Justice Committee on June 10th, 2010

[The Chair, Conservative, Ed Fast]

I call the meeting to order.

This is meeting number 23 of the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights. For the record, today is Thursday, June 10, 2010. Today's meeting is being televised.

You have before you the agenda. Today we're continuing with our review of Bill C-4, Sébastien's Law, an act to amend the Youth Criminal Justice Act and to make consequential and related amendments to other acts.

To help us with the review, we have a number of witnesses. First of all, representing the New Brunswick Office of the Ombudsman, we have Bernard Richard.

We also have the Canadian Coalition for the Rights of Children, represented by Katherine Vandergrift.

We have the Institut Philippe-Pinel de Montréal. Representing them is Cécile Toutant.

We have New Brunswick Association of Social Workers, Miguel LeBlanc, as well as Merri-Lee Hanson.

Welcome to all of you.

You have ten minutes to present per organization, and then we'll open the floor to questions.

Would you start, please, Monsieur Richard?

[Bernard Richard, Ombudsman and Child and Youth Advocate, New Brunswick Office of the Ombudsman]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I'm of course pleased to be taking part in this meeting and in your proceedings on Bill C-4.

I previously sent you a written submission, a brief, and I don't intend to read it or even provide an overview of it. I'm simply going to summarize my concerns about the bill, in order to allow my colleagues as much time as possible and to speak with committee members.

I just want to give you some background, if I could, on the work we do so that you know where we're coming from.

I'm a child and youth advocate, as well as the ombudsman in New Brunswick, and for the time being the Access to Information and Privacy Commissioner as well. Hopefully, there will be a separate Access to Information and Privacy Commissioner soon.

Since about November 2006, I've been dealing with individual cases of youth and children, including youth who have been dealing with the Youth Criminal Justice Act and the justice system. So we have a very hands-on experience day in and day out. I have a number of people who work with me—some lawyers, some social workers, and others as well, with different areas of expertise. We intervene in different cases. We participate in case conferences and meet with families and the youth themselves. So it's very much an on-the-ground experience.

As well, we've published two reports fairly recently. Two years ago we published one report called Connecting the Dots, which really focused on youth with mental health issues and severe behavioural disorders and the experiences they and their families had with the service providers in New Brunswick. We made a series of recommendations. We followed seven youth and their families. The youth suffered from various ailments, including bipolar disorder, autism or autism spectrum disorders, and schizophrenia. Sadly, one committed suicide. But we followed the others over two years. We met with their families and we published a report with recommendations.

We also spent quite a bit of energy and resources reviewing the three years that Ashley Smith—whom you would be familiar with—spent in our New Brunswick Youth Centre. She spent three years in and out—mostly in—the New Brunswick Youth Centre. We reviewed 6,000 pages of documents and 40 hours of video. I assigned five investigators to that specific case. Tragically, as you know, she died in the federal system, but a lot of the issues there were very similar to those in the provincial system.

During those three years, Ashley spent two-thirds of her time in segregation--that is, in solitary confinement in an eight-by-ten cell, 23 hours a day more or less, with lights on 24 hours a day. If she didn't suffer from mental illness when she went in, she certainly did when she came out—and I would have, as well, Mr. Chairman, with respect.

She faced 501 institutional charges during those three years and 70 criminal charges during her lifetime, more than half for incidents inside the institution, not outside. She had 168 self-harm incidents, and she was tasered twice as a youth before she reached the age of 19 in an adult prison while waiting for transfer to a federal institution.

In that report, we made 25 recommendations.

I think we have a fairly good idea or view of how the system works on the ground. It's on that basis that I accepted your invitation to appear.

