House of Commons Hansard #69 of the 35th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament's site.) The word of the day was offenders.

Topics

Committees Of The HouseRoutine Proceedings

10 a.m.

Liberal

Nick Discepola Liberal Vaudreuil, QC

Mr. Speaker, I have the honour to present in both official languages this morning the fifth report of the Standing Committee on Finance concerning Bill S-2, an act to implement a convention between Canada and the Republic of Hungary, an agreement between Canada and the Republic of Nigeria, an agreement between Canada and the Republic of Zimbabwe, a convention between Canada and the Argentine Republic and a protocol between Canada and the Kingdom of the Netherlands for the avoidance of double taxation and the prevention of fiscal evasion with respect to income taxes and to make related amendments to other acts. The committee agreed to report the bill without amendment.

Committees Of The HouseRoutine Proceedings

10 a.m.

Kingston and the Islands Ontario

Liberal

Peter Milliken LiberalParliamentary Secretary to Leader of the Government in the House of Commons

Mr. Speaker, I think you will find unanimous consent for the following motion. I move:

That the House authorize the Subcommittee on the St. Lawrence Seaway of the Standing Committee on Transport to travel to Quebec City from May 23 to 25, 1994, to St. Catharines and Thunder Bay from May 31 to June 3, 1994, and to Washington, D.C. from June 6 to 7, 1994 for the purpose of holding informal hearings on the viability of the St. Lawrence seaway and that the necessary staff do accompany the subcommittee.

(Motion agreed to.)

Committees Of The HouseRoutine Proceedings

10 a.m.

Kingston and the Islands Ontario

Liberal

Peter Milliken LiberalParliamentary Secretary to Leader of the Government in the House of Commons

Mr. Speaker, I move:

That one researcher from the Standing Committee on Transport be authorized to attend the Canadian Transportation Research Forum in Victoria, B.C., from May 15 to May 18, 1994.

(Motion agreed to.)

Committees Of The HouseRoutine Proceedings

10:10 a.m.

Kingston and the Islands Ontario

Liberal

Peter Milliken LiberalParliamentary Secretary to Leader of the Government in the House of Commons

Mr. Speaker, I would move:

That, pursuant to Standing Order 108(2) concerning forestry practices in Canada in clear-cutting, the House authorize the Standing Committee on Natural Resources to travel from May 23 to 26, 1994 to British Columbia and Alberta, and in Ontario, Quebec and New Brunswick on May 30 and 31, 1994, and that the necessary personnel do accompany the committee.

Committees Of The HouseRoutine Proceedings

10:10 a.m.

The Acting Speaker (Mr. Kilger)

Does the hon. parliamentary secretary have the unanimous consent of the House to move the motion?

Committees Of The HouseRoutine Proceedings

10:10 a.m.

Some hon. members

No.

PetitionsRoutine Proceedings

10:10 a.m.

Liberal

Jim Jordan Liberal Leeds—Grenville, ON

Mr. Speaker, I have the privilege this morning to present this petition on behalf of citizens of my riding, places like Mallorytown and Athens and Addison and Smiths Falls and Lyn, asking for the government to amend the laws of the country to prohibit the importation, distribution, sale and manufacture of killer cards, and to advise the producers of these cards that their product, if destined for Canada, will be stopped at the border, seized and destroyed.

Questions On The Order PaperRoutine Proceedings

10:10 a.m.

Beauséjour New Brunswick

Liberal

Fernand Robichaud LiberalSecretary of State (Parliamentary Affairs)

Mr. Speaker, I ask that all questions be allowed to stand.

Questions On The Order PaperRoutine Proceedings

10:10 a.m.

The Acting Speaker (Mr. Kilger)

Is it agreed?

Questions On The Order PaperRoutine Proceedings

10:10 a.m.

Some hon. members

Agreed.

SupplyGovernment Orders

May 12th, 1994 / 10:10 a.m.

Reform

Paul Forseth Reform New Westminster—Burnaby, BC

moves:

That this House urge the government to respond to the evident lack of confidence that has arisen from Canadians over the Young Offenders Act, and recommend modification to the definition of "young persons" in section 2(1) of the act to mean a person to be ten years of age or more, but under 16 years of age.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today on a matter of national importance. Our country is hurting. The basic foundation of what we have known as peace, order and good government has been called into question by Canadians. Specifically in relation to the juvenile justice system there is anger in the land.

The community is divided and there is much fear and mistrust. Our youth, the promise for our future, are seen by many not as our hopeful legacy for tomorrow but as strangers to be feared.

Youth speak differently, they do not want to dress anything like the rest of us, they do not seem to value or give due regard to what we hold dear. It has been that way since the second world war, since the emergence of a youth subculture.

Now there is a fundamental difference. Young people are getting an unfair bad rap for our lack of courage as a community to expect and demand standards of behaviour and mete out balanced consequences when the social order is threatened by the violent young. And when some young people excessively display their youthfulness there is immediate fear and resentment from the bystander, a sense of helplessness.

