellent presentation on this.

As I was just saying, the Conservative government's directions, ideas and mentality are different. It has a different way of finding solutions to problems in our society. In Quebec, we found our way a long time ago. We take care of young offenders. We take better care of their needs and their difficulties. We try to rehabilitate them and—if I may say so—turn them into responsible adults whenever possible. Statistics show that in most cases it is possible.

In Quebec, we try above all to find solutions to the underlying problems that cause these youth to commit small, medium and large offences. I have to say that in Quebec, we are succeeding and we have the statistics to back that claim. In Quebec, the youth rehabilitation program works very well. Now we have this Conservative government barging in and wanting to send youth to prison to punish and deter them. We know full well that criminals, even adult criminals, do not know what prison sentence they will get for the crime they plan to commit. They do not know beforehand or during the crime. Increasing prison sentences or creating harsher sentences usually does not deter young offenders from committing an offence.

Quebec should have been exempt from this reform. We should have had the possibility of keeping our intervention strategy, which is based on the needs of youth and focuses on prevention and rehabilitation.

The Conservative government does not have the same values as Quebeckers. Quebeckers are a nation, and the government has recognized that. We have our own values, and this government, this Parliament, must recognize that when it comes to anything, big or small, and especially when it comes to bills. Everyone here in Parliament must now walk the walk. We know that the Conservative government has a hidden right-wing agenda that it is trying to sneak in bit by bit, usually behind our backs.

This bill to criminalize young people, kids as young as 12, is further proof of that. I am not even talking about bilingualism. The Minister of Canadian Heritage, Status of Women and Official Languages, the Conservative member for Quebec, said it herself. Her government is not protecting the interests of Quebeckers or their language; her government is protecting bilingualism. This government can therefore not protect Quebec's interests because Quebec's interest is its language, French, Quebec's common public language. The Conservatives have no intention of promoting French, but they do intend to promote bilingualism. They do not even respect Quebec's bill 101 in their institutions or in the services they provide to citizens. They do not respect Quebeckers' language.

The Conservative government does not have the same values with respect to the death penalty either. Contrary to what it has done in the past, Canada failed to support an international institution's resolution opposing the death penalty, thereby sending a clear message to specialists around the world that the government had altered Canada's fundamental position on the death penalty. This government is changing Canada's and Quebec's basic values. It denies this right up until it presents us with a fait accompli. Quebec wants nothing to do with the death penalty. Quebec wants nothing to do with the Conservatives' hidden agenda.

Bill C-25 is another Conservative government bill that does not reflect Quebeckers' values, but instead reflects the Conservatives' right-wing ideology. The government is far from walking the walk when it comes to the Quebec nation. For Quebec, this bill is a step back. Quebec has some excellent solutions, an excellent rehabilitation program for teenagers. The Conservative government is trying to spoil everything.

This is yet another good reason for the Quebec nation to decide to have its own country and take care of its own children in ways that respect Quebec's values.

[Libby Davies, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise in the House today to speak to Bill C-25. I know that other members of the NDP have spoken today and there will be others speaking as well. We have a number of concerns about this bill.

I have been sitting here listening to the debate and thinking about this issue. One of the problems with Bill C-25, An Act to amend the Youth Criminal Justice Act, is that it is another example of the Conservative government bringing in legislation with really very little reflection and thought about its impact.

This is part of an overall drive to create this core issue that Conservatives believe they have around crime and justice, to create a “them” and an “us”, and to play on people's fear about crime, which obviously is very strong in most communities. When we actually go through the bill and see what it seeks to accomplish, there is no evidence that what it proposes is actually going to build safer communities.

Having said that, I note that there is one aspect of the bill that the NDP does support. It has to do with pretrial discretion of the judge. We agree because it is now practice in the judiciary that judges often do take into account whether there has been a previous serious offence and whether the young person poses a risk and therefore should not be released. In the law, technically speaking, there is a presumption that the youth in pretrial would be released. We do agree that there should be discretion within the system to allow judges to make a determination for those young individuals who do pose a serious threat to society. Judges should have the tools and the availability to make sure that such individuals are not released.

However, beyond that, this bill is very problematic. It concerns us a lot. Certainly we believe that if it goes to committee we should take a serious look at it. In fact, we probably should be cutting out large sections of the bill. The two particularly problematic areas have to do with the introduction of adult sentencing principles that have to do with denunciation and the question of deterrence.

We need to recognize that throughout our history there has always been a difference in the way the judicial system treats adults and juveniles, young people. It is based on the understanding that sometimes young people, for whatever reason, out of impulse, ignorance or anger, commit crimes that they do not necessarily think about. These crimes are not necessarily premeditated and there is this idea that sentencing based on denunciation or deterrence is not necessarily going to work. So in 1999 and 2000, when the Youth Criminal Justice Act first came in, the act was based on the idea that a different model needed to be created. That was a good thing. We generally supported that.

The bill today is taking us yet another step closer, because of the Conservatives' agenda, to where those lines become indistinguishable and where how we treat young people in the justice system would become more blurred in terms of how we treat adult situations. I think that is a very serious problem.

