Evidence of meeting #54 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 mccuaig.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Reeve, Rural Municipality of Beaver River
No, sir. My background is mainly in education at the elementary, junior high, and high school levels.
Bloc
Serge Ménard Bloc Marc-Aurèle-Fortin, QC
So, you were not an expert on young offender cases; you were not a psychoeducator specializing in young offenders.
Bloc
Serge Ménard Bloc Marc-Aurèle-Fortin, QC
Let's get back to you two. First, I want to say that what you have told us, Ms. McCuaig, is a horrific tale. I hope that such cases are not an everyday occurrence in Ontario.
Bloc
Serge Ménard Bloc Marc-Aurèle-Fortin, QC
Yes. The government decided to name its bill after Sébastien Lacasse. However, young Sébastien Lacasse is dead; he was murdered. The young man who killed him had a knife, but he did not submit his victim to the torture young Leduc was submitted to; far from it. Even so, he was sentenced to life imprisonment. I know that there is a big difference in the way young offenders are treated in Quebec and the way they are treated in the rest of Canada. I don't know whether you're aware of this fact.
Bloc
Serge Ménard Bloc Marc-Aurèle-Fortin, QC
Quebec does have the lowest juvenile delinquency rate in Canada and invests heavily in young offender rehabilitation.
Mr. Rausch, I see you were looking for models in Texas. Are you familiar with the Quebec-specific approach to dealing with young offenders?
Reeve, Rural Municipality of Beaver River
Actually, sir, I was in the process, while I travelled here, of learning about that. One thing I found of interest was a province of Alberta publication entitled Alberta Views; the authors indicated that Quebec appears to have policies or procedures that reflect the view that courts are not necessarily the best place to deal with all youthful offenders, so all provinces have some type of diversion or alternative measures program. The point at which the diversion occurs differs.
That's what I've learned to this point, as I continue to pursue the definite differences that seem to exist among the provinces and how that interpretation is made through the courts.
Bloc
Serge Ménard Bloc Marc-Aurèle-Fortin, QC
You are surely aware that those cases are much less serious than the ones we are discussing today. In extreme cases, young offenders are reprimanded very severely, as exemplified by the sentence handed out to the murderer of Sébastien Lacasse, whose name is used in this bill's title.
Ms. McCuaig, according to current legislation, and according to any legislation, the young people should have been dealt with well before committing murder. I don't see why we need to change the legislation to do that. Many people have told us that what this recent legislation—it's about 10 years old—is missing are not legislative provisions, but rather the resources that should have been part of the reform. In addition, the young people who committed the horrific crime you described, who torture their peers, should have been reprimanded much more severely than they were.
It seems to me that nothing in the current legislation was preventing the authorities from doing that, had they had the necessary means at their disposal.
As an Individual
The young offenders would be arrested, but judges would sentence them to probation. Parents failed to ensure that the conditions of probation were being met, so the youth were loitering on the streets and doing whatever they wanted to. The didn't go to school and didn't work. They hung around on the streets, sold drugs, beat up young girls so that they would prostitute themselves for their profit.
Bloc
Serge Ménard Bloc Marc-Aurèle-Fortin, QC
In any case, I note that in Quebec, when such cases are brought before the courts, someone keeps an eye on the young offenders involved. They are reprimanded, sent to the appropriate facility, but they are always monitored when they're out of the correctional system. This is not part of the legislation, but resources should be provided for such monitoring.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Ed Fast
We're out of time, unfortunately.
Go ahead, Mr. Comartin, for seven minutes.
NDP
Joe Comartin NDP Windsor—Tecumseh, ON
Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you, Ms. McCuaig and Mr. Rausch, for being here.
I know this is difficult, Ms. McCuaig. You have been in front of us in the past, so I know the horrible experience from your recounting of what you and your family went through, but I want to challenge you a little bit in terms of your support for this legislation. The idea behind it, according to the government's press releases and statements in the House, is that they want to target the gaps that are in the legislation, and specifically target the repeat offenders, the people who committed that horrendous crime that your family members were victims of.
However, in the course of these hearings, when we had three of the prosecutors from three separate provinces--the senior prosecutors dealing with young offenders--come before us, they said that this legislation, in three key areas, does just the opposite of what it's intended to do, and that in fact it's going to make it more difficult for our prosecutors and our judges to sentence people to adult court sentences, to hold them in custody.... I'm sorry, but off the top of my head I'm forgetting the third area. I'm not really expecting, by the way, a response from you; I just want to bring you up to date with that.
Up to this point, the government has refused to take those amendments into.... I don't know what they're going to do later this week or next week, but they haven't been dealing with this, so we're going to end up with a piece of legislation that on the surface is being touted as dealing with that really serious problem--that relatively small group of serious, repeat, and violent offenders within the youth group--but it's going to make it more difficult for the criminal justice system to deal with them. I just want you to be aware of that. Again, I don't really need a response, but you may want to go back at some point and take a look at the testimony of those three prosecutors, because it was really quite telling.
That's all I have, Mr. Chair. Thank you.
Conservative
Conservative
Bob Dechert Conservative Mississauga—Erindale, ON
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Ms. McCuaig, I want to join with my colleague, Mr. Murphy, and all the members of the committee to express my sympathy and the government's sympathy for the terrible loss of your grandson and the awful things that happened to both him and your niece, and I want to thank you for telling your story to this committee, because I think it's important that people understand and hear what happens to victims and how not just the victims themselves, but also their families, suffer. I believe that the families of the people against whom the crimes are committed are victims as well, and people should understand that.
