Evidence of meeting #24 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 aboriginal.
A recording is available from Parliament.
12:20 p.m.
Liberal
Alexandra Mendes Liberal Brossard—La Prairie, QC
The ban on identification that is currently in the justice act--to ban identification of underage criminals--is precisely also to avoid the fact that they create this badge of honour because they have committed a crime.
12:20 p.m.
Founder and Board Chair, Canadian Crime Victim Foundation
Seriously, in any community where an individual has committed the crime I've just explained, every kid within that school knows who it is; most of the people in those communities know who it is. The people who don't know, because of publication bans, are people in the rest of the country. But suggesting that a publication ban is going to alter that individual's behaviour is I think wrong-headed.
12:20 p.m.
Liberal
Alexandra Mendes Liberal Brossard—La Prairie, QC
It stops the child from necessarily creating an even more inflated opinion of himself.
12:20 p.m.
Founder and Board Chair, Canadian Crime Victim Foundation
Absolutely not, not within his own community. I disagree with you for the reasons I've just stated. When that individual returns to that community, there isn't a child who doesn't know who he is and what he has done.
12:20 p.m.
Liberal
Alexandra Mendes Liberal Brossard—La Prairie, QC
What would you propose should be done then? That the child should not be returned to that community?
12:20 p.m.
Founder and Board Chair, Canadian Crime Victim Foundation
I believe the individual should be.... Again, I premised my arguments and my position here before I started by saying that I'm talking about killers, psychopaths, rapists, pedophiles, and the worst--
12:20 p.m.
Liberal
Alexandra Mendes Liberal Brossard—La Prairie, QC
How many of those do we have in Canada, Mr. Wamback? We are one of the safest countries in the world.
12:20 p.m.
Founder and Board Chair, Canadian Crime Victim Foundation
You may suggest that we are, and Juristat may suggest that crime rates are coming down, but crime victimization surveys are showing that crime among young people has doubled in the last ten years. We are one of the safest countries in the world. I love my country; I think it is one of the greatest countries in the world, but one of the things that we are not doing is looking after youth who follow the rules, looking after young people who do the right thing by providing them with the protections that are necessary.
To suggest that denunciation and deterrence, which is what I believe this discussion started out as, doesn't mean anything I think is incredibly wrong. I think if individuals who commit acts of violence--and many of those individuals are a part of gangs and they choose who their peer groups are. If it is well known in that community that if you do this, this will happen, then I believe this will prevent a lot of the crime we see today. That is the concept of social denunciation and deterrence.
12:20 p.m.
Conservative
12:20 p.m.
Bloc
Serge Ménard Bloc Marc-Aurèle-Fortin, QC
Thank you.
I would like to address Mr. Wamback first.
Mr. Wamback, I think you have experienced a terrible tragedy in your life. It is still palpable today. First, I would like to offer you an expression of my own sincere sympathy in addition to those you have been given in your life.
I have been lucky, since nothing like that has happened to me, and my children are my greatest joy. I haven't checked, but I think that everyone here is a parent. Personally, I have been a grandparent for nearly a year; my daughter has made me happy by bringing twins into this world. My son has just informed me that his wife is pregnant. You can be sure that if anyone touched those children, you would have to hold me back, because I don't think I could control myself. I have tremendous sympathy for you. Although I have never experienced such very profound suffering, I have no difficulty imagining it.
Like us, you will agree that we will never completely put an end to crime and youth crime. That is a fact of life. Isn't that right?
12:20 p.m.
Bloc
12:25 p.m.
Bloc
Serge Ménard Bloc Marc-Aurèle-Fortin, QC
You can be sure that this is our primary goal.
If look back at the past and look around us, we have enacted a law in Canada that was partially, not completely, based on a model I will talk about again. We succeeded in reducing crime. Isn't that right?
12:25 p.m.
Founder and Board Chair, Canadian Crime Victim Foundation
If I can speak to that decrease, one of the things I recognize is that various government statistics have come out saying we've had a 35% decrease in the incarceration rate or in criminality among young people. Prior to the introduction of the Youth Criminal Justice Act, under the Young Offenders Act, breaches of probation and breaches of parole were separate indictable offences. They represented 55% of the total charges against young people in this country. When the Youth Criminal Justice Act was brought in, these separate indictable offences were no longer indictable offences. I would have expected the crime rate to drop by 55% in Canada among our young people virtually immediately. That is not the fact.