I know there is a broad range of opinions on the Youth Criminal Justice Act. In fact, in one meeting I heard it described that the Youth Criminal Justice Act, depending on your perspective, might stand for “you can justify anything”, YCJA, or “you can't jail anyone”. I think I'm situated somewhere outside of both of those definitions, but certainly, what I hope we know for sure is this. It's a new piece of legislation. It was meant to address a situation under the Young Offenders Act where Canada had the highest rate of youth incarceration in the world, I'm told. It was extremely high, in any event. At least today, it has worked. According to the research of Nicholas Bala and others, the trend is now definitely towards a reduction of youth crime. There is, as well, a reduction of youth incarceration. That translates to savings, savings financially, obviously, but also savings in emotional costs to families. All of these youth are somebody's son or daughter.

This experience, to me, is still early. It's been seven years in the lifetime of a piece of legislation. Recently I've been working with the Indian Act, which is much older than that; but seven years is a very short time, and I'm very concerned that these changes are premature.

There was a significant consultation in 2008. I participated in it and met Minister Nicholson in August 2008 in New Brunswick. I know that my participation was a small part of the participation nationwide. I have yet to receive the results of that consultation. I think it would be critical information for members of the committee to have access to that. It's hard for you to decide on a piece of legislation without knowing what thousands—well, certainly hundreds—of Canadians had to say about it. The session I attended in Moncton included police, psychiatrists, social workers, and prison guard associations. It was a really diverse group of people, and they had a lot to say. I think you would be very well advised to take advantage of that. Personally, I can say that I know there have been written reports, but none have been published. So I'd love to be able to see what was said during all of those consultations. There was a consultant hired to write a report and to facilitate the sessions. His name was Roger Bilodeau.

As well, we haven't done a really good job of making full use of the Youth Criminal Justice Act. I think that's because it's still a very young piece of legislation.

In the case of New Brunswick, for example, the part of the act that permits the use of case conferences is really not used very much.

Justice Canada recently asked my office to conduct an analysis of the use of the act in New Brunswick to establish a model that would enable us to make better use of the elements that already exist but that are not very well known as a result of the recent nature of the act.

It seems to me we should further explore the opportunities afforded by the act as it currently stands before proceeding with changes that are quite significant.

I won't into the details because my main argument is that we are going way too fast. Instead we should analyze what has already been done and determine whether that's working or not. What interests committee members and the Canadian public, in my view, are the results at the end of the process.

What interests us are outcomes, very real concrete outcomes. So if you don't have the benefit of a complete analysis of what's happened so far under this piece of legislation, I think you take the risk of taking us back in time to the Young Offenders Act, the high incarceration rates, and here we go all over again. That is the concern I am expressing to the committee.

I have a lot of sympathy for Sébastien and his family and for others who are victims of crime. As ombudsman, I often am called upon to advocate on their behalf as well. My concern when I saw it was that it's a very tragic story. But by calling it “Sébastien's Law”, I guess the question I ask myself is when will we have “Ashley's Law”, a law for those who are victims of the criminal justice system? Ashley cried out for help and she became progressively worse while in contact with the system.

There are thousands of young Canadians out there who suffer from mental illness, from severe behaviour disorders, from addiction, who come in contact with the criminal justice system, and they should be diverted, directed towards treatment, not incarceration. Inevitably, incarceration makes their conditions worse. The justice system, including the prison system, is just not equipped to deal with these kinds of youth.

My fear is that while driving more of these youth towards incarceration, we're actually taking youth who are confused, sometimes suffering from all kinds of conditions, or who just make errors in judgment.... And I would say that outside of this room, likely most youth make errors of judgment sometimes, but not as severe as.... I know I have. Although I said “outside of this room”, I can confess that as a teenager.... And I have four sons who have been teenagers, and I am happy they're adults now, but they have made their own mistakes, yes.

I'll close on that, Mr. Chair.

I would ask you to carefully consider looking at where we've come from. I'm afraid that if we look at high-profile cases of violent crime by youth in order to change what I think is groundbreaking, very progressive legislation, we're proceeding on the wrong basis and we'll have the wrong results. That's my concern.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, Ed Fast]

Thank you.

We'll move on to Ms. Vandergrift for ten minutes.