We should not proceed with this bill in a mad dash just because it happens to be another bill that the Conservatives have brought forward and just because it happens to meet their political agenda. I actually find it very offensive that so much of the legislation we have debated around the crime issue has been based on this political agenda rather than on evidence based information about what works in a criminal justice system.

I have been listening to our colleagues from the Bloc, who have been telling us something about the way it works in Quebec. In my own community in east Vancouver, we have issues around crime and safety, like other inner city urban communities, and we often use Quebec as an example of a different approach based on rehabilitation, on taking the young offenders with the goal of returning them to society. In fact, that should be so for all people where possible, but particularly for young people. I think we have a lot to learn from Quebec about the system it has used, yet this bill would actually undermine that and take us in a completely different direction.

I was reading an article the other day and was horrified to learn that the Conservative member for Kitchener—Conestoga sent out a householder claiming that the rate of violent youth crime had increased 22%. In actual fact, according to Statistics Canada, violent youth crime had fallen by 2%. This is not a huge decrease but at least it is a decrease.

However, that information is being put out there. My concern is that it is like the oldest game in the book. We know that people are worried about crime, even though crime overall has gone down. We know that people want to see effective strategies. It is so easy to keep throwing more laws at the problem and to say that we need tougher enforcement, that we are going to have tougher regimes and that is going to solve the problem.

Let us look at justice department studies, however, and at what happens in the United States. In fact, after debate on this bill is concluded we will be moving on to another bill, the minimum mandatory sentencing for drug crimes, a very severe bill in terms of its approach. It seems to me that we are not looking at the evidence that is so starkly there, the overwhelming evidence that we have in our own country in terms of what does and does not work and what we actually see in other jurisdictions.

We do not often refer to countries beyond the United States. Different models are used in Europe and have much more focus on rehabilitation and a sense of restorative justice. In east Vancouver, we had a number of incidents in the Commercial Drive area. People were very worried about youth at risk who were on the streets. Various incidents had taken place. People had been assaulted. I think it was easy to have that initial response of saying that we should just have a get tough approach and get those kids off the street, that those kids should be in jail.

However, we held a community forum. We invited local residents and some of the community organizations. We invited young people and the businesses. We had a very thoughtful discussion about what we needed to do in our own community and what was our response. Certainly relying on the Criminal Code and on police resources was a part of that discussion and that response, but beyond that, there was a lot of reflection about how we needed to develop programs at the very local level, right at the grassroots level, to deal with problems at the street level.

For example, we started a whole series of meetings about restorative justice. I have a very high aboriginal community population in my riding. This is something that has been really well thought out in that there are some programs, not enough but some, whereby people are taking a very different kind of approach rather than having this knee-jerk reaction to crime. That is what I feel we need to do. Unfortunately, that is what this bill does not do.

That is why in the NDP, although we agree with some parts of the bill and are willing to see it go to committee, we have very serious concerns about this idea that we will move juveniles closer and closer to the criminal system and that somehow we are going to fool people that it is going to fix the problem, that this is going to work. I feel that is a big mistake.

We all have a responsibility to speak truthfully about these issues, even when politically it may appear on the surface to respond in the way that people want us to. There are those lines that we tend to come out with, such as the lines about more enforcement, more officers and getting tough on crime.

If we emphasize more crime prevention and building healthy communities, whether it is through training, better health care, housing, and certainly more opportunities for young people, then I think we would be minimizing at the beginning the number of young people who end up in situation where they become at risk and where they may become young offenders. It seems crazy to me that we load everything up at the other end, the end that is the most expensive and the end that has the least amount of impact.

I have concerns about this bill. Obviously we will see what happens in committee. The NDP will support some of its elements and we will address our concerns.

[The Acting Speaker, Conservative, Andrew Scheer]

It is my duty pursuant to Standing Order 38 to inform the House that the questions to be raised tonight at the time of adjournment are as follows: the hon. member for Richmond Hill, Afghanistan; the hon. member for Mississauga South, Privacy.

Questions and comments, the hon. member for Yukon.

[Larry Bagnell, Liberal, Yukon, YT]

Mr. Speaker, I was delighted to hear the member talk about restorative justice and those items. Virtually everyone who has spoken today has given ideas to the government as to how it can rescue its failed crime agenda. Obviously that agenda has not been successful. There are a lot of things wrong with it. There have been a lot of good suggestions made by members. I noticed that the member was not finished, so I would invite her to talk more about prevention and the root causes of crime.

There was a wonderful show on CBC in the morning, I think last week, about how the prison system is failing prisoners in the federal system, prisoners who need education and anger management, the things that would protect victims. We have to stand up for victims of crime. The things that could be done to help them are not being done. That was an example.

In Ottawa there was an open house, like the one the member talked about, for restorative justice week. People talked about how restorative justice failed and how crimes were repeated 38% to 45% of the time. However, the regular criminal system failed 73% of the time, so restorative justice is actually a success. As the member knows, the Conservatives tried to pass a bill to get rid of a lot of the restorative justice alternatives.

I would ask her to comment on how we can improve the justice system, help victims of crime and make Canada safer.