There is a backdrop of community perception that there is no accounting for any behavioural excess. The right to live in peace has evaporated and the fear of violence from the few becomes transferred on to all good kids. Instead of fondly regarding our young, the image of delinquent is what too frequently comes to mind. The good many are categorized by the bad few.

Indeed there is an innate sense that the fundamental social order of the community has broken down when the average Canadian thinks of youth crime, for we have a justice system that has devolved to one of being merely a legal system that seems unresponsive and unaccountable to the community.

The Liberals gave us the Young Offenders Act. The Conservatives tinkered with it. We have now lived with its consequences for 10 years and I have heard loud and clear that voters in my riding and all across Canada do not like the YOA. They will no longer tolerate the YOA in its present form.

I do not need to remind my colleagues in this House that the buck stops here. We have brought forward our motion today on behalf of the millions of Canadians who said clearly to candidates in the last election that specifically the Young Offenders Act is not what the country wants.

This national concern involves a sense of public security and the ability of the government to fulfil its most fundamental duty to protect and defend the citizenry.

My motion before the House today says:

That this House urge the government to respond to the evident lack of confidence that has arisen from Canadians over the Young Offenders Act, and recommend modification to the definition of "young person" in section 2(1) of the act to mean a person to be ten years of age or more, but under sixteen years of age.

It is simply put but I am all too aware of the issues that are not simple. Changing one statute is not going to solve all the problems of youth crime and social conflict but we must make a start and the Young Offenders Act is itself a reasonable place to begin justice reform.

Through change we can set a climate of balance and reasonableness that appropriately understands human nature and the propensities for greed, selfishness and personal denial of accountability.

The Young Offenders Act reflects an unrealistic view of ourselves as a society and it also has rejected the wise parent model of the preceding juvenile delinquents act. There was a mistaken belief that grand schemes of top down, social do-goodism would reform human nature. When the community experienced in real terms the pragmatic results of what had been done to it by this House, the reaction of revulsion began to build.

While the Young Offenders Act formalized old informal practices, guaranteed access to legal counsel and made a more litigious process, the essence of the act sent the wrong message to the community. To verify and bolster those notions to the doubting Liberals who are loathe to admit that they were sorely wrong, Reformers are trying other measures to check perceptions of what the community appears to want.

We now have the technology to have universal suffrage on individual issues of the day. MT&T Technologies televoting service makes universal suffrage a reality. It enables all citizens to vote in an election or respond to a question of the day by using the telephone.

Voters call a special telephone number to access the teledemocracy system and enter their own personal identification number, or PIN number. After hearing the survey questions, voters press a key to vote yes or no and, then press the pound key to confirm their vote.

It provides a cost effective way to poll a large group of people on an issue. It is an ideal process to gather information, confirm proposals and it provides an additional check on attitudes beyond opinion sampling and traditional methods. The accuracy of what polling companies produce is always a problem of sample size, structure and other things. The MT&T Technologies televoting service provides the largest possible sample size even beyond what traditional paper balloting and a general election might provide.

My colleague, the member for North Vancouver, has signed a contract to experiment with this technology on the questions of the Young Offenders Act. When Reformers set aside one of their few allotted days to bring a motion of debate to this House, we are following the bottom up community accountability model that is at the heart of the Reform Party.

We are prepared to test in scientific terms with the real broad base data what the community mood is and verify what we have already come up with through traditional methods. If anyone wants to learn more about this process, call anytime to area code (604) 666-8378. I will repeat that number again in a moment.

In addition to the specific televote that will take place in North Vancouver in June, there will also be a more general style of phone in opinion poll at the same time available to the whole country. If the media has the social responsibility to report it, people across the country will hear the number and be able to participate.

One need not only take the Reform Party's word that the community is fed up with the Young Offenders Act. We will be checking again through the method of teledemocracy. The Young Offenders Act is the title of it and I say let it live up to its name and be amended so that it truly deals with young offenders, not youthful adults.

There are many ideas for changing the statute. I heard scores of them from criminologists, program analysis bureaucrats of provincial ministries, from police, street workers and above all, young people themselves. I am speaking from years of experience working within the juvenile justice system and I ask who runs the justice system anyway, the criminals, the lawyers, the courts, correctional authorities, probation and parole officers? That seems to be how it has operated.

There have been some partial attempts here and there to keep the community involved but the broad community must have ownership in the operations of the justice system. It should not operate solely in a delegated sense, what government does for us in what we cannot do for ourselves.

While the social order begins at the family unit and should be supported and enhanced by our institutions, schools and community organizations, at some point the buck stops.

For juvenile crime community accountability arises in the formal court proceedings. When the bottom line is too diffuse there is unnecessary hurt and injury to the innocent. The community must have the tools to publicly denounce behaviour that is unacceptable.

Canadians want action. We can move beyond just a desire for peace, order and good government to a land that is just, that cares for its victims and casualties. We must protect the weak and innocent as we deal courageously with offenders. There are many ways to teach productive conflict resolution. We must break the cycle of kids who are hurting who go on to hurt others.

I have heard a bulging briefcase full of reasons why we should not do this or that with the Young Offenders Act. I bring to this House some personal experiences. I will recount how the Young Offenders Act did not serve them when they somehow became involved as victims.