[Kathy Vandergrift, Chairperson, Board of Directors, Canadian Coalition for the Rights of Children]

Thank you very much for this opportunity.

I will be highlighting points from the written submission that I believe you have in front of you, and I would certainly invite questions on the other content in the submission as well.

Bill C-4 is named Sébastien’s Law to remember a young person killed by another young person. But we also need to remember other children, like AB and Ashley Smith. AB is the child at the heart of the Nunn commission, which weighs into this bill. He was a boy with learning disabilities who spiralled out of control, to use the words of the commission, and then came to public attention when he killed a woman while he was joyriding in a stolen car. You heard just now more of the details of Ashley Smith, a girl suffering from mental health issues who died in federal custody.

What they had in common was that they were adolescents who got involved in criminal activity after they fell through the cracks of underdeveloped, sporadic, or poorly coordinated services for children in need. That's the primary challenge for Canada at this time. Young people within the system told that to members of Parliament directly in a forum we sponsored in 2007. If you were to see the report of the consultation, we are sure you would see that early intervention is a primary message. Several of our members participated in those sessions across the country, and we hope you will insist on seeing the report from those.

I'm raising this because Bill C-4 does very little to address our primary concern in relation to youth justice in Canada.

One of the ways of being sure we balance the various interests is to look at what the Convention on the Rights of the Child has to say about youth justice. That is going to be our primary contribution to the review of Bill C-4, so I'd like to look at various aspects of that bill in relation to the convention, which Canada ratified in 1991.

First of all are the basic principles. Protection of the public, which was recommended by the Nunn commission, can be accommodated without revising the other basic principles. I submit to you that the revisions proposed in Bill C-4 change the approach to accountability and change the primacy of prevention in ways that are contradictory to the Convention on the Rights of the Child and are not in keeping with the whole Nunn commission report. If you read the whole report, you could see adding protection of the public without changing the other principles. That would be the recommendation of the Canadian Coalition on the Rights of Children.

We appreciate one good point in Bill C-4: the recognition of the “principle of diminished moral blameworthiness or culpability”, as the Supreme Court ruled. However, there is another principle that the Supreme Court is now recognizing, which your committee should consider, and that is “the best interests of the child”.

In the Supreme Court ruling on Omar Khadr, the justices found that the “best interests of the child” are a matter of fundamental justice in Canada. We are suggesting that this principle also be added as a primary principle for the youth justice system.

In 2003 Canada was asked by the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child to integrate the best interests principle in its revision of domestic laws that have an impact on children. Last year Canada made a commitment at the UN Human Rights Council to improve its implementation of its international obligations. This is a good opportunity to do so.

The current YCJA refers to the convention in the preamble and the best interests in one article. We would suggest that the best interests of the child should be made a primary consideration for all decisions relating to children in the youth justice system.

Moving on to pre-trial detention, the convention—and when I say “convention” here, I mean the Convention on the Rights of the Child—has very specific provisions relating to detention. It uses two tests: it should be the last resort and for the shortest time possible. I submit to you that the wording of the criteria in Bill C-4 and the definition of concepts like “serious offence” fall short of meeting those criteria.

In 2007 the government responded to a major study on children's right by saying that every piece of legislation is reviewed for being consistent with the convention. My suggestion to you is that the committee ask to see the analysis that was done of Bill C-4 in relation to the Convention on the Rights of the Child. If a thorough analysis were done, I suspect that you would find recommendations for more precise wording of the criteria that should apply for pre-trial detention.

A second area of concern is the uneven quality of services provided to young people in detention centres across the country. We would suggest that this should also be addressed as you review that portion of Bill C-4.

Turning now to sentencing principles, no evidence has been presented to show that deterrence is an effective strategy for young people. Adding denunciation is not consistent with the recognition of the reduced moral blameworthiness and culpability of young persons. We suggest those be deleted.