[Libby Davies, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I know that the member for Yukon has some experience in these matters. He mentioned the situation in Ottawa. I know that the new Ottawa chief of police is very strong on restorative justice and has a whole history with it. It is wonderful to see a major entity like the Ottawa police taking this very seriously under its chief.

In terms of the ideas I put forward, one of my main concerns is that a lot of these programs manage on very limited funds. They have to beg and borrow to keep going. They are actually very successful. To me, the ingredients we need to look at are that programs have to be locally based and come out of the local community and they have to involve different stakeholders. A program may involve young people who may be at risk and the offenders themselves, of course, and their victims, but I think it has to encompass a broader dialogue within the community.

We started to do it in east Vancouver and were doing it with really no resources. It was only what we could do through my office with a number of really good organizations that were contributing their time voluntarily. We had really good discussion and dialogue.

I know that certainly within the aboriginal community there is a much stronger emphasis on returning to traditional practices of dealing with issues and concerns in the community. Then they are dealing with their peers, so the sense of understanding the wrong that has been done and the impact it had is something that--

[The Acting Speaker, Conservative, Andrew Scheer]

Questions and comments, the hon. member for Trois-Rivières.

[Paule Brunelle, Bloc, Trois-Rivières, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I want to congratulate my colleague from Vancouver East on her speech. I recognized in it the member with whom I worked on a very complex issue, namely prostitution. I would like her to say a few words about that.

In the case of prostitution, we could see how repression put the lives of these women in danger. Repression is certainly not a solution. Many women turn to prostitution because of problems related to mental health, poverty or different types of abuse.

From the moment repression is used instead of an approach targeting the causes of prostitution, people are sent to prison, they are not allowed to go to certain places and their lives are threatened. That just makes the problem worse.

I would like the member to elaborate on that because the connection with this bill seems very obvious to me.

[Libby Davies, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Mr. Speaker, the member and I served on the subcommittee together and I think we learned a lot.

I would agree that if we use the blunt instrument of law enforcement to solve a problem, all we are really doing is further entrenching at risk individuals in a system where it is hard for them to make changes. We learned a lot in committee. We have learned a lot from programs in our community.

The approach the Conservatives have taken of getting tough on crime, of heavy-handedness, of a reliance on enforcement, rather than prevention, rather than building healthy communities, rather than making sure that people's rights are upheld, will fail, and that is what we are seeing--

[The Acting Speaker, Conservative, Andrew Scheer]

Resuming debate. The hon. member for Brome—Missisquoi.

[Christian Ouellet, Bloc, Brome—Missisquoi, QC]

Mr. Speaker, it is my pleasure to rise today on this bill, even though the Bloc Québécois is very opposed to Bill C-25 and even stunned by its objectives.

First I would like to say that my speech will really just follow up on what the hon. member for East Vancouver had to say. I very much appreciated the specific examples she gave from her own riding and her statement that legislation ought not to be based on electoral dogma or politics but on real facts and on studies that have been done showing its necessity. We should not pass laws simply because our ideology would be better served by different legislation.

I want to say once again that this bill is based on Conservative ideology that aims to punish offenders. This is really a very reactionary ideology. Allow me to quote what the purpose of this bill is. Ultimately, its purpose is to amend the Youth Criminal Justice Act by “adding deterrence and denunciation to the principles that a court must consider when determining a youth sentence”.

The bill also clarifies that the presumption against the pre-trial detention of a young person is rebuttable and specifies the circumstances in which the presumption does not apply.

The purpose of Bill C-25 is therefore to intensify the punishments inflicted on young people and allow them to be detained before trial. That is obviously where the government is headed. This bill is like a father who punishes his children rather than helping them get over difficult situations. This bill is as reactionary as can be and reflects the thinking of the Republican right-wingers among our neighbours to the south. Legislation like this is based on the belief that children are born bad and have to be punished into being good. This legislation also teaches young people denunciation—how to tell on each other—and how to but or bargain their way out of trouble.

Like most of the hon. members in this House, I have had children, although they are now grown up. I never allowed them to tell on each other because I always felt it was amoral and not something I could approve. No democratic society can accept denunciation. It can only be found in dictatorships where there is just one law for everyone. Denunciation is anti-democratic and not a way to create proud and responsible citizens.

It should also be unacceptable that young people use denunciation as a bargaining chip to obtain a pardon. There is no mention of prevention in here. In fact, this government never includes prevention in the bills it introduces. It seems to me that the normal thing to do would be to focus on prevention before punishing the offenders. But there is nothing to that effect in the legislation. We are convinced that prevention, rehabilitation, straightforwardness, honesty and integrity of young people will become essential. They cannot be allowed to be untrue and get off by denouncing others.

Where is our ability to guide our young people? They often lack the tools to cope with life. They are often unable to appreciate the gravity of their actions. That is what teenagers need help with, and this help often cannot be found at home. It is the role of government to prevent and think about those things. This kind of help is the one provided by streetworkers.

This government puts so much faith in repressive legislation that it fails to see that it is turning down very worthwhile pieces of legislation.

