I think the view of the council is that there is a creep into the Youth Criminal Justice Act of concepts that are really more appropriate for adults and not appropriate for youth.
In particular, some of us participated in a national consultation on the YCJA that led to the development of a background paper that I know was released to the committee in December. It was a national consultation process in each of our provinces and territories. In that consultation paper there was a very strong view taken that the summary of that national consultation was that the YCJA should not be changed just for the sake of change, and that the flaws are not in the legislation but in the services and supports that need to be there in the system.
I participated in British Columbia, Ms. Godin in Quebec, and others of us participated in our provincial consultations. We found that there was no appetite in our consultation process for this change to adopt the adult sentencing principles into the YCJA.
Obviously, I have the additional benefit of eight years as a provincial court judge in applying the YCJA in the youth court. We do apply the offences in the Criminal Code when we're dealing with offenders who are young people, but the procedure is different on purpose, which is that it reflects the best evidence we have with respect to the cognitive and developmental circumstances of adolescents.
For instance, on the issue of deterrence there is scant, if any, evidence that it is effective with respect to young people. There is evidence with respect to adults--that's different--but not with respect to young people.
Certainly as a council we're very concerned about converting the Youth Criminal Justice Act into an adult regime, which it wasn't supposed to be. We're very supportive of holding young people to account and for their being responsible, and for having a successful reintegration and rehabilitation of young people when there has been antisocial behaviour, but we don't see evidence that placing them essentially into an adult system will work.