Madam Speaker, 35 years ago, I opted for a career in education, specifically in the training of pre-school and primary school teachers.
I also decided to speak for those who have no voice, the children and adolescents who rarely get an opportunity to express their views, defend their position or demand their rights. Therefore, I am especially pleased to speak today to this debate on Bill C-37, An Act to amend the Young Offenders Act and the Criminal Code.
At the outset, I want the House to know that I fully support the amendment proposed by the hon. member for Saint-Hubert who is also the justice critic for the official opposition. This overly regressive bill should not proceed beyond second reading and should be withdrawn by the government.
Moreover, the amendment states that the Young Offenders Act "introduces no concrete measure for the rehabilitation of young offenders" and "does not encourage the provinces to take legislative or other measures necessary in order to set up comprehensive crime prevention programs".
I would like to add my voice to those of my colleagues and join the broad consensus in Quebec which opposes any attempts to make the provisions of the Young Offenders Act more stringent. In the time allotted to me, I would like to outline our main reasons for opposing this bill.
First of all, far be it for me to deny the existence of youth crime and violence, much less to minimize the seriousness of the problem. In point of fact, vile, unacceptable crimes such as premeditated murder are committed by juvenile delinquents. The present system acts as a kind of safety valve and works well in that the existing legislation already makes it possible to transfer such cases to adult court and to sentence the offenders accordingly.
During 1992-93, 33 cases involving serious crimes were transferred to adult court. The problem is that we do not have the data to confirm or invalidate the government's decision to move in this direction. As for other serious crimes which can be categorized as relational crimes, reintegration into Canadian society should be the preferred approach.
The legislator showed that social reintegration was one of its main concerns, as he clearly stated in the principle of the bill by including Paragraphs a ) and c .1) in Clause 1, and I quote: Crime prevention is essential to the long-term protection of society and requires addressing the underlying causes of crime by young persons and developing multi-disciplinary approaches to identifying and effectively responding to children and young persons at risk of committing offending behaviours in the future''. The bill goes on to say:
The protection of society, which is a primary objective of the criminal law applicable to youth, is best served by rehabilitation, wherever possible, of young persons who commit offences, and rehabilitation is best achieved by addressing the needs and circumstances of a young person that are relevant to the young person's offending behaviour''.
Where the shoe pinches is that the legislator's goodwill does not extend beyond stating these nice principles. Too bad. The Minister of Justice had everything he needed to bring about the changes that would have made the youth justice system more efficient. He financed a late-February seminar hosted by the University of Toronto's criminology centre. This seminar brought together a group of experts including academics, government officials and professionals working in the field of youth justice.
The introduction to the final report dated March 28, 1994 says that the purpose of the seminar is explicit in its very title, "Beyond the Red Book: A Workshop on Recommendations for Amendments to the Young Offenders Act". What is the minister proposing to us in his bill? The promises in the red book, and nothing that goes beyond this now outdated document. Nothing takes into consideration the opinion of the experts who met at that seminar to advise the minister-at great expense to the taxpayers, need I remind you.
They give themselves a clear conscience. They study. They consult. But why, I ask you, Madam Speaker, since everything was already in the red book. So the essential amendments in this bill concern heavier penalties for serious crimes and the presumption of referral to adult court.
A reference document dated May 1994 and published by the Department of Justice says that the public is very concerned about the need to control youth crime and to protect society. Therefore some believe that stricter sentences are the best way to deter young people from committing criminal acts.
By the way, what does the experts' famous report say about stiffer sentences? I quote:
"Variation in dispositional severity will have little, if any, impact on crime" and "there is no obvious pressure within the youth justice system for higher maximum penalties".
In other words, the experts who rely on facts, on their experience, on what they see, contradict those who rely on perceptions and their own imagination: tougher sentences are not the way to reduce youth crime.
Faced with this dilemma, what does the minister do? He decides not to take the path suggested by his experts. He even ignores the fine principles set forth at the beginning of his own bill and he opts for more severe sentences. Nevertheless, this same document issued by the department says: "All our efforts in criminal justice seek to prevent crime, including youth crime. Prosecuting someone who committed a crime may provide some comfort to the victim and reassure the public, but it cannot be as satisfactory as preventing the crime as such.
It is often harder to implement crime prevention programs than to merely sue an offender after the fact. Prevention is based on the economic, educational, social, moral and legal conditions which generate crime and it requires efforts to change those conditions. The co-operation of many departments from all levels of government, as well as of the private sector and the public in general is needed. Making crime prevention programs effective is a major challenge. However, the results obtained with such programs, namely a reduction in crime, is much more beneficial for young people, and also for Canadians who, otherwise, might have become victims. Consequently, the rehabilitation of young offenders must be a major objective of the legislation".
This is an ambitious program. Joint action is necessary. We must co-operate with the other governments, the private sector and the public. We must change the economic, educational, social and moral conditions in our society. We must promote awareness, education and tolerance. Together, we must meet the challenge of reducing crime because, in the end, it will prove more beneficial for everyone.
Experts also insist that rehabilitation is more effective outside the criminal system. The Canadian Sentencing Commission says that 70 per cent of Canadians want more money to be allocated to the development of other types of sentence than incarceration.