Here is a case in point. In a small town in my riding, an initiative was launched with just a few thousand dollars to hire a streetworker whose mandate was to talk to young people and stop them from committing crimes. That was preventative. The idea was to not just tell young people that they would face a stiff penalty if ever they got caught. Young people are convinced that they will never get caught committing a crime, be it petty or serious.

This was a well-structured initiative. The municipalities were all in favour. Potential candidates with experience had been identified for the job. The Government of Quebec had agreed to fund part of the initiative. The rest of the funding would normally have come from the federal government. About six months ago, this government categorically opposed the initiative, in spite of the fact that it was a prevention initiative, one designed to have streetworkers working with young people.

As my colleague from Chambly—Borduas said earlier, streetworkers find things to do for young people instead of being idle and always ready to get in all sorts of trouble without realizing that they could be doing something more worthwhile elsewhere.

There are enough studies, both in Europe and in Quebec, which show that it is essential to help before the kids get into trouble, in order to reduce crime. So, we must try to prevent, instead of reacting by imposing stiffer sentences. Again, I often go and talk to young people, and they are convinced that they will never get caught if they do something wrong.

Will the promise made by the Conservative government to be open toward the Quebec nation include recognizing the need to have street and youth workers? Personally, I think it is essential.

As I said earlier, the principle of denunciation is completely immoral. It is irresponsible to create an opportunity for a young person by telling him that the length of his sentence can be negotiated if he is prepared to denounce the other members of the gang. This is not the way to build an open and honest society. Denunciation is the basic principle of societies that can be said to be less developed than ours. Reintegrating society is not the important thing for young people. How do we reintegrate them? Not by imposing longer sentences, because then they will learn all about crime. No. We must reintegrate them as early as possible in a society where sentences are minimal, and where there are people who can make them realize that they did something that one does not have to do to achieve happiness in this world.

Obviously, that is not how things work in the United States. It is unfortunate that this country is our neighbour and that it is so omnipresent and in our face. The United States believes strongly in repression. With what results? Repression and even the death penalty have not stopped crime. The United States has more murders per capita than any other country, except perhaps for certain parts of Russia, where it is a game.

By transferring the burden of proof to the accused for his pre-trial release, Bill C-25 undermines the presumption of innocence, a longstanding, fundamental principle of British law.

The Bloc Québécois has a good understanding of pre-trial detention. We agree with pre-trial detention and believe that it may be necessary in certain cases and for certain individuals. However, this restrictive measure should not be considered in all circumstances. That is pretty much the thrust of Bill C-25. In the past, Quebeckers favoured individualized justice based on a legal process that was flexible and appropriate for each case.

The French criminal code we inherited allows us to think differently and to achieve positive results. It is true that everyone talks about it. Therefore, we should have a look at the results. In terms of youth justice, we have traditionally focused on rehabilitation and reintegration in order to remove these young people from the vicious circle of crime.

Do we believe that young people think about the punishment before committing a crime? No, but they might thinking about doing something else instead of committing crimes if it gave them a real zest for life.

I will close with a Chinese proverb: the little bird can be just as happy as the big bird. We must teach this to our young people.

[James Rajotte, Conservative, Edmonton—Leduc, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I want to ask my hon. colleague a question with respect to the Youth Criminal Justice Act.

Clause 1 of the bill broadens the possibility of pre-trial detention for a young person who represents a danger to the public or has previously failed to comply with conditions of release.

When we check out how this is going to adapt to the Youth Criminal Justice Act the three specific cases are remaining, but what the bill does is add three more cases with this clause. The bill states:

--a youth justice court or a justice shall presume that detention is not necessary unless

the young person is charged with a violent offence or an offence that otherwise endangered the public by creating a substantial likelihood of serious bodily harm to another person;

the young person has been found guilty of failing to comply with non-custodial sentences or conditions of release; or

--the court or justice shall not detain the young person unless the court or justice is satisfied that there is a substantial likelihood...that the young person will, if released from custody, commit a violent offence or an offence that otherwise endangers the public by creating a substantial likelihood of serious bodily harm to another person.

It seems to me these are very reasonable amendments to the Youth Criminal Justice Act. I would like the member opposite to explain specifically if he has any problems with this specific clause in this particular piece of legislation.

[Christian Ouellet, Bloc, Brome—Missisquoi, QC]

Mr. Speaker, of course I have problems with that. The government is creating a tool for repression. Does the young person represent a danger? Did he really intend to attack people or do other things? They will detain him because that is what they are thinking.

The government wants people to see that it is getting stricter and stricter, and the stricter it is, the stricter it wants to be, which is dangerous because things can go too far. That is what has happened in every other country. When they try to make the system tougher by asking these questions, and when judges start to assess these things, their assessments become harsher and harsher.

[Larry Bagnell, Liberal, Yukon, YT]

Mr. Speaker, obviously some Canadians have suggested there should be some corrections to the youth justice act. The Conservatives seem to think there should be.

There was a report done, the Nunn Commission report, which had excellent recommendations, but the government for some reason ignored a majority of them. It has not acted on them and has not put them in this particular bill.

