Thanks, Mr. Chair.
We have had witnesses—refugee lawyers and others working on the front line with the asylum seekers coming into our country—tell us that these children's ages are not necessarily accurate. They're coming from precarious situations such as war zones, from countries that may not have the infrastructure to have their ages recorded accurately. Experts who are dealing with this on a daily basis told us that officials sometimes make an estimation of the child's age. In a conflict zone, a child can end up not having much of a childhood and may mature far too soon. Based on their manner and the mature way they carry themselves, they may be artificially determined to be 16. We heard a witness say that a 14-year-old was erroneously categorized as a 16-year-old, and that we may continue to see that happen.
Now we have 13-year-old kids and 14-year-olds being put into the general population in our provincial prisons. One of our witnesses came from Manitoba and said that in Manitoba there was no immigration detention facility, so provincial prisons are the only option. So now we have 13-year-olds and 14-year-olds in prisons. It's absolutely abhorrent. This is another reason why the age should be changed from 16 to 18—to allow fewer children to be imprisoned.