Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I'd like to thank all the witnesses. Mr. Richard is with us. Here we have the report on the Ashley Smith case and that of Howard Sapers, which concerns the same case. It's good work. I want to thank Mr. Richard for that.
I'd like to make a few comments to start with.
We at the committee are struggling with what good changes to make to the YCJA. Many of them are in the Nunn commission report, which is being used as a raison d'être for the review. It's important to underline that six of the 34 recommendations dealt with toughening the YCJA, and this act addresses only some of them. That is the point of departure for the discussion here. Many of the other points are debatable and we've heard evidence on them, but I'm going get the overall view from this panel of witnesses, and I'll start with Maître Richard.
What we're not understanding as a committee so far is that there is a difference between adults and youth. It's the raison d'être for a YCJA. As Ms. Vandergrift has said, it's based on the UN convention, so we have to start with that. But evidence-based, for people here who are in the trenches.... Professor Doob has mentioned that changes with respect to specific deterrents, for instance, don't work with youth because, in his words, “they will not foresee in the same manner that an imaginative adult might the consequences of their actions ab initio”.
He also cleverly puts out the idea that individual deterrents introduced in these amendments give the false promise to the public that the judge, through sentencing, can accomplish the individual deterrents with youth, because data suggest that youth are different and don't react to specific deterrents the same way adults do.
Finally, we heard evidence that some youth might use the publication ban as a badge of courage, a badge of honour--something they like. So lifting the publication ban might in fact be inimical to the intention.
So the questions are generally on those aspects of how youth are different. What would the panel say to that?
Particularly there are two things, Maître Richard. You have said to this committee that Maître Bilodeau has done a report for the round tables that took place throughout the country. We don't have the benefit of those reports. We've asked for them, but we don't have them. If you tell me those reports have been written but not yet published or forwarded, I have a serious problem with the two parliamentary secretaries who are here as to why we don't have them. But I'll take that up later.
When you were part of that round table in August 2008 in Moncton—Moncton's the centre of most good things sometimes, I think—