The member mentioned restorative justice issues that the government could be doing. In the bill it ignored recommendation Nos. 11, 20, 21, 23, 24 and 25.

I would like to ask the member why he thinks the government, when there were so many good suggestions from a comprehensive report, implemented almost none of them? Was it to try to get the Bloc on side?

I know the Bloc members do not like the bill but by putting almost nothing in it, it has not seemed to work because they all seem to still be speaking against it.

[Christian Ouellet, Bloc, Brome—Missisquoi, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I get a very strong sense that this bill is designed to please a segment of society that thinks that repression is the only solution for our young people. However, lots of people are misinformed. They see more on television and hear more on the radio than they did a few years ago. The issue is in the public eye, and people eat it up, but they think that our society is worse than it used to be and that, therefore, there should be more repression.

That is why this government, which wants nothing more than to please the voters, is using a bill like this one to look good and get kudos for having the guts to do this kind of thing. I do not think this kind of thing will improve society. We have to be wary of vote-seeking bills, and this, in my opinion, is one of them.

[Louis Plamondon, Bloc, Bas-Richelieu—Nicolet—Bécancour, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I have a quick question for my hon. colleague. First of all, I would like to congratulate him on his very progressive speech. The fact that the government is taking a very ideological approach in introducing this bill goes against the wishes of the Government of Quebec. The member did not say much about that.

So I would like to remind the House that in 2001, the Quebec National Assembly unanimously adopted the following motion:

That the National Assembly call on the Government of Canada to make provision within the criminal justice system for young persons for a special system for Quebec under the Young Offenders Act, in order to fully reflect its particular intervention model.

Could the member speak a little about this particular model?

[Christian Ouellet, Bloc, Brome—Missisquoi, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I will be very brief. I thank my colleague for his question, which I think is excellent because it has to do with not only our national government, but also our ridings.

I met with community groups about the bills our Conservative government is introducing. They were unanimous: they did not think that Quebec needed the bills, and thought that intervention would be better.

[Dennis Bevington, NDP, Western Arctic, NT]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise today to address the House on Bill C-25, which attempts to modify the Youth Criminal Justice Act and take into account the number of provisions that deal with the importance of youth in pretrial custody and also how we can sentence young offenders and penalize them more for the crimes they have committed.

I come from a riding in the Northwest Territories in which the crime rate is very high. Social conditions have been bad in the past and continue to provide us with no end of problems in our communities. It is something each community tries to grapple with and understand.

Many of the problems arise from the transient nature of our non-aboriginal society, the cultural impact of changing societies on our aboriginal people, the harsh conditions under which we live and the failure of the education system to give adequate education to many people, not necessarily the fault of the system, but of the whole society. Many things go on in our society that lead young people in the wrong direction.

As a former mayor in a small community that was 50% aboriginal, I understand many of the issues young people are facing in growing up and making choices. It is not easy. Sometimes it comes from the lack of parental guidance available to them. Sometimes it comes from problems that are physiological in nature. Sometimes it comes from a community that does not have an answer for a young person, does not have a direction to give a young person. We all grapple with these issues and we wonder how we can best serve our young people.

Whenever we look at the legislation like this, our primary purpose is to improve the lot of young people as they move toward adulthood, accept their own decisions and comprehend and understand the nature of their acts.

Basically this is common law experience in Canada for 150 years. We accept that young people do not necessarily have all the tools required for the complex decisions they have to make in their everyday life. Sometimes they make mistakes. Sometimes they are led to mistakes. Sometimes they are ill-prepared by their parents to deal with the kinds of choices they have to make. We are all troubled about how we can deal with these things and how we can put them in context.

We think that perhaps stricter sentences will give us an answer, that somehow this will drive the boat to encourage young people to move in the right direction in their future life, that it gives them a very strong message of denunciation that their acts are inappropriate and they should be struck heavily for doing them and carrying that with them for a while, while in incarceration or other forms.

I have trouble with that. I find it does not really work all that well in our society. I find the solutions for young people are more tied to the things we do that are not tied to incarceration,or the criminal justice system. We have seen the kinds of results that can bring.

I was very encouraged. I held a public meeting in a small community by the name of Déline. I mentioned it in the House earlier today with a question to another speaker.

This aboriginal community has had a great success rate in keeping their children in line to avoid many of those pitfalls that are in our society, unlike many other communities. It has a record of five years with no young offender charges in the community. In talking to RCMP officers who supervise and work with the community, they are very pleased with what is happening. They are very pleased the community has taken hold of these young people in many ways.

I like to talk about positive things many times when I talk about young people. We need to have a positive message for young people. That to me is part of the intrinsic nature of young people. They are optimistic and looking forward. Let us give them that chance. This is what the people in Déline have done. They have a very vigorous program of interaction with their young people in their schools. The whole community of 800 people is linked back to the young people. They put the time and effort in with their young people and they get results from it.

They also have opportunities for young people to get the experience of elders. They consider this very important and I think it is very important as well. In our modern society so often we leave our young people with their peers. We are not providing them with the ongoing direction and counselling that they would get in previous generations or in a previous era when they had the opportunity to work with their parents in the fields or in the everyday tasks of a rural and simpler lifestyle.

