Evidence of meeting #21 for Justice and Human Rights in the 40th Parliament, 3rd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was public.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Conservative
Brent Rathgeber Conservative Edmonton—St. Albert, AB
I'm talking about sentences, not pre-trial detention.
Section Member, National Criminal Justice Section, Canadian Bar Association
Right.
Conservative
Brent Rathgeber Conservative Edmonton—St. Albert, AB
Why do you think that longer sentences are bad?
Section Member, National Criminal Justice Section, Canadian Bar Association
Why? I don't think that there is a rehabilitative aspect, necessarily. When you have a young person getting one, what are they doing? They are going to go into a jail or a facility. They're going to associate potentially with people who are hardened criminals and have committed criminal acts. They're going to associate with a criminal element; you're not addressing the underlying social root of the problem. What you're doing is teaching a person a certain way of life. The longer you expose them to that way of life, the worse it's going to be for us as a society when they get out.
Longer periods of incarceration are going to be problematic for exactly that reason. What you're doing is teaching criminality, potentially.
Conservative
Brent Rathgeber Conservative Edmonton—St. Albert, AB
Or, as in the case of our fine witness, that period of time allows them access to programs. You have to acknowledge that in some cases, because we have an example here.
Section Member, National Criminal Justice Section, Canadian Bar Association
Absolutely. I'm not saying that there are no exceptions to the rule.
Conservative
Brent Rathgeber Conservative Edmonton—St. Albert, AB
Both you and Mr. Trudell have indicated or believe that the current system is working quite well. In fact, Mr. Bergman, you've noted that youth crime is down under the Youth Criminal Justice Act. I think generally that's correct. But I need you to acknowledge that violent crime perpetrated by youth is in fact up. If we go to the period from 1998 to 2008, for example, it has gone from 1,590 incidents per 100,000 young persons to 1,887 incidents per 100,000 persons. So violent crime among youth is actually up. Will you acknowledge that?
Section Member, National Criminal Justice Section, Canadian Bar Association
I don't know that. What were you referring to there?
Conservative
Brent Rathgeber Conservative Edmonton—St. Albert, AB
It was Statistics Canada's Canadian Centre for Justice Statistics' uniform crime reporting survey for 2008.
Section Member, National Criminal Justice Section, Canadian Bar Association
I don't happen to have that in front of me, so it's very difficult for me to comment on exactly that.
What I have is “Youth custody and community services in Canada, 2008/2009”. Is that what you're referring to, or is it something different?
Conservative
Brent Rathgeber Conservative Edmonton—St. Albert, AB
This is the uniform crime reporting survey of 2008.
Section Member, National Criminal Justice Section, Canadian Bar Association
I don't have that. I don't know what everything else around it is and I don't know the scope of the study, so it's very hard for me to comment on it.
Conservative
Brent Rathgeber Conservative Edmonton—St. Albert, AB
Is it your impression, based on whatever studies you're familiar with, that violent crime among Canadian youth is up or down in the last ten years, or since 2003, when the new legislation came into force?
Section Member, National Criminal Justice Section, Canadian Bar Association
I hadn't walked away with that impression from the studies I reviewed. But in fairness, that's not why we're here today. We're not here quoting study after study. There are other people who can do that, I'm sure, for the committee.
Conservative
Brent Rathgeber Conservative Edmonton—St. Albert, AB
In your presentation you said that youth crime was down.
Section Member, National Criminal Justice Section, Canadian Bar Association
That's based on the study that I mentioned, which indicates so.
Conservative
Brent Rathgeber Conservative Edmonton—St. Albert, AB
In the study that you're referring to, is violent youth crime up or down, or is it not broken down?
Section Member, National Criminal Justice Section, Canadian Bar Association
I believe it says it's down.
Conservative
Brent Rathgeber Conservative Edmonton—St. Albert, AB
Mr. Trudell, you look as if you might have something to add. No?
Chair, Canadian Council of Criminal Defence Lawyers
I think if you do careful studies and call experts, you're going to find that violent crime is down right across the country. You will find, however, that there are pockets where violent crime seems to be on the increase, and you've addressed this issue in relation to your organized crime study. You have gang problems in some centres.
I don't think that figure can be taken as you present it. I think the trend in crime is down, including violent crime.
There are of course the serious offences that happen—they're almost anecdotal—that cause a lot of attention among the public. Those are the ones concerning which we have to be careful about changing the Criminal Code in response to certain cases. But quite frankly, I disagree with that statistic.
Conservative
Brent Rathgeber Conservative Edmonton—St. Albert, AB
But may I ask, should we as legislators be happy and satisfied that 50,000 incidents of violent crime per year are committed among youth? Or should we look to fine-tune the system to try to lower those numbers?
Chair, Canadian Council of Criminal Defence Lawyers
Well, there's no question. Nobody in this room--whether we're defence counsel, crown, police, legislator, or whatever—none of us likes violent crime. But you don't sledgehammer it. What you do is gather experts and ask whether there really is a problem. And fine-tuning is quite different from changing the philosophy of legislation that's working. That's my response.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Ed Fast
Thank you very much.
Given the fact that we started about ten minutes late, we're just going to do one quick round of two minutes each. We'll go to the Liberals and then to the Bloc and then to one from the government.
Ms. Mendes.
Liberal
Alexandra Mendes Liberal Brossard—La Prairie, QC
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
Mr. Fournel-Laberge, my questions are for you. I think that we might have got the wrong impression of your position on incarceration.
First of all, I would like to congratulate you for your testimony and the courage you have shown. It also shows that the system does work, that we can rehabilitate a young person to build up his confidence to come and speak before parliamentarians.
I would like to ask you first where were you rehabilitated?
As an Individual
It was at the Maison de l'Apprenti and at the Résidence Taché.