The fourth area we want to address is treatment of extrajudicial measures and sanctions. These are elements in the YCJA that are actually working well now and are helping to get early appropriate intervention that helps redirect young people. The provision suggested in Bill C-4 would result in counterproductive delays and added regulations to that. We suggest that you leave well enough alone in terms of extrajudicial measures and sanctions and not incorporate them, on the grounds that these moves would be counterproductive to the objective of early appropriate intervention with young people who get in trouble with the law.

The fifth area is adult sentences for young offenders. Another good piece of Bill C-4 is putting the onus back on crown prosecutors rather than on the defendants of young people, but requiring crown prosecutors to consider adult sentences for all violent offences and report why they are not recommending them is an unnecessary complication to the current act. Leaving that as discretion is a better way to get what is the highest goal, which is early and appropriate treatment rather than adding complications that are likely to result in delays. We would also like to highlight that allowing provinces to set different ages for consideration of adult sentences contravenes the basic provision of equitable treatment for all children under the Convention on the Rights of the Child.

In 2003 Canada was asked by the UN committee to review how it ensures equitable treatment in a number of areas. It's a request that has not yet been addressed in Canada's third and fourth report to the committee. The federal government bears the obligation of ensuring equitable treatment of children across the country. That needs to be part of Canada's commitment to improve its implementation of international obligations. Parliament should not now pass a law that further enshrines inequitable treatment. In 2003 the UN committee recommended that Canada amend its youth justice law to ensure that no person under 18 is tried as an adult.

We make specific recommendations that are in line with the Convention on the Rights of the Child. The sixth area we want to address is the place of detention. Again, a good aspect of Bill C-4 requires that youth serve their sentences in youth facilities. We would just add that there should be some requirements as to what constitutes a youth facility. The convention says that it must take account of the needs of persons of his or her age. That's not always true in the facilities across Canada. Right now, there are really no guidelines for that.

The final area is publication of names. We appreciate again that Bill C-4 is complying with the Supreme Court judgment about the onus of proof in the publication of names, but we would ask for review of this provision in light of the Convention on the Rights of the Child, paragraph 40(2)(b), which states that every child has a right to have his privacy fully respected.

Finally, our submission lists for you the recommendations that the UN committee made to Canada in 2003. When you finish with Bill C-4, I hope this committee will take the time to consider what has been suggested to Canada and look at how we can improve our youth justice system to be in line with developing international standards.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Ed Fast]

Thank you very much.

We'll move on to Miguel LeBlanc. You have ten minutes.

[Miguel LeBlanc, Executive Director, New Brunswick Association of Social Workers]

Yes, thank you.

I want to take this opportunity to thank you, on behalf of the New Brunswick Association of Social Workers, for inviting us to make a presentation to this committee on the Youth Criminal Justice Act.

I'm Miguel LeBlanc, the executive director of the NBASW, and with me is Merri-Lee Hanson, who is on our board of directors but is also a mental health social worker.

We have two mandates. One is a regulatory function in the protection of the public, so we control the social work practices in New Brunswick. The other one is the promotion of our profession in the sense of promoting the role of social workers, but also advocating and providing our recommendations to such social policies and legislation.

We have a current membership of 1,600 social workers in New Brunswick. I think it's fair to say that social workers, not only in New Brunswick but across Canada, recognize that working with young people is a challenging job. However, social workers also recognize that young people have the best opportunity to be reintegrated in the community and become productive members of the community. So we were very concerned when we started reading some of the amendments changed in the Youth Criminal Justice Act.

What I'm going to do is talk a bit about some of our concerns, and then I'll pass it on to my colleague, who will talk about some of the ideas on how we can actually improve.

We're concerned regarding the publication of the names of young offenders. We have great concern about these clauses. The intent of including and expanding the possibility for the elimination of the publication ban of young persons is not in the best interests of the community and the young person. Accepting this amendment will further ostracize and impede the process of rehabilitating and reintegrating young offenders.

