I think what you're all looking for is a balance. So I think you take the words that you find are missing and you try to incorporate them in the preamble. Accountability is part of the act. It's already there, holding young people accountable. You can import “protection of the public” as long as you understand that “protection of the public” is not a narrow term. “Protection of the public” includes looking at the individual offender and their individual needs.
I would suggest that what you could do is change the preamble to find a balance. You could say that it reflects that young people should be held accountable for the protection of the public, in keeping with the presumption that young persons are to be held to a less.... You know exactly what the words are. You can put it all in there so that it's balanced.
What happens is, if you use just the word “denunciation”, what you're doing is denouncing the crime and you're taking away from the spirit of the act, which is a reflection that these are young people, and before we move to the ultimate incarceration we have to look at the balance.
I would respectfully submit that might be the way to do it. Put all the principles that we're trying to protect in your preamble, not just add “deterrence” and “denunciation”, reflecting the spirit of why we have this legislation. If that's what you do, then when a judge looks at it, a judge can say, “Okay, we have to protect the public”. What that means is we not only protect the public by throwing away a key, we have to protect the public by looking at the spirit of the act and how the accountability of this young person fits in.
If you take the preamble and the emphasis on denunciation, and you take it and you do not give as much emphasis to the uniqueness of this legislation, then you gut the spirit and you take away the discretion that's really important. It's not only the discretion of the judge, but it's the discretion of the crown attorney, for instance, to be able to make the decision.
Rigid terms translate into a rigid system, and I think the collective wisdom around this table should be able to find a balance in the preamble that reflects everyone's concerns.