At this committee, all too often we hear from people who are professionals in representing offenders, professionals in rehabilitation programs working with offenders, and people working with offenders in prison to make their stay in prison more comfortable and less inhumane, but we don't very often hear from the victims themselves. I think it's very important that we do, and I know it's difficult for you to recount that story to us, so thank you for sharing it with us.
I want to ask you a question, and I'll ask the same question to Mr. Rausch, because I think it is important for people to know your answer.
In your view, how does the leniency, as I think you would describe it, of the current Youth Criminal Justice Act towards repeat offenders affect the confidence of the public in Canada's criminal justice system?
As an Individual
Well, half the people I speak to all the time consider it a joke. The word on the street is you can commit as many crimes as you want until you turn 18. Now, I'm talking about drug-related and that sort of thing, not the exceptional murder, rape, and so on, but the word for the youth on the street is definitely that you can do anything you want until age 18.
One point that got lost that I wanted to bring up earlier is about releasing the name of the offender. I'll give you an example of why. A 15-year-old who, after finishing his sentence, turned 18, went back home and continued his career in pimping, beating on young ladies, making them dance nude and so on, and collecting the money. He had three young ladies going. He kept them almost locked up in apartments. They weren't allowed to go out and come in and whatever.
Anyhow, to make a long story short, his name was never published, so he would seek out these new little girls at schools and talk them into little romantic episodes, and then, whoops, it starts to be a controlling episode: “You're going to do...this”. They didn't know who they had there. They didn't know who he was. I've often wondered why there's so much emphasis on hiding their names, when anybody can walk into a courtroom at any time and hear their names mentioned the whole day long.
My point is that those young ladies were not protected, you know. They weren't.
Conservative
Bob Dechert Conservative Mississauga—Erindale, ON
Thank you.
Mr. Rausch, what's your answer? How does our current law affect the confidence of the Canadian public in our youth criminal justice system?
Reeve, Rural Municipality of Beaver River
I believe that certainly at times the suggested leniency that causes a great deal of focus on specific repeat chronic offenders has a very detrimental effect on public perception. I had just made a note as you asked the question, sir, and I believe too that it causes the people who are responsible for the delivery of justice—and also responsible for the management within municipalities, within provinces, and so on—to spend an inordinate amount of time in the management of such cases, such as in the example I suggested. I can't imagine how much time would be involved in putting together 53 individual packages for presentation.
Conservative
Bob Dechert Conservative Mississauga—Erindale, ON
Thank you.
Ms. McCuaig, you mentioned when you were recounting the story involving your niece and your grandson that the mother of one of the perpetrators had actually hoped that her daughter, I think it was, would have received a custodial sentence earlier in her history of committing crimes.
I also know someone with a similar story. They are good friends of mine who had a son who was going down a path of crime. They're both professionals, so he didn't lack for anything in terms of his home environment. He had a loving environment at home. He had all the resources that anyone could ask for, yet he committed a number of property offences that kept escalating, and they wished that the court would actually hold him in custody so that he could get some attention. Eventually he stole the family car and disappeared for several days with it and committed a number of offences with it, including theft and break and enter, and they called the police on him. He was arrested; he did get that custodial sentence for a little less than two years, and I understand that today he's doing very well. He went on to university, and they're quite proud of the way he was able to turn his life around.
What kinds of programs could these young offenders receive if they were kept in custody for some period of time?
As an Individual
You know, while attending court, of course I saw that the people who had these youths in their care would come to court and give a report on each youth, and I found them extremely biased to the youth and lying to the court, if I can put it that way. They would rush things; the youth could get, “Hurry up, hurry up--you only have two weeks to get one extra credit, and if you can get one extra credit, the judge will forgive this, this, and that.”
I don't think that's helpful. Do you? In the youth jails I find the social workers, or whatever you call them, very untrustworthy.
These parents who didn't care about their kids would come to court, and now once they're arrested for murder, they started attending the jail. They got cushy, cushy, cushy with the social workers and the caseworkers, so the first thing you know, the social workers or the caseworkers are at court with the parents, hugging the parents in front of the judge. I don't think this is good.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Ed Fast
Thank you.
We've got five minutes left. Is there anyone from the Liberals or the Bloc? Is there anyone from over here?
Go ahead, Mr. Norlock.
Conservative
Rick Norlock Conservative Northumberland—Quinte West, ON
This is just for Mr. Rausch.
Mr. Murphy, I think, hit the nail on the head when he said that you represent the first line of democracy. I have always said that municipal government provides the services that most Canadians use every single day, and the supposedly higher up you go in government, the less often people use the services of that level of government.
What I'm saying is that when you go and do your groceries, when you have your parent-teacher association, you talk to parents. When you talk to leaders of the community--I'm talking about service club folks--generally speaking, what does the general population in your municipality feel about the current law surrounding young offenders and how the law takes care of them? Do they make some suggestions to you? When they learned that you were coming here, did they make some suggestions as to what you should tell us? Please elaborate on that.
Reeve, Rural Municipality of Beaver River
Yes, sir, indeed. In that front line of municipal services, as was suggested, we have an obligation to listen carefully to our constituents. Maybe in most cases they are a little more available than yours, because we're there on a regular basis and we're amongst the people.
Many of the comments that were contained in my initial letter--and I suppose to an extent also contained within my address to you today--come from those grassroots. There is the concern that the system needs to function without being cumbersome to the extent that it can totally obliterate the normal course of the system.
I hope that answers your question.