Once they serve their sentence, we have to ask ourselves how we can honestly expect that these young people will be able to become reintegrated in the communities when all their information is made public. Accepting this amendment will only compound the issues that will minimize the youths' ability to rehabilitate and reintegrate in their communities. The fact of the matter is that we need these individuals to become part of the community.

The statement on page 14 of the legislative summary of Bill C-4 states that the court must then consider the public interest and the importance of the young person’s rehabilitation. We tend to argue that focusing on the importance of the young person's rehabilitation and reintegration is in the public interest.

Regarding youth not serving time in the adult facilities, we do commend this clause. We do believe that young people are not supposed to be in adult facilities. One of the issues, though, that we want to caution is that if you decide to go with this, I'm not convinced as of yet that all of the resources--both infrastructure and for the services--are in place in our province in that case. It will need some financial commitment on the part of the federal government. So we do appreciate that it's there, but if you do that, guarantee that funding and dollars are put back in the province.

Regarding denunciation and deterrents, we understand the objective of clause 7, but we have to remember we're talking about 12-year-old to 17-year-old people. It's generally accepted that youths don't have the same emotional maturity as adults, so understand that the consequences and repercussion of certain actions is not the same as with adults. I mean, that's point blank. We've all been young people.

So we tend to believe and argue that the reason is that we need to examine solutions as to why young people are committing crimes. This means that we need to start looking at more prevention-based efforts. But in the case of young people who do commit crimes in serving a sentence, we need to provide appropriate means to be reintegrated. That requires services--from our perspective, social workers, but also other health professionals.

What I find interesting is that the crime rate across Canada is actually dropping both for non-violent and violent crime, so I can't seem to understand the reasoning in enforcing more punitive approaches instead of providing greater flexibility in services.

I would dare say that the majority of social workers in New Brunswick and across Canada are concerned about some of the amendments that are being made. As the Canadian Bar Association argues, these changes will just increase the number of young people in jail, so why not use this investment and put it back into the community?

The public interest here is the long-term reintegration of these young people back into the community. The goal is that they will become productive members of the community if we provide them with the services. That is the basic idea that we want to put forth.

Now I will pass it on to my colleague, who will talk on how youths can actually become productive members.

[Merri-Lee Hanson, Social Worker, New Brunswick Association of Social Workers]

Good morning.

The NBASW agrees with the federal government that young offenders must be accountable for their actions; however, there are challenges to incorporate accountability mechanisms with a balanced and fair approach that incorporates processes that will prevent crimes from happening--

[The Chair, Conservative, Ed Fast]

Ms. Hanson, could you slow down a little bit?

[Merri-Lee Hanson]

Sure.

And when crime does happen, we need to know how we can rehabilitate and reintegrate the young offenders once they have served their sentences. The NBASW recommends that there be a renewed investment in community-based preventive approaches. It is generally accepted that the more you spend at the beginning on prevention efforts, the more the benefits in the long term will surpass the initial investments.

Second, the NBASW recommends that greater investments be made in treating young offenders with mental health and/or substance abuse issues. For example, I strongly urge the committee to examine the Ashley Smith report by respected child and youth advocate Bernard Richard.

The Honourable Rob Nicholson reported that Bill C-4 is a balanced approach that includes elements of prevention, enforcement, and rehabilitation; however, as we discussed previously, the NBASW believes that amendments in some areas, and specifically those on rehabilitation, are insufficient.

As a social worker, I work with vulnerable people in our community. This is the nature of our health profession. In their approach to necessary legislation, social workers strive to provide a balanced approach that considers all factors of an individual's adherence to the laws that guide how we live as Canadians. The Nunn report is often referred to as one of the guiding forces of the amendments being put forward. Mr. Nicholson himself stated, however, that this bill goes considerably beyond what was in the Nunn report. He has stated that this bill is directed towards a certain type of individual and a certain type of crime. Front-line social workers are concerned that those towards whom this bill is not specifically directed will suffer the consequences of a more punitive approach.

