Justice Committee on Feb. 28th, 2011

[Carole Morency]

Okay. I guess I would have to take that under advisement. I think the intention is clear that there would be a coordinating amendment between this bill and that number. I think the bill number actually carries weight in terms of indicating even if the title changes, but I think our drafters and maybe the clerk might advise if there is another issue there.

[Joe Comartin, NDP, Windsor—Tecumseh, ON]

Okay.

[Carole Morency]

But certainly I think the intention of the coordinating amendment is to be as specific as possible in identifying which other bill in which session. Even if it has a different title, we still know it's Bill C-16 in this session.

[Joe Comartin, NDP, Windsor—Tecumseh, ON]

Okay.

My other question...?

[Carole Morency]

On the other question in terms of what Bill C-54 does generally from clauses 20 through to 27, in clauses 20 and 21, the amendments are to list the new offences proposed in Bill C-54 in the provisions that apply right now dealing with facilitating testimony by child victim witnesses in criminal proceedings. Recalling that one of the overarching objectives of Bill C-54 is to ensure that we have a consistent approach, where a child victim of any of the other child sex offences can benefit through the aid of testifying behind a screen and so on, those are going to be available to victims in these cases as well.

Clause 22 deals with a consistent approach, again, in terms of how we deal with like offences for the collection of DNA for criminal conviction purposes. Clauses 22 and 23 deal with the Sex Offender Information Registration Act. They are about having a consistent approach.

For these clauses, you'll see that there is a coordinating amendment at the end of the bill to coordinate changes already made to those provisions by what was Bill S-2, which has received royal assent and will be proclaimed into force. The intention of these clauses and the coordinating amendment is to ensure that once both laws are in force, the new offences will be added in and we'll have a consistent approach to the treatment of these offences as reordered in Bill S-2.

Clause 24 deals with the dangerous offender provision of the Criminal Code. We're adding in the new offence of agreement or arrangement for a sexual offence against a child as well as the procuring offences—there are two of them—dealing with child victims. Again, we're trying to ensure consistency. Over the years, when you amend here or there, sometimes some things are not caught. We're trying to have a consistent approach.

Clause 25 deals with the long-term-offender provisions. The listing here--

[Joe Comartin, NDP, Windsor—Tecumseh, ON]

That does the same as clause 24, doesn't it? It is just the separate offence.

[Carole Morency]

The intention is the same, but there are--

[Joe Comartin, NDP, Windsor—Tecumseh, ON]

There are many more.

[Carole Morency]

--additional offences that aren't there right now, and that we're adding, again to ensure a consistent approach throughout when we're dealing with child sexual offences, but the intention is the same.

Clause 26 proposes a similar amendment to the peace bond provision we just discussed in LIB-1. It would enable the court to consider imposing the two new conditions being proposed when there are reasonable grounds to believe that a person before them might commit one of the enumerated offences. Here, we would be adding the two new offences proposed by Bill C-54 as well as.... It's the two conditions and the two offences.

Clause 27 is amending Form 5.04, which deals with an order to take a DNA substance. Again, it's because we've amended the provisions that authorize the taking of it for the two new offences.

Sorry, was that...?

[Joe Comartin, NDP, Windsor—Tecumseh, ON]

That's it. You don't need to go into clauses 28 and 29.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, Ed Fast]

Thank you.

I'm going to call the question. I think we have consent to deal with the next group all in one. That will be clauses 20 to 30 inclusive.

(Clauses 20 to 30 inclusive agreed to: yeas 11; nays 0)

So clauses 20 to 30 are carried. We'll move now to the short title. Shall clause 1 carry?

(Clause 1 agreed to: yeas 11; nays 0)

The next three clauses should be non-contentious. Do we need a recorded vote?

[Derek Lee, Liberal, Scarborough—Rouge River, ON]

Just go through them quickly.

[The Chair, Conservative, Ed Fast]

Okay.

Shall the title carry?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[The Chair, Conservative, Ed Fast]

Shall the bill carry?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[An hon. member]

On division.

[The Chair, Conservative, Ed Fast]

It is carried on division.

Finally, shall I report the bill to the House?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[The Chair, Conservative, Ed Fast]

Thanks to all of you.

We're going to suspend for two minutes to allow the new witnesses to take their places.

[The Chair, Conservative, Ed Fast]

I will reconvene the meeting.

We are now moving to further consideration of Bill C-4, An Act to amend the Youth Criminal Justice Act and to make consequential and related amendments to other Acts.

We have with us two witnesses. First of all, representing the Association des policières et policiers provinciaux du Québec, we have Jean-Guy Dagenais, president.

We also have with us the Canadian Criminal Justice Association, represented by Hirsch Greenberg, member of the board of directors.

Welcome to both of you. We apologize for bringing you on a little bit late. As you can see, we are trying to finalize clause-by-clause consideration of a bill, but thank you for coming.

Each one of you has been given some time to present. You will present and then we will open the floor to questions from our members.

Why don't we start with Monsieur Dagenais?

[Jean-Guy Dagenais, President, Association des policières et policiers provinciaux du Québec]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

First, I would like to thank you for the invitation and for your attention to our presentation.

The Association des policières et policiers provinciaux du Québec represents more than 5,200 unionized police officers in Quebec. We feel that the amendments to the Youth Criminal Justice Act will result in greater protection for the public from crimes of violence.

We must stress the importance of focusing on violent offences. As police officers, we feel that it is our responsibility, when we are investigating serious crimes committed by young people, to gather enough evidence so that the judge can order detention where appropriate.