I recall Darrel who at 11 years old was lighting fires at school and in the neighbourhood. The school had some difficulties handling him. The social worker from social services had nothing to offer the parents other than a parenting course and a medical referral through their doctor for a six month wait to see a child psychiatrist.

He was too young for the Young Offenders Act. Group homes could not not accommodate a pyromaniac. The impulsive lad wanted help, he wanted controls and those who knew him were in fear of what he might do next. As a probation officer all I could do was assess and refer.

Despite the best efforts of loving parents, when subsequently showing off to friends Darrel started a fire in the elementary school in the evening. When the fire was noticed by the neighbours they saw kids running. When all was said and done, $1 million later half the school and burned down and 600 students were displaced for a year.

As he was not a child in need of care and protection social welfare had no mandate. Mental health had no mandate other than providing community family therapy as the lad was not mentally disturbed. Darrel needed the cycle of his anger and self-centredness broken by a formal court denunciation. He could have also benefited from a court ordered correctional style wilderness camp program. That did come later when he was 12. The YOA did not serve him or the community.

I remember Brent. He had always been wilful, taking things that did not belong to him. He worked his way through the YOA diversions, restitution orders, community work service hours, very short term custody and the extensive probation order conditions. He was given break after break. His juvenile file I

called one of those 10-pounders. At 17 he murdered an acquaintance with a stab to the chest.

Brent was a time bomb waiting to go off as he dared the authorities to knock the chip off his shoulder. He took a life instead. That is not the end of it. He was placed on remand in custody in the youth detention centre. His girlfriend was allowed to visit with his mother and many friends. Visiting in a youth custody centre especially for someone only on a remand before any guilty finding was fairly lax. He and his girlfriend quarrelled and he hanged himself in the shower. When they cut him down he was brain damaged. Forever now he will be supported by the province as an invalid who cannot look after himself, hardly able to say a word, barely recognizing anyone. The YOA did not serve him nor the dead victim nor the extended family members.

He planned his hell raising until he turned 18 like the bad example of his brother before him, but this time it did not work out. A different law would have made a difference. These are just two examples from my personal experience that would have turned out very differently had the YOA been constituted the way I am recommending today.

We have some specific proposals. If Reform were government today we would have already acted. The motion today of course is the most fundamental. I can just imagine the reaction from the Prime Minister to what we will be saying today from this corner of the House-a shrug, a recounting that some want a little of this and some want a little of that; but we are not going to panic, just trust us, stress the positive, do not worry, be happy, this is really what the Canadians want to hear.

However, let Canada remember this day who was the justice minister when the Young Offenders Act was passed. It was the Prime Minister. What a legacy he has left us. If people want to blame someone for the juvenile justice system the blame can rightfully be laid at the cabinet door of this government.

The east-west cold war is over. The major threat to our communities now is from within, our own inaction to preserve, protect and defend.

Sadly our laws and mores have been driven by the cultural conceits that took hold during the heyday of counterculture, including a denial of personal responsibility and the fantasy that coercive power of big government can produce an uplift to the spirit, cure poverty and bigotry, legislate economic growth and stamp out any number of individual and social inadequacies.

In the 1980s the Young Offenders Act initially took up and formalized the best of what we in British Columbia had already been doing for years with diversion strategies, alternative measures, forest camps, borstals, volunteer probation programs, open custody units and local level innovation.

Then the spirit of innovation was bargained away at the last minute against the best advice just to get a deal with the divided provinces. If we did nothing else to this act than change the age of application it would go a long way to an efficacious result and assuage public concern.

The Young Offenders Act should apply to 10 to 15-year olds inclusive, not the current 12 to 17 years inclusive.

Next, provision 3.1 of the declaration of principle section should include the needs and rights of victims equally with the concerns of the offender. Section 9.7 should include provisions to have victims formally notified of court proceedings as well as the parents of a young offender. Section 16, transfers to adult court, should be possible for any youth under the act not just those 14 years and over.

The crown prosecutor should have the prerogative to proceed directly in adult court without transfer hearings against youths 14 and over where the crown believes circumstances warrant. There is no need for a long trial to decide where the real trial will be heard in such circumstances.

Section 17 should simply be repealed. The public has a right to know about young offender transfer hearings. Although youth court is usually open to the public one cannot publish or report any part of the proceedings that would identify the offender.

Under section 22 related to mental health treatment the judge should not need the permission of the offender he is sentencing to impose an order to attend a program.

Section 24, when a judge sentences to custody, should be just that, custody. The correctional authorities administer what kind of custody, assigning offenders within the range of open and closed facilities as the changing needs arise as in the adult sector. Let the jailers do the jailing and the courts do the sentencing.

Section 38 should be repealed and nothing should be substituted. When the law is broken an offender's right of privacy about their offence should not exist. Crime needs to be exposed, not hidden.

Section 44.1 should permit as well appropriate dissemination of youth records and materials also to school board authorities. Section 46 against prohibition of disclosure of identifying a youth should also be repealed. There should be no restrictions. Justice must be seen to be done as well as done.