It is important to see that this amendment will not address the impulsivity of young persons or their intellectual capacity to see and predict the consequences of their actions. Since the inception of the Juvenile Delinquents Act, the early history of youth justice in Canada has stressed the importance of seeing a young person not as a criminal, but as a misdirected individual. The focus has been on considering the factors that contributed to criminal behaviour rather than on punishing the youth. Although this has moved toward a more balanced and judicial approach over the years, the move towards utilizing denunciation and deterrence turns its back on considering those social factors that so often play a role in youth criminal activity.

We must retain the consideration that because of their lack of maturity, young people require special considerations. We must be able to get young people's attention in order to create an environment for change. It is important to recognize that it is extremely rare that a punitive approach to poor behaviour creates change. There are no skills taught by incarceration.

Owing to individual factors, a small cluster of youth will respond to the recommendations being made; however, that does not take into account the real reasons young people often get involved in the criminal justice system in the first place, which include family conflicts, mental health, and/or developmental difficulties or trauma.

Recommending the use of denunciation and deterrence in the Youth Criminal Justice Act goes against what mental health and child advocates work for day in and day out across this country. Social workers often speak of stigma, the stigma of living in poverty or of having a mental illness; in this case, it is the stigma that comes with involvement in the legal system. By making amendments that may potentially increase the undesirable effects of the youth criminal justice system on young people, we are not creating a system focused on rehabilitation.

In the end, I want to caution against the development of legislative changes that are based on extreme cases. The case of Sébastien, for whom the bill is named, illustrates my point. Using this extreme case to name such a bill promotes emotions rather than a debate of the merits of the amendments. I believe the development of social and economic policies needs to be debated from a perspective that is sound and balanced, but using extreme cases to advance the rationale for changing the Youth Criminal Justice Act, as seems to be happening in this situation, will not result in good legislation.

Again, on behalf of the social workers of New Brunswick, I want to thank you for taking the time to listen to our recommendations.

[The Chair, Conservative, Ed Fast]

Thank you very much.

Now we'll move on to Ms. Toutant.

[Cécile Toutant, Criminologist, Youth program, Institut Philippe-Pinel de Montréal]

I'd like to start by asking you a question. I submitted a brief, but I would like to start with a different question. I'm looking at you, and I don't think I'm wrong in saying that you are parents, and perhaps even grandparents—indeed that's more likely.

[An hon. member]

Guilty.

[Cécile Toutant]

Guilty, aren't you?

So I ask you what kind of youth justice system would you like if your child or grandchild committed a violent offence. Perhaps you're thinking that couldn't happen to your family.

I've been working at the Institut Philippe-Pinel de Montréal for 40 years.To date, we've taken in more than 1,000 teenagers between the ages of 14 and 18—I haven't counted to the last unit—who had committed violent offences. We've had youths who had committed murders, some of whom are very well-known, and youths who had committed other violent acts, such as sexual assault.

I won't talk about rehabilitation right away. Instead, I'll talk about their families. It is incorrect to believe that youths who commit violent offences always come from totally disorganized families where the children aren't taken care of. That's false.

I'm deeply moved by the fact that this bill is called Sébastien's Law. The teenager who committed the offence spent a number of months in my department. Even though he of course committed a very serious act, I can tell you that, over the year and a half he spent with us, we worked with him, and there are some things that that youth achieved. In spite of that, he was sent to penitentiary to serve his life sentence.

Has the use of an adult sentence afforded better protection for society in this case? I would say no. You may have a different opinion, but I would nevertheless say no to you. It is incorrect to think that his parents didn't take care of him. I believe the parents were just as upset as a lot of people in his circle.