Violent crime, and I'm not talking about a crime where somebody makes an honest or silly mistake--we've all made silly mistakes and we all deserve a second chance—is increasing at an exponential rate across this country for people under the age of 18. As guardians of our young people, we have a responsibility to protect innocent children and see that those who commit violent acts receive the attention they deserve to try to change that criminality. We are not going to do it by reducing or eliminating sentencing. That is the appropriate place to make sure the experts dealing with that are able to deal with those people.
12:25 p.m.
Bloc
Serge Ménard Bloc Marc-Aurèle-Fortin, QC
I understand that you don't interpret the statistics the same way. I recognize that. I would also like to ask other people here to testify.
I think you are all aware that Quebec had a particular system for handling youth crime. In Quebec, youth crime is actually markedly lower than in the rest of Canada. In fact, for the existing act, it drew partly on that experience, as Ms. McLellan had in fact promised me when I was Minister of Justice in Quebec. She incorporated part of that experience in the act. We achieved a reduction.
You also raised the problems of specific groups, like aboriginal people. Others have also talked about people of colour and certain immigrant groups. You undoubtedly know about the desire to amend section 3 of the Young Offenders Act, which establishes the general principle of aiming for reintegration, rehabilitation and prevention by giving sentences proportionate to the offence committed and to the person. A similar provision already existed.
Do you think that this change to the general principle will make it possible to treat minority clienteles more fairly? Those clienteles are in the minority in the population, but unfortunately are in the majority in young offender detention centres.
12:25 p.m.
Executive Director, Canadian Association of Elizabeth Fry Societies
I'm glad you raised the example of Quebec.
I apologize for not being able to answer in French.
I think the fact that you have more complete social services, starting with child care that is more universally available--not universally available, but more universally available--and more of a focus on the social development components that others have spoken about is a key to why it has worked well in Quebec.
With some of the measures being proposed, while you may include rehabilitation and continue to focus on rehabilitation, once you start to talk about deterrence and denunciation, we know the cognitive development of young people, even by 18, often may not be at the stage where they can think abstractly and plan in the ways we'd like them to. As a mother, I'd certainly like my 19-year-old to be able to plan a lot better, but that's not what I'm here for.
Right now we see young people being held accountable. We do see rehabilitation and reintegration as a focus in sentencing. We do see occasionally very good intensive rehabilitation and treatment--the IRCS options. But those aren't available enough. Our concern with these kinds of changes that are proposed is that we'll see those being even less available. There will be fewer opportunities, with more focus on risk assessments, as we've seen in the adult system, and less focus on treatment. As my colleagues have raised, we have enough examples of young people who have been failed by the system.
12:30 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Ed Fast
Thank you. Unfortunately, we're at about seven and a half minutes.
Mr. Comartin, you can allow the witnesses to continue answering. You have seven minutes.
12:30 p.m.
NDP
Joe Comartin NDP Windsor—Tecumseh, ON
Thanks, Mr. Chair.
And thank you, witnesses, for being here.
Mr. Rudin, go ahead. I'm going to ask you some questions anyway, but you can respond.
12:30 p.m.
Program Director, Aboriginal Legal Services of Toronto
I'll speak briefly. It's nice to have principles in the act that may restrict the use of incarceration; the difficulty is we don't see them working particularly well.
Paragraph 718.2(e), which was in the Criminal Code and is now 39(2)(d) of the Youth Criminal Justice Act, says that a judge should look for all alternatives to imprisonment for everyone, with particular attention to the circumstances of aboriginal youth. But this has not significantly reduced aboriginal involvement in the youth justice system, and, as I mentioned, the proportion has gone up.
I'm not as optimistic about what may be seen as general terms like that in terms of helping reduce levels of incarceration. However, I am certain that if words like “deterrence” and “denunciation” are put in the act, those will definitely lead to more young people going to jail.
12:30 p.m.
NDP
Joe Comartin NDP Windsor—Tecumseh, ON
Mr. Rudin, with respect to the statistics you gave us in terms of the proportional representation by aboriginal youth in the system, did you draw them from Juristat or from other sources?
12:30 p.m.
Program Director, Aboriginal Legal Services of Toronto
Those are from Juristat .
12:30 p.m.
NDP
Joe Comartin NDP Windsor—Tecumseh, ON
Do you know if the Juristat figures include Métis and other non-status--
12:30 p.m.
Program Director, Aboriginal Legal Services of Toronto
The Juristat figures take a self-identification notion of aboriginal people, which in our experience means they're a floor. We have generally found that when many jurisdictions count the number of aboriginal people in the facilities, they undercount; many people who are aboriginal simply aren't counted. I would look at these numbers as a minimum number. As I said, they're the floor. The actual numbers will be higher.