Justice Committee on May 25th, 2010

[Dominic LeBlanc, Liberal, Beauséjour, NB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Kelly, for coming this morning. I think your presentation was very compelling, and I appreciate the thought that you put into it.

Mr. Chair, I have a brief question. Perhaps Madam Mendes would have one also, if I have any time left.

Kelly, I thought that in an answer to a previous question, you zeroed in on an interesting point: the instructions or the guidelines you would give to your prosecutors, or the context in which your prosecutors would seek an adult sentence.

There's a lot of confusion, I think. The government talks about repeat violent youth offenders and changing the Youth Criminal Justice Act. They keep repeating that, for obvious reasons, because they're zeroing in on a public anxiety around a very narrow band. Thank God the programs you talked about and other interventions can hopefully reduce the number of young persons who would fall into the repeat violent youth offender category.

In those circumstances, however, your prosecutors retain the discretion to seek an adult sentence, right?

[Kelly Lamrock]

They would not only have the discretion; when we're talking about intentional infliction of harm and violence upon others, be it from repeat sexual offenders or by those who are intentionally inflicting violence to take human life, not only do they have the discretion, but our guidelines also say that they should always seek to put them in adult court. If they're not there, we failed.

[Dominic LeBlanc, Liberal, Beauséjour, NB]

Okay. I think that's very instructive.

Tell us a bit about the factors that prosecutors look at when seeking an adult sentence. You used intentional infliction of harm as an evident one, but the current legislation gives you that flexibility. Tell me about other circumstances in which you would ask your prosecutors to seek an adult sentence, other than that one example. Are there others, and is there anything in this legislation that either makes that easier for you or that limits that discretion?

What I am trying to get at is that I think a lot of the push for this legislation is fuelled by an attempt to convince the public that the youth system fails and that repeat violent youth offenders are getting probation and going back to school the next day. My sense is that's not the case, because there are tools in the existing legislation that allow you to deal with that narrow band of repeat violent youth offenders--leaving aside the pretrial custody, with which I agree.

[Kelly Lamrock]

That is the point. If I can leave the committee with anything, it is that.

You can ask me a hundred questions about what you would do if a violent sexual offender was in the youth system. Well, they shouldn't be there. That's like asking what you would do if a violent sexual offender was enrolled in a grade 2 classroom. Well, I'd get him out. What I wouldn't do is say we should make the grade 2 classroom look more like the penal system where violent offenders should be. I'd say, “No; get him out of the grade 2 classroom.”

It isn't to knock down the doors between the prison and the rehabilitation facility, but to make the right call. In general I would say there is nothing in the current statute that stands in our way. There is very little in the amendments that would stand in our way of getting violent offenders into an adult system where they belong, except that in a rush to add.... Until now it was at least a very clear category, so we had a very high probability of success in front of a judge. By adding this strange language around engaging in risky behaviour or reckless behaviour, we've now given judges more discretion to keep people in the youth system. If the concern is judges who are soft on crime, I would say that with this new expanded language, I would have less certainty of success in getting a violent offender into the adult system.

I don't want to overportray that and I don't think the risk is hugely changed, but certainly you have given judges more discretion to keep them in the youth system, where they shouldn't be.

[Dominic LeBlanc, Liberal, Beauséjour, NB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

[Alexandra Mendes, Liberal, Brossard—La Prairie, QC]

Thank you very much, Mr. Lamrock. That was an amazing presentation. As a Quebec native, I agree somewhat with my Bloc colleagues that Quebec's system has proven its mettle.

I'd like to come back to a comment you made about the danger of criminalizing intervention. Could you elaborate a bit on the provisions of the bill that could, in your view, increase this risk?

[Kelly Lamrock]

Certainly, Madam.

I refer you specifically to section 8 of the act which provides for the administration of cautions instead of the starting of judicial proceedings based in part on the young person's participation in extrajudicial, non-punitive programs. If I can talk briefly about the situation in New Brunswick, in the case of a young person who has not committed a violent offence, if that young person is prepared to take responsibility for his behaviour, then he is very quickly steered toward a program that will help him turn his life around.

If the federal legislation requires us to maintain a list of participants in drug treatment and accountability programs, or simply a list of individuals who have been issued warnings by the police, then our concern is that these lists will be used later to sanction these persons. A lawyer could certainly instruct a young client not to take responsibility for his behaviour, to go to trial and to spend more time in the system. The young persons would then spend less time participating in programs that could help him.

[The Chair, Conservative, Ed Fast]

Thank you.

We'll move on to Monsieur Ménard.

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

When I hear you talk about being tough on crime, I have the feeling that what you're really trying to be is smart on crime. You want to be tough when that course of action is warranted, but you also favour rehabilitation whenever it's possible and justified.

Regarding clause 3 of the bill which sets out general principles, are you worried at all that sentences might be standardized in the future?

[Kelly Lamrock]

Forgive me, I'm going to actually indulge in translation so I can be clear in my answer to you, Mr. Ménard.

I would have some concerns that if you take the same factors that exist in the adult system and simply hand them over, then yes, those precedents begin to become relevant and you can have a one-size-fits-all approach. I go back to my answer that, if the issue is that you think we have violent offenders in the youth system, our task should not be just making the youth system look like the adult one. It should be to get them in the adult system where they belong so we don't have a one-size-fits-all, big-government approach, but that we let provinces solve the problem of the individual in front of us.

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

In your opinion, will the results achieved with the current legislation depend a great deal on the measures that each province is prepared to apply within the framework of the act?

[Kelly Lamrock]

I'm always prepared to concede that everyone is capable of making mistakes. However, I believe that the people who are directly involved with these young persons make fewer mistakes than we, the politicians, who propose a one-size-fits-all solution. If we are worried about the statistics, and if we want safe, crime-free communities, I think we need to rely more on the judges, lawyers and professionals who work directly with young persons. I have more confidence in them than I do in the politicians recommending a one-size-fits-all approach to dealing with all young persons.

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

Nevertheless, you do check from time to time to see whether the measures you are taking to deal with young offenders are effective.

Do you know what the youth crime rate in your province is and how it compares to the Canadian average? Is it higher or lower?

[Kelly Lamrock]

It is lower.

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

So the rate is lower in your province as well.

[Kelly Lamrock]

That is correct.

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

How much lower?

[Kelly Lamrock]

It depends on the category. Compared to the national average, it is between 5% and 25% lower in some categories.

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

It appears that in Quebec, the rate is 57% lower. Perhaps that is because—

[Kelly Lamrock]

Correct.

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

If the same methods were applied—

[The Chair, Conservative, Ed Fast]

We'll go on to Mr. Petit for five minutes.

[Daniel Petit, Conservative, Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Earlier, Minister, you talked a little about statistics. You're familiar with the Uniform Crime Reporting Program. Crime statistics are reported by every police agency in Canada. You rely on this data and on the data pertaining to young persons as well.

Did you know that the uniform crime reporting initiative does not contain a count of drug-related offences?

[Kelly Lamrock]

I am aware of that. In New Brunswick we keep our own statistics on drug-related crimes. That is one of the reasons why we have given more powers to law enforcement officers, such as the power to seize vehicles and homes used for drug transactions.

[Daniel Petit, Conservative, Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles, QC]

Did you also know that the uniform crime reporting surveys do not contain a count of the number of criminal offences involving breaches of the traffic code, such as impaired driving, or of the number of motor vehicle related criminal offences? Did you know that the uniform crime reporting survey does not include these crimes?