Correct.
Evidence of meeting #51 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.
Evidence of meeting #51 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.
4:20 p.m.
Policy Director, Ontario Federation of Indian Friendship Centres
Repeat offenders would include a very high proportion of the aboriginal--
4:20 p.m.
Conservative
Bob Dechert Conservative Mississauga—Erindale, ON
That would be things like property crimes, I assume.
4:20 p.m.
Policy Director, Ontario Federation of Indian Friendship Centres
Property crimes, yes.
4:20 p.m.
Conservative
Bob Dechert Conservative Mississauga—Erindale, ON
I want to point out, and I think those who are listening would know, that most of the provisions of this bill are aimed at people who are described as both violent and repeat offenders, not just one or the other.
I appreciate your clarification on that point. Do you know how that statistic compares with the non-indigenous population in terms of repeat and violent offenders?
4:20 p.m.
Policy Director, Ontario Federation of Indian Friendship Centres
I don't know, but I have the statistics on violent offences. This is the court worker program. This is for adults.
4:20 p.m.
A voice
Youth.
4:20 p.m.
Policy Director, Ontario Federation of Indian Friendship Centres
This is for youth? Okay. So 32% of offences are for administration of justice offences, 14% are serious, 10% are for violent offences, and 14% are for property offences. So it's fairly high. It's low, it's not the vast majority, but it's still higher than you would find in the mainstream population, which is why we say there's a disproportionate--
4:20 p.m.
Policy Director, Ontario Federation of Indian Friendship Centres
Absolutely.
4:20 p.m.
Conservative
Bob Dechert Conservative Mississauga—Erindale, ON
I'm happy to know that. Thank you.
Professor Doob, you mentioned that the YCJA is in need of some changes. I think you highlighted some of those in the answers to the question posed by Mr. Comartin. Is there anything else that needs to be done to the YCJA that you didn't cover in that answer?
4:20 p.m.
Professor, Centre of Criminology, University of Toronto, As an Individual
I'm sure there is. Certainly in discussions that I've had with various people, various things have come up. The pre-sentence detention or the pre-trial detention is the largest single area of concern that I would have.
4:20 p.m.
Conservative
Bob Dechert Conservative Mississauga—Erindale, ON
In that regard, does Bill C-4 improve the situation over the current legislation?
4:20 p.m.
Professor, Centre of Criminology, University of Toronto, As an Individual
I think it does. I think there are still some concerns about the circumstance where a person has committed a minor offence, for example, and doesn't appear in court. I think these are very difficult issues. I think if you go through the proposed change to subsection 29(2), it could be improved in the sense of making it clear when a person should be detained or can be detained and when a person can't.
I think pre-trial detention is such a serious matter that I wouldn't have stopped there. My colleagues mentioned one of the problems, which is that the administration of justice offences often arise in these circumstances. We know that we have in parts of Ontario large numbers of conditions being put on that don't appear to relate to the offence the youth has committed and don't seem to relate to the likelihood that the youth would show up for trial. When the youth violates one of those conditions, we have another charge put on him or her.
Taking 29(2) as a starting point, this committee could well come forward with a better total package that would include many of the proposals, or in fact much of the wording that's currently in the proposed changes to subsection 29(2).
4:25 p.m.
Conservative
Bob Dechert Conservative Mississauga—Erindale, ON
May I ask you another question? I know our time is short here.
As you know, a significant amount of this Bill C-4 flowed from the conclusion of the Nunn report. In that report Justice Nunn concluded that highlighting public safety as one of the goals or principles of the act is necessary to improve the handling of violent and repeat young offenders. Would you agree with Justice Nunn in that statement?
4:25 p.m.
Professor, Centre of Criminology, University of Toronto, As an Individual
No, I wouldn't, and the reason I wouldn't is that it seems to me that largely what the Youth Criminal Justice Act is about is responding to youths who have committed offences. So if you focus on what are, in a sense—no matter what you might call them—the punitive aspects of the criminal law, which is what criminal law is about, it seems to me that the difficulty is that we're not going to accomplish public safety through changes to the various punishment sections of the Youth Criminal Justice Act.
What I would say is, for example, in the pre-sentence custody issue, or the bail issue, which is clearly something that was an issue for Justice Nunn, that what we should be doing is going back to our kind of basic principles, which I think, quite frankly, is a good beginning too, because it's saying that the youth has to be charged with a serious offence and the judge has to be satisfied that detention is necessary to meet one of those conditions.
4:25 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Ed Fast
Thank you.
I think we have time for another round of two minutes apiece. Are you open to that?
4:25 p.m.
Some hon. members
Agreed.
March 2nd, 2011 / 4:25 p.m.
Liberal
Marlene Jennings Liberal Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Lachine, QC
Thank you.
I have two simple questions.
Mr. Dionne and the representatives have not answered my colleague Mr. Murphy's question.
Did you attend the roundtable meeting organized by the federal Department of Justice?
4:25 p.m.
Policy Director, Ontario Federation of Indian Friendship Centres
Yes, in Toronto.
4:25 p.m.
Professor, Department of Psychoeducation and Psychology, Université du Québec en Outaouais, As an Individual
I have worked with colleagues who attended the roundtable, but I was not there myself.
4:25 p.m.
Liberal
Marlene Jennings Liberal Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Lachine, QC
My second question is for you, Professor Dionne.
You said that a working group was set up to conduct a large-scale study on the application of the current legislation. The study will be conducted over a two-year period and will focus on all Quebec regions. Who is funding the study and how?
4:25 p.m.
Professor, Department of Psychoeducation and Psychology, Université du Québec en Outaouais, As an Individual
The study is currently being funded by the Government of Quebec and is being conducted under the guidance of Professor Denis Lafortune, of the University of Montreal's School of Criminology. We are about ten researchers in the group, which is supposed to cover various regions and a number of considerations. The study is titled La Loi sur le système de justice pénale pour les adolescents, sept ans plus tard: portrait des jeunes, des trajectoires et des pratiques.