We should all imagine that he is our child. I'm going to tell you what I would like if my child or my grandchild was arrested. Of course, I would like people to take into account the seriousness of his act, whether he had hit or killed people. I don't think we can disregard that aspect and focus solely on the adolescent's needs. However, I would hope that his needs would be cared for and that people would take into account the fact that a teenager is not an adult, that he doesn't have the maturity of an adult, that he doesn't have the ability to judge without involving his emotions, like some adults—some adults aren't capable of proper judgment either. Teenagers in general are more emotional, and their emotional dimension takes more room. They commit extreme acts; they commit what I often call inelegant offences. An adult kills with a firearm, whereas a teenager beats up people or commits acts that make us react. We find those acts horrible. The fact is that teenagers don't commit their offences using firearms. Instead they react in an emotional situation, and they commit stunning offences.

If I had to define the youth justice system that I would like to have for my children, for Canadian children, I would ask, first, that people take greater account of the needs of adolescents when it comes to imposing measures. I would like authorities to take the offence and needs into account.

In 1993, a review was conducted of the Young Offenders Act, which had been in existence since... Pardon me, that was around the time of its creation, since it was adopted... Whatever the case may be, that act was being reviewed.

Under the Juvenile Delinquency Act of 1908, the justice system became a social service system. The judge became a father and determined the best measure that should be taken. At one point authorities felt that was enough and that they were going to make adolescents a little more responsible. As a result, the Young Offenders Act went into effect in 1984. At that time, we started disregarding the needs of adolescents. The authorities said they were going to make them accountable and protect the public.

In 1993, the Supreme Court rendered a judgment in what was called the JJM affair. The judges held that the needs of the young person should be considered in the placement decision, and not just the nature of the offence, even if it led to a longer sentence.

Allow me to explain. We went to the other extreme. In many cases, we realize that the measures taken are too short in duration. They are escalating measures. Young people are left in the community for a very long time. We realize that, with regard to the rehabilitation institutions that take in young people, we're waiting far too long. We let them deteriorate. The right measure has to be applied at the right time taking into account the offence committed and the needs. It is very important to take the needs into account. This implies that we should intervene properly with an adolescent who suffers from behavioural or mental health disorders.

Ultimately, what does it mean to protect the public? We're increasingly moving toward principles that advocate protecting the public. In my view, if you want to protect the public, you have to try treat the person who causes victims. If you put that person in a detention centre and try to correct his problems, you're simply going to fail.

What is an adult detention centre? I'm going to compare that kind of centre with a detention centre or rehabilitation centre for young persons. I'm going to tell you what happens in my field. The adolescents live with educators. They take part in activities with them and they meet with them. The educators are somewhat like parents. Rehabilitation is like education. Values must be communicated on a daily basis. For example, if a youth serves food at mealtimes gives all the best pieces to his friends and the rest to those he doesn't like, by not intervening, I let him exercise the power to violate, in his own way, those he doesn't like. He has power over the others. In a rehabilitation environment, we intervene in this kind of situation and we stop this type of behaviour. Rehabilitation takes place on a daily basis.

In an adult detention centre, the contrary occurs. It isn't because the people who work there don't want to do anything. They want to help the inmates, but the environment doesn't let them do it.

Let me explain. An inmate who is incarcerated in a wing with 150 inmates takes courses for an hour in the morning on how to manager his violence, on possible issues other than aggressive behaviour. He then returns to his wing, and then it's dog eat dog. There's a guard in the little glass cabin that I call an aquarium. He's in his corner and doesn't influence the inmates' daily lives.

In penitentiaries for adults, everyday life is a world of exploitation. If you doubt that, ask people who work there. They'll tell you how it works. They have every possible difficulty obtaining a therapeutic environment. The fact that anyone considers it useful for youths to be detained at adult detention centres is a mistake.

Youth justice must remain justice for youths; it must not be modelled on the adult system. Their needs must be taken into account.

With regard to the publication of names, is there anyone around this table who believes for two seconds that publishing the names of offenders would help them rehabilitate, that that would prevent them from reoffending? In my opinion, it's the contrary that could well occur. In many cases, the major offenders are happy to see their names in the newspaper. They score each other in a way. This is absolutely not a preventive or accountability measure.

I'll stop my presentation here. I'm going to answer any questions you may have.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Ed Fast]

Merci.