Now children are alienated from their parents and their workplaces. They are put into a modern society that does not deliver this. In Déline they encourage those directions. They encourage the young people to participate with the people who can give them direction, who have the direction inherent in their nature. It is a very valid point.

As well, I had an opportunity to talk to a sociologist and psychologist about the nature of youth centres. He said to me that in a way, youth centres were validating what modern society was validating, that they got their direction from their peers. They go to a youth centre and interact with young people. They do not have that communication with the whole of society that gives them a better message, that more complete message about what they do with their lives or with the choices they have to make in life.

We have to be very careful with legislation that drives young people into correctional facilities, into environments where they will run into more of the peer situation. They will run into the criminal peer situation, which will increase their likelihood of repeating criminal acts in the future. Therefore, I do not find this is a very useful thing or objective in law. It may work for one or two, but what we have to look in legislation is the best possible solution for the most young people. I find it to be very limiting to think that young people are going to improve by being sent away to correctional facilities, incarcerated in a fashion that denounces their actions, that is a strict deterrence to them for that act.

I had the occasion the other day, in reviewing a parole application, to look at the record of a person in his forties who was incarcerated. I look back at this record and it is almost like a picture perfect image of what I am talking about today. A young person perhaps made a few bad errors in his early life, not serious errors, not things that any of us would be completely immune from or would make a big difference to society, but after a while they accumulated and he was incarcerated.

[Larry Bagnell, Liberal, Yukon, YT]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the member's comments and as critic for the north I have a few questions.

This past week has been a great week. It has basically been a condemnation of the government's crime agenda which has been a failure. Many people offered positive suggestions; almost every speaker has. It is a very positive way for the House to operate.

The member has something different to add from other members because of the northern and the aboriginal perspectives. Would he comment on the difference in dealing with crime in the north? Some of the Inuit and first nations are so far from correctional institutions that if they are sent away, how far are they from their support systems? Some of them would have never seen the type of crime they are going to hear and learn about in those institutions.

Would the member talk about the success of restorative justice programs as opposed to imprisonment and the difference of the collective society that facilitates success in restorative justice more than it might in another type of society?

[Dennis Bevington, NDP, Western Arctic, NT]

Mr. Speaker, certainly, we have seen positive elements of restorative justice in our communities. The issue of the great distances between communities and the cultural alienation that individuals would have when they are incarcerated in some place that has nothing to do with their society at all, that has nothing that they can relate to as a young person, would be a serious problem. We have many people who would have that happen to them on their first trip out of their own community. That would be a very serious part of the problems that we would have with this type of activity.

[Larry Bagnell, Liberal, Yukon, YT]

Mr. Speaker, I want to give another example that is working in our community which is government funding for artists. We have a tremendous program where these people, who may have been incarcerated or youth at risk, are doing an arts program producing spectacular work. It is a positive direction and they are not in the justice system. I wonder if the member has any examples of that from his territory because of the many aboriginal people he has in his riding.

[Dennis Bevington, NDP, Western Arctic, NT]

Mr. Speaker, whether it is aboriginal or non-aboriginal children, they respond to people taking an interest in their future development. Whether it is in art or music, we have had tremendous success in my community dealing with young people and encouraging them to participate. Music has given them some kind of basis to socialize and to interact. They do not have to be the world's best, but it gives them the opportunity for another way of communicating and that opens up the doors. The member is quite right. Whatever we do for young people, we have to remember that those are lessons they learn.

[James Rajotte, Conservative, Edmonton—Leduc, AB]

Mr. Speaker, listening to the speeches this afternoon I am not sure members are addressing the actual substance of the bill.

Clause 2 of the bill adds the denunciation of deterrence of unlawful conduct to the Youth Criminal Justice Act's principles of sentencing. Clause 2 of the bill, by amending subsection 38(2) of the Youth Criminal Justice Act, adds the following two principles of sentencing: first, denouncing unlawful conduct, and second, deterring the young person and other young persons from breaking the law.

Perhaps the hon. member could address the specifics of this clause and explain why the NDP is opposing this clause in this specific piece of legislation.

[Dennis Bevington, NDP, Western Arctic, NT]

Mr. Speaker, we have heard many discussions about this bill. When we come to the decision about why we support that particular amendment, it fits into the global view for the direction our society should take. If the amendment tends to move us away from that global view, then we probably do not support it. That is the principle that most of us follow.

[Claude Bachand, Bloc, Saint-Jean, QC]

Mr. Speaker, can you please let me know when I have two minutes and one minute left for my speech? I know you are forced to cut off our speeches with the precision of a guillotine and I would not want you to have to cut me off in mid-sentence. I promise to bring it in for a slow landing, if you can please let me know how much time I have remaining in my speech.

The Bloc Québécois is disappointed that the Conservative Party brought this bill before the House. We are disappointed for several reasons. I would first like to remind the House about something that happened here not so long ago, at which time the Bloc Québécois finally managed to push hard enough to demonstrate the existence of two nations in Canada, namely, Quebeckers and Canadians. Defining a nation implies certain particularities. It is very clear that we have a different language, civil code and culture. Our difference is also expressed in the way we behave toward our young people.