Section 45.1 should be repealed and not replaced with any other measure. A youth court should be a criminal record and the rules dealing with those records should be one and the same as adult records.

A new measure should be added to section 50.1 and it should be that if a parent fails to reasonably exercise parental duty the court should be able to order the parent to pay a victim compensation for property loss for vandalism.

Section 56 should be repealed as the common law practice and current court rules in regular courts are more than sufficient to deal with statements made by offenders for evidence. If it is good enough for the regular court system it should be good enough for young offenders.

Finally, the operation of show-cause hearings and the interim release on bail for offenders must be tightened up to stop the revolving door. There is nothing more disheartening to citizens than to see charged offenders on the street the next day after the arrest.

There must be a surety that offending will be reported and denounced by a formal process. Both the offender and the offended must be responded to. The offender must realize and feel the impact of their criminal behaviour on victims and receive consequences commensurate to the crime.

Victims must be helped and restored as far as that is possible by both a caring community and a justice system that will defend them.

In closing, I summarize by saying I have outlined today specific proposals that are needed to bring confidence back to the juvenile justice system. Canadians want sweeping change now not another study, commission or round of extensive consultations. The minister has in his hand over 1,000 recent submissions from Canadians. We have done more than enough of that sort of thing.

If the community wants to be involved to directly share its views, call the telephone number I am about to give and learn how to use MT&T Technologies televoting service. Send this government a message. Call area code (604) 666-8378 and interact with the line to learn more about how the televoting service will be used in June. The evidence is in on what the public wants. It remains to be seen if the government has the will to respond.

SupplyGovernment Orders

10:30 a.m.

Liberal

Tom Wappel Liberal Scarborough West, ON

Mr. Speaker, I enjoyed the comments of the hon. member and I share his view that Canadians are most dissatisfied with the Young Offenders Act.

However I am somewhat concerned that on the eve of a re-examination of the Young Offenders Act, or a first examination of the Young Offenders Act on its 10th anniversary, it would appear the member has his mind closed before we have even begun to examine and test the 10 years' experience we have under the Young Offenders Act.

The Young Offenders Act is not a creature that was spawned out of nowhere. This is the successor act to the Juvenile Delinquents Act of 1911. Many of the things that the hon. member is complaining about were dealt with in the Juvenile Delinquents Act. When Parliament in the mid-eighties decided to bring the treatment of young offenders into the eighties, instead of into the early 1900s, certain decisions were made.

I understand the hon. member's comments, and he was very specific in the sections of the act, but I want to be more general. The general philosophy is that there is a difference between a young offender, particularly a first time young offender, and an adult who has committed an offence against the Criminal Code. I am not talking here about repeat offenders.

This is my question for the hon. member. I wonder if he has a problem with the philosophy that a young person, perhaps 12 or 13 years old, who for whatever reason, whatever economic circumstances may be, walks into a local convenience store and steals a chocolate bar or some other small item, perhaps a pen for school, and is apprehended. Does he think that young person should be treated in exactly the same way as an adult criminal? I do not think so.

As a society we believe that young people make mistakes. They are not adults. They do things wrong. I am not talking about murder. I am not talking about violent offences. I am not talking about people who thumb their noses at the court system because they have been in it 15 times. I am talking about the person who makes a mistake and should in my view be given a chance to rehabilitate himself without having the stigma of a record and without having the stigma of classmates, et cetera, knowing what happened.

I speak from personal experience. I will not go into a long speech. I had a friend that this exact thing happened to under the juvenile delinquents act. His name was never published. Nothing ever came out. He did not appear in adult court. He was treated under the juvenile delinquents act. It was a humiliating experience for him. He is a fine, upstanding citizen today, has never been in trouble with the law since the age of 14. I hate to think what would have happened if we had been spreading his name all over the place.

Is there not room in the Young Offenders Act for first offenders and treating young people differently on their first offence than adults?

SupplyGovernment Orders

10:30 a.m.

Reform

Paul Forseth Reform New Westminster—Burnaby, BC

Yes, Mr. Speaker, I would like to respond. Certainly this is not the first examination of juvenile justice. The Young Offenders Act has been amended since first passage. I also remind him that I was a part of trying to administer the old juvenile delinquents act in the field and was a part of federal-provincial conferences that went on for years, round and round.

I am saying perhaps our mind is closed, but others have resisted the response from the community. The basic example that he provided was of a first-time young person who makes a mistake and steals a chocolate bar. In my experience in the practice in British Columbia, that person would not be charged

but they would be dealt with through alternative measures of the Young Offenders Act.

Similarly an adult, a first-time offender, who steals a chocolate bar in the adult system would not be charged either but would also be referred by the crown for adult diversion.

There is more than enough discretion at all levels of the justice system for it to operate and accommodate the extreme examples cited.

My point is that we need some balance and proportionality. It is not a matter of social philosophy coming from a particular political point of view. It is the experience of communities right across this nation that has arisen from the practical application of the act in the community. If it was the appropriate balance, one would expect that the community would be responding in an appropriate way with some measure of confidence. However, the lack of confidence related in our motion is what we have and that is the empirical evidence of results in the field.