Yet, this is not what the minister has decided to do. He prefers the easy solution. The challenge was probably too big for his government. We must look elsewhere to find out why the minister tabled such a bill, especially considering that the Young Offenders Act was amended in 1992, precisely to extend by three to five years the sentences for violent crimes. Merely two years later, when we have not even had a real chance to see if the amended act works and to assess its impact, the government comes up with new amendments to once again lengthen sentences for violent crimes, this time by five to ten years.
It seems obvious to me that the government's chief concern, in bringing this amendment, is to keep an election promise, perhaps made off the cuff by the leader of the Liberal Party during the last election campaign when he was being pressured with questions in the Reform Party's stronghold. Or perhaps the minister bowed to various pressures by trying to please everybody, but satisfying no one. The bill does not go far enough for hard-liners who want society to be protected at all cost, and it also turns a deaf ear to those who would like to maintain the status quo and those who support the social reintegration and rehabilitation of young offenders.
The second important amendment to this bill concerns the presumption of transfer to adult court.
Youth crime and violence by young people are of real concern to the public. But this concern is based on the public's perception, not on actual facts. More and more Canadians are afraid of rising crime, particularly involving young people, and many Canadians feel that the government is not doing enough to address this problem.
In a 1987 report, the Canadian Sentencing Commission noted that 75 per cent of the population believed that 30 to 100 per cent of crimes were violent crimes.
But the reality is quite different. In 1992, for example, only one of every ten crimes under the Criminal Code that were reported to police was a violent crime. In its background paper, the government recognizes that the extent of violent crime in Canada is not well known, and that rational responses to criminal behaviour among young people should be based on facts and not on perceptions. Since 1970, the average number of homicides allegedly committed by adolescents has declined sharply. The department also tells us that young people between the ages of 12 and 18 make up 8 per cent of the population, and that about 6 to 9 per cent of suspect investigations in all
homicide cases in Canada since 1986 have focused on young people in that age group. It is therefore patently false to claim that adolescents are more likely than adults to commit murder.
To deal with this problem, the government had two options: the easy, populist and short-term solution, which included the bill before the House today, or stressing the long-term interests of the teenager and society and opting for rehabilitation. When a young person who has committed a reprehensible act is charged and tried by a judge and jury, and especially if he is sentenced to life imprisonment, it may be some consolation for the victim or the victim's family and it may be reassuring for society. However, what does society gain by sentencing a young person whom we might be able to rehabilitate through community reintegration? What do we gain by sentencing a young person to closed custody or imprisonment, a school for crime with no drop-outs and where good attendance increases the risk of recidivism?
Nothing at all, Madam Speaker. Statistics show that only13 per cent of young people are responsible for violent crimes, while this was 22 per cent for the 18 to 25 group and 33 per cent for the 25 to 34 group.
According to the experts, the minister should have gone beyond the red book, because the main problem with the Young Offenders Act is not the act itself but the administration of justice.
For instance, it is a fact that the crime resolution rate is very low. The average for all types of crimes is around 29 per cent. Another administrative problem is the time it takes for the court to hand down the sentence. It takes far too long, especially when we are talking about teenagers, where time is a very important factor. When the time lapsed between the crime and sentencing is too long, this tends to erode the causal link between the two events and consequently undermines the credibility of the adults who make the decisions that alter the course of their lives.
Our so-called civilized and industrialized world has no initiation rites to mark the passage from childhood to adulthood. Instead, we invented adolescence. What are the messages teenagers get from our society? You are too big to be a child and too small to be an adult. You have to settle for being a teenager. You have to meet standards of acceptable behaviour. You have to go to school, because you are too young to work. You have to go on welfare, because there are no jobs.
Between the ages of 14 and 18, teenagers experience a major identity crisis. They are trying to find themselves. They want to test the limits of society. They need understanding, support, supervision, explanations, information, education, training, but they are often left alone with a list of instructions. In other cases, they are often exposed to confrontation and violence.
I have heard some quite remarkable speeches in this House on traditional family values and the need to subsidize women in the home to allow them to raise their children. But those same members were among the first to call for more repression, more punishment and stricter standards. Have we forgotten that children do not come into this world as delinquents and that the environment in which they were raised has made them what they are? Are we overlooking the fact that we are the sum of our experiences? Are we trying to disclaim all responsibility for the mess we have made?
I am disappointed, even sad. Sad because we do not seem to care about working to improve our collective well-being. We have the power to save our children, but we are choosing to put them in jail. Yet, are not parents responsible for their children until they reach 18? Then, why not consider alternatives like the ones suggested by the expert panel? For example, we could have added the option of imposing a suspended sentence, which would protect our society and give young persons a chance to prove their willingness to modify their behaviour.
To improve the delivery of justice we could have considered a better co-operation between the Crown and the defence, in order to reach a decision best suited for the accused. Personally, I think that the probation officer could have been involved, to find alternatives to prison.
To conclude, amendments to an act will never make up for not enforcing of that act properly. The federal minister is responsible for the Young Offenders Act, but its application comes under provincial jurisdiction. To reach his objective, better youth justice administration, the minister should have involved the provinces in the legislative review process.
He did not do that and that goes to show, in my opinion, that he is not looking for an effective, long-term solution, but rather for a short-term, popular solution, even if it is counter-productive. Once again, the federal government demonstrates that it has but one concern: to centralize. It follows its own course, irrespective of the good of the children of Quebec, among others.