Interesting initiatives begun in Quebec are often later reproduced in English Canada. Consider, for example, the whole question of child care. People in English Canada began looking at the system in Quebec, realizing that it is an entirely public system in which parents pay seven dollars a day, which frees them from having to keep their children at home. Some women did not work because they did not have the means of paying for child care. This is no longer the case, since the public sector takes care of the children.

Similarly, the way we deal with our young people in Quebec is very different from the rest of Canada. There is another good example of this in the bill before us now. How can I describe Quebeckers and the way we treat young offenders? It is not very complicated. In Quebec, we believe in rehabilitation and reintegration into society. If a 14- or 15-year-old youth is caught doing something wrong, we do not get out the billy club or taser right away and try to clap him or her behind bars; instead, we attempt to make that person realize that he or she has committed a reprehensible act against society. In Quebec we focus on integrating that person back into society. People in Quebec are very partial, therefore, to rehabilitation and reintegration.

In English Canada under the current Conservative government, there is not just a hardening of attitudes but a real shift toward an American approach, and not just any. It is a U.S. Republican approach. Quebeckers reject this. The effects are obvious. In the United States, they cannot build prisons fast enough. The incarceration rate is three or four times higher than in Quebec. The Americans have decided that anyone who commits an anti-social act should be thrown into jail and in a few years or a few months will find out what his or her fate will be.

We do not have this attitude in Quebec, especially toward our youth. Sending young people to prison is like sending them to a school for crime. Only a very small number would be saved. The prison method of dissuasion is not for young Quebeckers. I would like to point out, in all modesty, that the crime rate in Quebec has gone down by 4% over the last few years while it has risen in the rest of Canada since the Youth Criminal Justice Act was imposed in 2002. People are not on the right track in English Canada. That is why we have advanced argument after argument since this morning to convince all our colleagues of the importance of the Quebec approach.

Once again, the Quebec system can be seen working in a flexible environment versus the kind of dogmatism we face from the Conservative government. For the Conservatives, anyone who breaks the law is a criminal and should go to jail. However, this conclusion is not quite right. I just proved it by saying that the youth crime rate is lower in Quebec than elsewhere in Canada.

We believe that this bill contains all sorts of irritants, particularly the fact that the young person could be imprisoned even before being sentenced. He is imprisoned even before learning the sentence he must serve, supposedly to protect society. Therefore, the presumption of innocence disappears, which is quite astounding given that we are dealing with youth.

According to the system with which we have always lived, we are told repeatedly that we are innocent until proven guilty. Now we want to impose on these young people a very harsh measure, one that is much too harsh. What will happen? They will revolt. They will believe that their future lies in the world of crime and not in an upright, everyday society, because they are treated worse than criminals.

There is a criminal who has defrauded thousands of investors and who struts around in a three-piece suit. To my knowledge, he was not sent to prison before being sentenced. He was just sent to Quebec jail, but he was given ample time to defend himself and to appeal.

Some people may even remain free for years in their three-piece suits, like highway robbers. Yet, you would tell a young boy or girl, who has committed a reprehensible act for the first time in their lives, that they are going to prison while waiting for the verdict. In our opinion, that is completely unacceptable.

Regarding adult sentences, is it normal to impose the same sentence on a 14-year-old who has committed second-degree murder for the first time as on an adult? As I have said repeatedly, this is not the best way to get through to our young people. Young people need to understand that they have committed a reprehensible act. And applying harsh measures like the ones the Conservative Party is preparing to implement will not deter them. On the contrary, these young people will realize that society is not giving them a chance and they will opt for a life of crime.

I am therefore calling on all defenders of social conscience as well as my friends in the NDP. In fact, this morning, I was surprised to learn that the NDP was in favour of adopting this bill at second reading. I am also calling on my friends in the Liberal Party, who are supposed to be defenders of social conscience. It is time to walk the talk. If the opposition parties band together to oppose this bill, we can nip it in the bud and we will not have to discuss it any more. But some want to give the bill a chance, refer it to committee for study, then debate it in the House at third reading. I am therefore calling on everyone who has a social conscience: let us say no to this bill.

I want the government to be attentive to young people's needs. I do not want the government to come down hard on them as soon as they stray from the straight and narrow path. That is not the answer. Quebec has proven that.

I do not understand why the government is closing its eyes to Quebec's success with young offenders. We need to listen to what young people have to say and look at the facts.

Because my time is coming to an end, I will conclude by inviting all the members of this House of Commons who have a social conscience to say no to this bill. We need to follow Quebec's example. Then we will see Canada's crime rate decrease, which it is not doing at present. The crime rate is declining only in Quebec, which proves that we are on the right track.

[Alan Tonks, Liberal, York South—Weston, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I remember the last time we discussed this whole issue with respect to restorative justice, particularly within the context of alleged youth criminal activity. I was drawn at that time to the same points that our colleague from the Bloc has made.