SupplyGovernment Orders

10:35 a.m.

Bloc

Michel Bellehumeur Bloc Berthier—Montcalm, QC

Mr. Speaker, I listened closely both to the speech of the member who moved the Reform Party motion and to the comments of the other member, and I am not convinced, as has just been stated, that all Canadians are dissatisfied with the current Young Offenders Act. I think that as far as the public is concerned, this is a highly emotional issue. It is a subject ideally suited to long philosophical debates and above all, I do not feel that the average joe should have the final say on this matter merely by picking up a telephone and registering his views.

Young people are treated differently by the print media and we are seeing this more and more, precisely because we are dealing with a young person. Stories involving youths make the front page in all of the tabloids. Recently, one particular case in the region received front-page coverage for an entire week, and it is still being talked about today. I think that the newspapers make a big issue of it when a typical case arises and that their coverage directly influences how people feel.

I am somewhat disappointed with the comments of the member who moved the motion, in that he never quoted statistics to support his proposed amendments. He never once mentioned if indeed the crime rate among young persons between the ages of 10 and 12 had increased dramatically, to the point where drastic action was required to deal with the situation.

Well, I have some statistics which I would like to share with him and I would be interested in getting his comments.

The most telling figures are those concerning the homicide rate among young people. I think this is the issue which the motion before us wants to address. In 1981-I do not have very recent figures but I was told yesterday in response to my inquiries that the data is being compiled and that I would get it eventually- thirteen murders were committed by young people in Quebec, and thirty-four elsewhere in Canada. In 1982, nine such cases were reported in Quebec and twenty-three elsewhere in Canada, and for 1983, there were three cases in Quebec and twenty elsewhere in Canada. The most recent figures I have are for 1986 when six murders were committed by young people in Quebec, and twenty-two by young people elsewhere in Canada.

Furthermore, the general crime rate among young people has declined by 8 per cent in the province of Quebec, and by 34 per cent in the metropolitan Montreal area. There were 34 per cent fewer crimes in 1993 than in 1992. Does the member have statistics to the contrary? If so, I would ask that he disclose them so as to justify the motion put before us this morning.

SupplyGovernment Orders

10:35 a.m.

Reform

Paul Forseth Reform New Westminster—Burnaby, BC

Mr. Speaker, I certainly question the statement, "where Canadians are coming from". I believe the motion today represents a nation's outcry of dissatisfaction with the Young Offenders Act.

As far as the statistics that he quotes are concerned, I would have to examine them. We are not saying that we have a massive crime wave from young offenders. We are saying that the community is basically at a disadvantage with the operations of the juvenile justice system.

Beyond just quoting statistics, the law must be educative. It also must send the right message to the community. When you ask young people where I come from what is their view of the Young Offenders Act, they think it is a soft touch, that it is inappropriate. The act must represent what is socially appropriate in our nation.

We say the title of the Young Offenders Act truly must deal with young offenders.

In this age of social sophistication, certainly someone who is old enough to get a driver's licence and aim that weapon of a car down the street should be held accountable for their driving offences, their drunk driving or whatever it may be in a regular adult court system.

SupplyGovernment Orders

10:40 a.m.

Cape Breton—The Sydneys Nova Scotia

Liberal

Russell MacLellan LiberalParliamentary Secretary to Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada

Mr. Speaker, it gives me a great deal of pleasure to speak on this motion this morning because it is a very important topic.

As the member who presented the motion has said, it is of concern to a great many Canadians. However this concern is not necessarily for the reasons that he said. There is a great deal of concern in Canada for our youth, for our next generation; where they are going and what they will have when they become adults and lead the actual direction of the country.

We in the Liberal Party will be bringing forward legislation in June to deal with some of the concerns that the hon. member has brought forward. Whether these changes will meet with his approval or not, no one can say until he actually sees them. We will, however, be bringing forward a first phase in June that will deal with changes to the Young Offenders Act and to some degree will harshen penalties for young offenders.

The second phase is a study beginning in the fall of the Young Offenders Act. This complete review of the Young Offenders Act will determine what changes should be made to the act in light of the changes that were being recommended in June, and other changes which need to be made to accommodate the concerns of the people of Canada.

We will be hearing witnesses and the committee, I presume, will be travelling. It will be a complete and detailed study. The concern of course is that we must look at this act not from the point of view of a concern of the people of Canada-

SupplyGovernment Orders

10:40 a.m.

An hon. member

No?

SupplyGovernment Orders

10:40 a.m.

Liberal

Russell MacLellan Liberal Cape Breton—The Sydneys, NS

-but also from the concern of the young people themselves. We must look at the young people as being part of the people of Canada.

There is tremendous concern in the public but it is a concern for the safety of Canadians. It is concern with the youth and it is concern about where we are going as a country. We need to look at this question completely.

The hon. member who presented the motion states that we should reduce the maximum age of the young offender from 18 to 16 and the minimum age from 12 to 10. This is a dramatic change and one that will come up in our study of the Young Offenders Act in the fall.

