Whether it's premature, I'm not sure. My simple answer to that is that there are sections that I think should be changed and should be changed relatively soon. Let me give two examples of that.
Section 29, which has to do with pre-trial release, is important, and it has obviously been a controversial topic. It strikes me that this is a good beginning of what might be looked at because what it lays out in the Youth Criminal Justice Act, separate from the Criminal Code, is the beginning of, in effect, a code for what kinds of youth should be held in pre-sentence custody and what kinds of youth should be detained. For example, the test that the person should be charged with a serious offence, and the judge is satisfied that either of those two conditions should be met, is important. It restricts it more than the adult system does, so it's a good start.
I would also have wanted Parliament to look at the conditions and the relationship of the conditions to the purpose of the act as well. When a youth is released on bail, there should be more attention put to what kinds of conditions are put on the youth and for what purposes. At the moment it seems as if large numbers of conditions are put on the youth, and what we do see is large numbers of youth coming back into the system with new charges of failure to comply with those bail conditions. But I think the idea that the test is that there be a substantial likelihood that the youth is going to do one of these things, including commit a serious offence, not just a shoplifting, is important. So I do see that as a good start.
I've already mentioned that I think proposed section 72, which is a different test for the imposition of an adult sentence, is good. I don't think it goes as far as it should, because it doesn't indicate to the crown what the test is for rebutting the presumption. It should rebut the presumption. I think the original section 72 was flawed and that this is an improvement.
So it's a mixture of things, some of which I spoke against, but in previous times I've made it clear that there are other things that I think are important in this. For example, the pre-sentence custody, starting from what's there and looking at it, if this committee were to take that on as a serious project, I think you could well come forward with something that would build on and improve upon, from every perspective—and this is not an issue of political parties—that I think you could probably agree on would be a better system of detention before trial than what we have here or what we have in the proposed amendments.