The issues related to criminal and gang activity are of great concern to my community. I would like the member to elucidate a little with respect to what tools judges in Quebec have available to them when they are dealing with young people in terms of restorative justice in order to invoke the kind of positive response he indicated, with statistics showing lower criminal activity and a more positive impact in Quebec. I wonder if he could give us a brief outline of what tools judges have available to them in Quebec that may not be available in the rest of the country.

[Claude Bachand, Bloc, Saint-Jean, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my hon. colleague for his question. Basically, a judge is like a member of Parliament or any member of society holding an office. Judges grow up in their own society, their own nation. The first thing they look at is whether there is a history.

The hon. member is giving me an opportunity to ask the question again. Will there be less crime in a society or an environment where people are financially advantaged, have a higher than average education and share a collective vision? The judges have to consider that in determining a sentence.

In Quebec, in many cases, the judge determines that the child or young person comes from a very difficult background. One has to show some form of empathy or sympathy for the child to begin with. The judge infers the ability to make nuances from his or her own upbringing in a society where we want to give a chance to young people who have made a mistake, instead of beating them over the head at the first opportunity.

That is what judges in Quebec take into consideration, their thought process being conditioned by a blueprint for society, to which I referred earlier, that puts young people first and gives them a chance.

Obviously, there are individuals who may be beyond redemption. I am not suggesting that we can redeem every young person who goes through the system, but I can say that every one of them is given a chance to reintegrate society. The judges feel deeply this need to ensure justice and equity for young people.

[Raynald Blais, Bloc, Gaspésie—Îles-de-la-Madeleine, QC]

Mr. Speaker, first of all, I would like to say that I completely agree with what the member for Saint-Jean just said. I would like to add something.

He hit the nail on the head when he spoke about repression as opposed to prevention and about completely different mentalities, and when he said that we should consider our social conscience.

So, does he not find that now there is a laissez-faire, easy-way-out mentality, as opposed to a mentality that would involve taking the time to look at what is going on with young people, to work with them, to trust them more?

Because repression is nothing more than that.

[The Acting Speaker, Conservative, Royal Galipeau]

The hon. member for Saint-Jean has 30 seconds to respond.

[Claude Bachand, Bloc, Saint-Jean, QC]

Mr. Speaker, my colleague is correct. Right now we are taking the easy way out. In fact, there will be an automatic response: if a young person does something wrong, the police will arrest him, put him in prison and the judges will hand out tough sentences.

This is not the solution, as was said. The solution is how it is done in Quebec: reintegration and prevention, a fair and just society, and capable judges, as was mentioned earlier, who exercise judgment and give these youth a second chance. That is much more effective.

[The Acting Speaker, Conservative, Royal Galipeau]

I thank the hon. member for a smooth landing.

Is the House ready for the question?

[Some hon. members]

Question.

[The Acting Speaker, Conservative, Royal Galipeau]

The question is on the motion that this question be now put. Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

No.

[The Acting Speaker, Conservative, Royal Galipeau]

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

[Some hon. members]

Yea.

[The Acting Speaker, Conservative, Royal Galipeau]

All those opposed will please say nay.

[Some hon. members]

Nay.

[The Acting Speaker, Conservative, Royal Galipeau]

In my opinion the yeas have it.

And five or more members having risen:

Call in the members.

And the bells having rung:

This vote is deferred until tomorrow at 5:30 p.m.

The House resumed from February 4 consideration of the motion that Bill C-25, An Act to amend the Youth Criminal Justice Act, be read the second time and referred to a committee, and of the motion that this question be now put.

[The Deputy Speaker, NDP, Bill Blaikie]

It being 5:30 p.m., the House will now proceed to the taking of the deferred recorded division on the previous question at the second reading stage of Bill C-25.

Call in the members.

(The House divided on the motion, which was agreed to on the following division:)

Vote #34

[The Speaker, Liberal, Peter Milliken]

I declare the motion carried.

The next recorded division is on Bill C-25 at second reading. Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion?

The hon. chief government whip.

[Jay Hill, Conservative, Prince George—Peace River, BC]

Mr. Speaker, were you to seek it, you would find unanimous consent to apply the results of the vote just taken to the motion currently before the House, with Conservative members present this evening voting in favour.

[The Speaker, Liberal, Peter Milliken]

Is there unanimous consent to proceed in this way?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[The Speaker, Liberal, Peter Milliken]

The hon. chief opposition whip.

[Karen Redman, Liberal, Kitchener Centre, ON]

Mr. Speaker, Liberals will be voting yes on this motion.

[Michel Guimond, Bloc, Montmorency—Charlevoix—Haute-Côte-Nord, QC]

Mr. Speaker, members of the Bloc Québécois will oppose this motion.

[Yvon Godin, NDP, Acadie—Bathurst, NB]

Mr. Speaker, the NDP members will vote in favour of this motion.

[Blair Wilson, Independent, West Vancouver—Sunshine Coast—Sea to Sky Country, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I vote in favour.

[Louise Thibault, Independent, Rimouski-Neigette—Témiscouata—Les Basques, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am voting against this motion.

(The House divided on the motion, which was agreed to on the following division:)

Vote #35

[The Speaker, Liberal, Peter Milliken]

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

(Bill read the second time and referred to a committee)