Let me take the first part, the reduction of the maximum age from 18 to 16. We are saying that there has to be punishment for young offenders but we are not saying that young offenders are going to be put away for the rest of their natural lives. Even if we have transfers and these young people serve the full 25 years, someone who is 17 will be out before even middle age.

We have to acknowledge that these young offenders will be back on the street. What kind of people are we going to put back on the street? We send some young offenders, 16 to 18, to a maximum security penitentiary. Some might have to. Some might be considered as incorrigible.

As a rule of thumb, if we take away the Young Offenders Act for that two year period we will be sending young people 16 and 17 years old to penitentiary, not necessarily for murder and not necessarily for violent crimes. That is not going to be in the act. There is no way of saying we have to restrict these young people going to maximum security because they committed a murder or a violent crime. We are taking them off the Young Offenders Act. They will have to forage for themselves if they are in the system in the same way as somebody 35 or 40 years old. They will be in a penitentiary and open to sexual and physical abuse.

If that is what the hon. member and the Reform Party wants, then they should come forward and say it. However, that is not going to give us the type of person we want in our society upon release after they have paid their debt to society. What we want to do is try to put somebody back in society who is not going to reoffend, not somebody who is so mad and bitter at society and what it has done that they will want to reoffend to get back at society.

Sure, there has to be protection. Certainly we have to protect the victims. There is no question that legislation first and foremost has to be concerned with that, but we also have to have rehabilitation. There are people who say that rehabilitation is just soft peddling the treatment we are going to give to the offender but that is not the case.

Rehabilitation is going to be a vital part of our society whether we like it or not. If we do not have rehabilitation for children at risk in one form or another we are going to have chaos in our society. Our young people are going to be the source of criticism for all of the adults in Canada.

Why should this be? Why should we in Canada be at war and at loggerheads with our own youth? Why should we say we are making young people the objects of concern and fear in our country? Young people are committing crimes and we say they have to be punished. They have to be punished with the victim and the Canadian public primarily in mind, but remember also the fact that the youth will be back in our society.

That is just one aspect and it is not the one which is going to have the utmost importance in the long term. We have to punish the offenders now. More important and for a more sweeping benefit to society, we have to do everything we possibly can to stop crime from happening in the future.

That is why the main thrust of this government in justice and public safety has to be crime prevention. That is not just crime prevention of those who have already committed crimes; it is to prevent crime from happening.

As we learned in the justice committee in the last Parliament, the older a young person is, the less likely rehabilitation is to have an effect. It is vitally important that rehabilitation start at the very moment children are determined to be at risk. A psychiatrist who appeared before the justice committee told us

that the most important age for preventing children at risk and dealing with this concern is from the day the child is born to his or her third birthday. That is a very young age.

We have to look at this. We have to look at custody. We have to look at foster homes. So many young people are moved from one foster home to another. There is no bonding with any one family. That is a concern we will have to deal with.

We are concerned that there are single parents who have to work but do not have anybody to look after their children after school because they cannot afford daycare. That is something we will have to consider. We may not like it and we may not think we should be bothered with it but we have to consider it and deal with it.

There is divorce in this country and there are single parents. We have to recognize that these things are in our society and we have to work together. This is one community. We have to bring the provinces onside about rehabilitating young offenders, about diversification programs and community work instead of putting them in detention.

We also have to do something in the schools. The federal government cannot tell the provinces what must be done in the schools; it is a provincial jurisdiction. Sure we have the Canada food guide and we tell young people what they should and should not be eating, but we have to respect the Constitution. However we have to work with the provinces on spotting these children at risk while they are in the schools to try to deal with them. We have to support our teachers and one another provincially and federally in this very important area. If we do not, we will surely lose many of our young people.

Young people do commit crimes and it is a tragedy for the victims. The victims are going to lose their children who in many cases have been murdered by young offenders. The parents will never get over this ultimate tragedy. Surely there is no greater tragedy for a parent. I do not think anyone in this House would minimize that. Every time I think about this it sends chills through me. That is something we are going to have to deal with regarding young offenders and a punishment will be needed.

However we also have to try to spot these young people who may commit murder or other crimes in the future, and rehabilitate them before they actually commit a crime. That is a vital aspect of the society in which we live.

The most important area is one we keep covering up and that is child abuse. It is now being determined that as high as 80 per cent of adults who commit child sexual abuse were themselves sexually abused. The studies show no differentiation indicating that a child who is sexually abused one time as opposed to 20 times that the child is going to be more of an abuser or less of an abuser.

The fact remains if a child is sexually abused we can say without any hesitation that child stands a greater than 50 per cent chance of abusing a child. That is a frightening statistic. However, if we do not start dealing with crime prevention, it is going to escalate. Child sexual abuse will be with us in at least the proportions it is now.

We have to address this concern. We have to because it is ruining children's lives. We have to look at the question of child prostitution. There are pimps who use children of any age now, 12 years or younger, but certainly under the age of 18 and they profit financially from their prostitution.