The bill seeks to amend the act by reducing the burden of proof, which will help us in our job of getting repeat violent offenders off the streets.

Because of the new requirements that Bill C-4 will bring with it, additional financial and staffing resources must be provided.

The establishment of a central registry will assist police forces like the Sûreté du Québec in our work. Information must be standardized in order for coordination to be better.

Adult penalties must be considered only in cases of violent crimes.

Police forces firmly support the possibility of lifting publication bans. Young people must not be able to commit other violent crimes. They may end up in areas where public protection is important.

For example, a neighbourhood may find a sexual offender living there. The public interest must be protected, and, by so doing, more crimes, repeat offences, can be prevented. Young offenders must be made aware that they have committed serious crimes; we feel that the amendments to the bill will right the wrongs done to victims who for too long have been ignored.

Young people do not have the same level of development as an adult; they are impressionable; they can be influenced. The amendments to the act must make them aware of the gravity of their actions.

As police officers, our primary role is to protect society and we must have the tools we need to carry out that role. Young people who commit serious crimes must answer for their actions when warranted by the circumstances of the offence.

Some of our investigations into serious crimes committed by young people compel us to feel that they must be made aware of the seriousness of their actions. Releasing them, often too soon, does not serve the interests of the community, a community that deserves to be able to live in safety.

Young offenders must be discouraged from offending again. We are of the opinion that the current act has shortcomings and that amendments are warranted. We support the idea that protecting society must be made the main goal of the act. Without amendments, the act does not meet the objective of living safely in our society and would not match our expectations and our values.

Some young people will not hesitate to resort to violence and intimidation for criminal purposes; in our opinion, this poses a major threat to Canadian society. Some young people, although they may not have the developmental level of an adult, will be driven to commit serious crimes; whatever the nature of those crimes, the amendments to the act must convince them not to reoffend.

As investigators, we must not be deprived of the tools that allow us to have access to the various provisions of the Criminal Code that we could use in the course of our inquiries.

With the passage of time, we believe that there is a way to develop regulations governing serious crimes committed by young people. This will allow the police and prosecutors at various levels to use the provisions in the Criminal Code to their full extent in order to reduce the threat to public safety.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, Ed Fast]

Thank you.

We'll move to Mr. Hirsch Greenberg, please.

[Hirsch Greenberg, Member of the Board of Directors, Canadian Criminal Justice Association]

On behalf of the Canadian Criminal Justice Association, I would like to thank you for the invitation.

I'd like to start my comments by trying to frame our general understanding of the thrust for the proposed amendments, that is, that the young offender be held accountable, and that of protection of society.

But we would argue that there needs to be a paradigm shift in applying these principles as required, as the amendments proposed will have little effect on the ground, either to hold youth accountable or to make us safer from crime, and in particular, youth crime.

To accomplish this, Canada and the provinces need to start with an accurate evidence-based view of youth crime. What does youth crime look like nationally? Where is crime most likely to occur and by whom? More importantly, what does it look like locally? How does the public experience crime? And what does it look like for the victims, the victims' families, the young offender, and the young offender's family?

A second important element to engage in the conversation for youth accountability and public safety is that youth crime is not the exclusive property of the justice or the correctional systems, that youth crime is not simply a criminalized, individualized youth problem, that punishment is not equivalent to safer communities, and that incarceration or other punishment is not the primary mitigating arbiter of safer communities. Being “tough on crime” may be desirable in some quarters. I haven't heard an argument that we should be weak on crime, and I don't know why one would take such a stand. I think this is a false choice that is presented.

We need to explore what works rather than how much harm we can impose on a young offender. We are challenged to meet the needs of Canadian society, those of our communities, and those of our children and youth, to prevent crime, and to intervene after it occurs, all the while meeting the needs of the young offenders and their victims. The shift here is to move toward the more effective paradigm: that these needs of Canadians, our communities, the victims, and the young offenders are not mutually exclusive. They are woven together in complex social, economic, cultural, and psychological ways, and they should not be isolated in silos as if they occur or can be understood independently.

We cannot define youth as criminals if we wish them to behave differently. Youth are not responsible for the creation of crime. Adults are. Why do we look to the individual young person with threats of retribution and threats of punishment and then expect a self-confident, healthy individual to emerge? We need to ask what we must change in the lives of youth to prevent crime before it occurs, what needs to change after a youth commits a crime, and what is the role of suppression for future crime behaviours.

The proposed amendments ask, how do we denounce and deter? A paradigm shift would ask how to effectively change youth crime behaviour through an internalized sense of accountability by rebuilding a sense of self.

A proposed amendment asks how to increase pre-trial detention to keep youth off the street. A paradigm shift would ask what youth are doing on the street, why they are not in school, and how we can better understand youth crime behaviours.

A proposed amendment asks how to redefine violence. A paradigm shift would ask how to understand the trauma that youth experience when their behaviours lead to violence.

A proposed amendment asks how a youth can be shamed: naming the youth who is convicted of a serious crime. A paradigm shift would ask how a youth who commits a violent act can be less vulnerable to future violent behaviours.

As a final comment to shift the paradigm, I would quote Chief Justice Robert Yazzie of the Navajo Nation. He states: What is an offender? It is someone who shows little regard for right relationships. That person has little respect for others. Navajos say of such a person, “He acts as if he has no relatives.” So, what do you do when someone acts as if they have no relatives? You bring in the relatives!

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Ed Fast]

Thank you.

We'll open the floor to questions. First of all, we'll go to the Liberals.

Ms. Jennings, seven minutes.