We'll open the floor to questions. I think we'll start with Mr. Murphy for seven minutes.

[Brian Murphy, Liberal, Moncton—Riverview—Dieppe, NB]

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—

[A voice]

Or Cap-Pelé.

[Brian Murphy, Liberal, Moncton—Riverview—Dieppe, NB]

Or Cap-Pelé, peut-être.

What were the negative points about these amendments?

Second is your work with Ashley Smith on mental health. I would like you to flesh out the good work by Judge Brien in New Brunswick and the Ontario pilot project, which the government should be encouraged to move forward with. That is specifically a youth mental health court pilot project.

Thank you.

[Bernard Richard]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I think I'll start with the last question and then I'll forget the first question, I'm sure.

I've had the opportunity to visit the Youth Mental Health Court, which is right here in Ottawa. I strongly recommend it to members of the committee, because its approach is totally different. It is funded by Justice Canada, and I have met with the presiding judge. It's just across the street from the Lord Elgin Hotel. It's not far from here at all.

The approach is multi-disciplinary and very similar to Judge Green's court in Saint John, New Brunswick, which is still a pilot project after ten years. I have regretted that publicly, that it is still a pilot project. The approach of a mental health court is of course to identify offenders who suffer from mental illness or severe behaviour disorders. They're treated in a much different way. The tendency is to divert them away from the formal criminal justice system towards treatment and support.

In Judge Green's court, for instance, 85% of those who appear before that court do not reoffend. It would be interesting to see numbers on reoffenders who are treated differently in our justice system, our more formal justice system. I would think the numbers would be much, much higher. So I think there are really, really good models out there. They're still quite new. The legislation is new, as I have said. As a former elected official myself, I've sat on several similar committees. I think it is really crucial for the members to get as much information as they can get. I sat during the consultation in Moncton. I can't say that I know what was said across the country, but certainly in Moncton, including from law enforcement officials, the idea was that what we have in place is not working. They're often at a loss. Judges have told us in our research for Connecting the Dots and the Ashley Smith report that they often have few options. I've expressed the concern over the fact that our New Brunswick Youth Centre has more adults than youth as prisoners, as we speak, on this day.

We're building two new jails in New Brunswick, and if you adopt these amendments I suppose we'll be building more jails. The cost will be passed on to the provinces, so in tough economic and fiscal times, provincially and federally, we'll be spending more resources in building more jails and hiring more guards to get the opposite results of what we want. I think that was expressed at the round table in Moncton. I don't know if Bilodeau wrote the report. He was acting as the facilitator, but certainly I have been told that there is a report in the hands of Justice Canada. I would think you would want to get it, to be as informed as you can be before voting on these amendments.

[The Chair, Conservative, Ed Fast]

Thank you.

We'll move on to Monsieur Ménard.

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

Thank you very much for your presentation, Mr. Richard.

You told us that you took part in the Justice department's consultations on amendments to the Young Offenders Act. You have obviously examined the suggestions that were made to the minister. How many meetings of this type have you had?

[Bernard Richard]

I attended the meeting that was organized in Moncton. Mr. Nicholson went across Canada with the consultant who was hired, Mr. Bilodeau. I only attended one meeting.

I must say I've nevertheless conducted consultations with other child advocates across Canada, including Ms. Godin from the Commission des droits de la personne du Québec, and also with my colleagues from the other provinces.

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

When you read Bill C-4, do you feel that it reflects the consultations that you've attended?

[Bernard Richard]

No, certainly not mine. Based on what I heard from most of my colleagues, even though it was not the same thing across Canada, this doesn't take into account what was said by the vast majority of participants who attended the Moncton consultation.

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

You also told us that Roger Bilodeau was responsible for writing a summary of those consultations. Is that correct?

[Bernard Richard]

I want to be clear: Mr. Bilodeau acted as a facilitator at the consultation sessions. I'm not sure whether he wrote the report, but I was told by a very good source at the Department of Justice that there was a report in the department.