What is that doing to those young people? What kind of punishment are we giving these pimps? Some would say it is absolutely devastating the lives of those young people. It is psychologically hurting and damaging them beyond repair. Their adult lives will not have anywhere near the meaning they would have had if this had not happened to them.

These are questions society has to deal with. How are we going to deal with them? Sure, we are going to deal with crimes by punishing the offenders, but we as Canadians have to examine this whole question of children at risk in our society.

This has to be done by bringing forward a national council on crime prevention, as the Minister of Justice is proposing. It will have representatives from various federal and provincial departments and other organizations. It will look at this whole question and at legislation to see if it deals with every aspect that could lessen and prevent crime in our society.

As communities we have to get people working together: the police, Children's Aid, Elizabeth Fry, John Howard, drug dependency, and Alcoholics Anonymous. As individuals in our community we have to look at this question from the point of view of children in our neighbourhoods and stop crime before it happens. We have to help young people, not as parents, uncles, aunts or other relatives, but as members of the community. We have to realize that unless we do that we are going to have escalating offences by youth.

We have to look at it from that point of view, but the fact is we are not. In some of our cities there are young people of colour who have come to Canada from other countries with minimal education. They may be 16 or 17 years old. They are not going to sit in a classroom with children 10 years younger than they are. They do not have jobs. There is still a lot of prejudice out there. There is also the fact that we are not employing our young people the way we should. There are things against these young people.

What are they going to do? They want those things young people feel they can aspire to, so a lot of them turn to drugs and crime. We have to examine that. We cannot ignore that in our inner cities. It has been ignored in the United States and look what has happened. There are certain parts of cities in the United States the police will not even go into. Is that what we want? No.

We have to salvage these lives not only for the benefit of the individuals themselves, but for all Canadians so that they will be contributing to our country's future. This country is going to be in the hands of these young people in a few years.

I want members of the House to talk to young people. I do not want them to forgive their crimes. I do not want them to say the crimes they are committing are right or that they are misunderstood. That does not help them. It does not help to put them in detention and have them play pool and watch television. They have to realize this is a harsh world. They know this, but it is from a different perspective.

Young people are really scared. They do not see a future for themselves. They do not see the jobs. A lot of them have problems in school and at home. A lot of them feel society is mixed up. We are not concerned with one another and that bothers young people. Young people do not become cynical and uncaring until they become adults. Young people are concerned that we are not looking out for one another and that we are not listening to their concerns. We must listen.

We have to start with identifying children at risk. We have to look at our society and ask how as Canadians we can help these young people. If we do that we will reduce crime. If we can stop sexual child abuse we will help future generations. We will be working with Canadians of the future. We have to bring forward changes to the Young Offenders Act because society is ahead of us; we have not kept pace with the situation out there right now.

It gives me no pleasure to say that we have to create harsher penalties for young offenders; but we have to because of the situation that exists right now. We have allowed the situation to get out of hand. We as parliamentarians cannot allow it to become worse. We cannot allow the situation to escalate.

We have to deal with crime. We have to deal with the causes of crime. We have to say to our young people: "We want to work with you for the benefit of Canada. You obey the laws and we will do our best to understand what you are going through and what your problems are".

Eighteen is the age used throughout the world. It is the age recognized by the United Nations. Rolling the age back from 18 to 16 will not help youth in our society. The government will address changes to the Young Offenders Act beginning in June. We also have to address the causes of crime and understanding our youth.

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11 a.m.

Reform

Leon Benoit Reform Vegreville, AB

Mr. Speaker, frankly I have sat through this presentation just shaking my head. I have heard a lot more of the same: what we have heard from bleeding heart Liberals over the past 10 years. I am really concerned about that.

It was reflected in the hon. member's statement about 16-year-olds ending up in the prison system and being abused by 30 and 40 year old prisoners. Instead of dealing with the problem directly by fixing up the prison system, he used that as an argument against our changes in age in the Young Offenders Act. Again and again I have seen problems being dealt with in any way but a direct, head on approach. I think we need more direct dealing with problems head on.

I have a comment and a question for the member. I think he argued in favour of the change we are proposing when he talked about pimps. The hon. member asked what kind of punishment we were giving to pimps. Does he not think that there are more and more 16 and 17 year old pimps who are covered under the Young Offenders Act and cannot be dealt with properly?

That question and the answer to that question support the argument in favour of the changes we are proposing today. I would just ask the hon. member if that is the case.

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11 a.m.

Liberal

Russell MacLellan Liberal Cape Breton—The Sydneys, NS

Mr. Speaker, prostitution and juvenile prostitution in society are escalating. We could say there are more pimps under and over the age of 18 years than there were ever before. That is a fact in our society; that is happening.

To say that this is a reason for toughening the Young Offenders Act does not make sense to me. There are laws to deal with pimps and those who profit from youth prostitution. We have to look at those laws. We have to examine them to see if they are strong enough. There is no question. That is why I raised it.

The fact of the matter is that we have to look at why we have 16-year old pimps. How does this happen in society? Will punishing them stop it? It has never stopped it before. The only way we can stop it is to try to get to the root of the problem in society. We have to do that.

To say it is simplistic and we are glossing over the problem is the furthest thing from the truth. Crime prevention and citizen participation in crime prevention are everybody's business.

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11:05 a.m.

Bloc

Benoît Tremblay Bloc Rosemont, QC

Mr. Speaker, I listened carefully to the hon. parliamentary secretary to the Minister of Justice and I must say that I agree to a great extent with his diagnosis and the values on which his position is based. Having worked with him for several months on the issue of gun control

when he was in opposition, I recognize today both his open-mindedness and his concern.

There is one aspect of his approach however that leaves me wondering about what will happen in the communities in the future. While I agree on the whole with his position on youth in general, we know young repeat offenders present specific problems. I think special attention should be paid to that aspect, particularly to adults using young people to commit crimes.

We have seen it happen in the context of cigarette smuggling. It was obvious in that case, but it also exists elsewhere and there are no provisions on this at present. We should look not only at young offenders but also at the adults who exploit them. Perhaps that aspect of the legislation is the one that needs the most to be changed, to ensure that adults who use young people to commit crimes be given punishments commensurate with their actions. So, the problem is not only with the Young Offenders Act, but also with the law as it applies to the adults who exploit them.

We are well aware, in the present belt-tightening climate, and that is my main concern, that public services for the young people in general will not be expanded. Let us face it, public services are undergoing cuts. But at a time when public services do not expand, a special effort must be made to strengthen the mechanisms and tools of community spirit.

Take the current situation in a riding like mine where we have youth centers and, in neighbourhoods where there is more violence or prostitution, we also have streetworkers from community organizations. Do you know what these organizations live on? They live on temporary job creation programs, commonly called DEPs or section 25s.

Right now in Montreal, do you know what the situation is since April 1? We are told there will be no more regular DEPs, and operating funds for section 25 programs will be cut. We are talking about insignificant amounts in the scheme of things, a few million in a $20 billion budget. Can the parliamentary secretary at least undertake to send a clear message to the Minister of Human Resources Development so that, in an urban area like ours, such inexpensive programs be maintained to support community spirit because these are being chipped away as it is? The very means on which we are supposed to build a better society are being taken away.

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11:05 a.m.

Liberal

Russell MacLellan Liberal Cape Breton—The Sydneys, NS

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the comments of the hon. member. I must say I agree with a lot of what he has said.

It is a concern. In the province of Quebec a year or so ago they advertised publicly for women who were being abused to come to the shelters or to the available facilities to receive treatment and help. Within a matter of a few weeks the facilities were so overloaded they had to stop the advertising. That gives us an idea of the problem there.

With respect to assistance, assistance has to be maintained. The Minister of Human Resources Development understands that. I have spoken with him on this matter. I made another suggestion which the provinces could maybe deal with. We have a pilot project in New Brunswick where a thousand or so older members of society who are 55 to 65 years of age but not retired are guaranteed so many weeks work in the community. There is no reason the work in the community could not be with young people, dealing with children at risk. We have people with knowledge of computers and various sports organizations who could perhaps work with some young people in society.

There are ways to do it. If all members of the House come forward with suggestions and we work together we can do it. With the co-operation of the provinces we can make a meaningful contribution.

SupplyGovernment Orders

11:10 a.m.

Liberal

Tom Wappel Liberal Scarborough West, ON

Mr. Speaker, the Reform Party motion is rather specific in what it is proposing, namely the reduction of the age limits from 12 to 10 years and from 18 to 16 years. We know the tragic case of the young lad who was killed in England by two people under the age of 12 years. If that case had happened in Canada absolutely nothing could have been done.

My question for the parliamentary secretary is rather specific. We know the Minister of Justice will be referring the entire Young Offenders Act to the justice committee. Is he aware whether there will be any restrictions placed on the examination, or will it be a completely wide open ability for the committee to look at everything including the reduction of age limits?

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11:10 a.m.

Liberal

Russell MacLellan Liberal Cape Breton—The Sydneys, NS

Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. member for that question because I think it is very helpful.

The examination by the justice committee will be without any kind of bounds or governors, whatsoever. The committee is free to make whatever recommendations and proposals it wants. There will not be any attempt to try to restrict the thinking or the activity.

I would go so far as to say that the legislation the Minister of Justice will be bringing forward in June and will be passed prior to the report of the justice committee is open for review, even though it would be passed before the actual study by the committee.

SupplyGovernment Orders

11:10 a.m.

Reform

Allan Kerpan Reform Moose Jaw—Lake Centre, SK

Mr. Speaker, in the member's statement he outlined his concerns for the fact that we may send young people under 18 years to penitentiary or to prison. I do not think that is the issue here. I think crime is the issue and the Young Offenders Act is the issue.

If they are prepared to commit the crime they ought to be prepared to do the time. That is the penalty or the price they pay for antisocial behaviour in this country.

What does the member say to victims of young offenders' crime? The case that comes to mind very quickly is the Martensville case in Saskatchewan. I know personally some of the victims. What does the member say to the parents and the grandparents of two and three year old children? Does he say that we cannot send young offenders to prison because they may get sexually abused or that it is not a nice place? How would the member handle that?