Debates of Feb. 10th, 1995

Young Offenders Act

[René Canuel, Bloc, Matapédia—Matane, QC]

Mr. Speaker, yesterday, we met with the Council of Churches and they totally agreed with my Liberal colleague. We must address the root causes of the problem. It is not by putting people in jail that we will teach members of society how to live together, and that we will spend as little as possible.

You know that prisoners cost a fortune, not to mention prisons and penitentiaries. When our colleagues from the Reform Party say that tough sentences are needed, almost suggesting that criminals must be punished, I, on the other hand, say that we must address the root causes. We must invest in prevention, in education. We as a society should consider the issue thoroughly and spend the money wisely.

A suggestion was made yesterday. Let us assume that the judges are given the money they need for the year-let us say, for example, $187 million per district. This money could be managed jointly by the judges themselves and the citizens. If that were the case, protecting society would not cost $187 million. It would only cost half as much and these people would also make a contribution to society.

I think that we could make several suggestions like that one.

[Val Meredith, Reform, Surrey—White Rock—South Langley, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I listened with some interest when the member for Notre-Dame-de-Grâce accused the Reform Party of not supporting legislation that was going to solve some of the problems of why young people commit crimes.

I suggest to the member that he had ample opportunity when he was Solicitor General and in a position to bring in legislation, to prevent the problems we have today. He did not. All he did was bring in legislation that amplified the problems we now have as a result of the Young Offenders Act.

Like my colleague here, I went into a number of schools in my constituency over the holiday break. I heard the same things. The young people in our country do not feel protected by this legislation. They want some serious changes made to it, not just housekeeping and not just changes in the way we say things. They want to feel free when walking the streets, unhampered in their schools and in their communities.

I do not hear that from the young people. What I hear from the young people and the seniors in my community is that they want protection. They do not see protection in what the government is offering.

It concerns me when I see that the government, which has the potential and the opportunity to put in legislation that would keep pedophiles from wandering the streets, which would at least let the community know who these pedophiles are in order to protect the young people in our communities, fails to do that.

My party is waiting for the government to come up with legislation that we can support. We are waiting for legislation that will make a difference, not this kind of legislation that is going to do nothing but take us further down the path of do nothing legislation.

[Jim Gouk, Reform, Kootenay West—Revelstoke, BC]

Smoke screens, Mr. Speaker. That is what is coming from the Liberal side all of the time. We see it from the justice minister on the firearms legislation that is proposed. Because it is something he cannot deal with, he comes out with this as a smoke screen to suggest that he is doing something. This motion is no different.

People ask why we oppose something that is a step in the right direction. The problem is that if they take a step they say: "There, we have given you a solution", but we never take the full trip.

The government is going to have to come out with something substantive that will answer the needs of the public, answer the needs of the young people. If it does not, we will never get the final solutions which we require. Half measures have to stop. They do not work. They are only being used as an excuse to cover up the fact that the government does not know what really needs to be done or it does not have the will to do it.

My hon. colleague from the Bloc said that we cannot make the Young Offenders Act tougher, we have to get to the bottom of the problem, find the solutions. Nothing says we cannot work on solving the problems before they come to the justice system. The bottom line is still to protect the rights of law-abiding citizens and their property. Young Offenders Act problems are created mostly against young people. It is the young people we are defending, not oppressing.

[Audrey McLaughlin, NDP, Yukon, YT]

Mr. Speaker, the amendments before us today raise a larger issue and that is the need, which is ongoing, to study the Young Offenders Act as a whole and not to bring in piecemeal methods.

I heartily disagree with my Reform colleagues who would simply lock up every young person in the hope that they would not commit a crime. At the same time they would cut the social programs and the kind of facilities available to young people.

We have a disturbing trend in this country of a very anti-youth movement. The government has not addressed youth unemployment. Why is it not doing that? It has not addressed the need of young people to have better services for treatment and for work in the communities. Instead it is contemplating cutting some of those very services.

Of course we have to deal with those young people who are committing crimes. We have to deal with the communities and the parents who are dealing with those young people. However we will not do it by the government's policy of an anti-youth campaign which this legislation is.

[Don Boudria, Liberal, Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON]

Mr. Speaker, it is about time that we got back to reality.

I have heard inflammatory comments from members of the Reform Party, and in her effort to correct the record I think the hon. member for Yukon only made things slightly worse, but in the other direction. She referred to things such as treatment, which fall under the authority of the provincial government, as she knows. I really wonder how hon. members can make statements such as that.

I heard a Reform Party member ask why are we not addressing in this bill issues dealing with pedophiles. This is an amendment to the Young Offenders Act, made prior to the comprehensive 10-year review. This amendment is designed to be an interim measure until we have more comprehensive review of the legislation. It is not a substitute for the review. As a matter of fact, the review is going to start very shortly. All members of the House know that.

Only a few days ago a member of the Reform Party was sending letters to Canadians, telling them that members did not care about such issues and that the only way to get things fixed was to buy a membership card for the Reform Party. That is the kind of nonsense and fearmongering that we have been hearing. It is victimizing Canadians, trying to take advantage of fears which they might have.

It is about time we had a little bit of honesty surrounding this and other issues involving social policy and justice.

[Some hon. members]

Oh, oh.

[Don Boudria, Liberal, Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I notice my comments are generating a bit of heckling. I am glad. The purpose of this bill, first, is to make sure that 16 and 17-year olds who have committed a violent crime can be shifted to adult court in a more expeditious manner. It has to do with information sharing and it has to do with stiffer sentencing, when required. But let us not portray all young people or even most people as being members of that group.

I am the father of two adolescents. I too hear from them the concerns that they have about people in their age groups who do things that are improper. However, at the same time let us not pretend that we live in the most crime ridden society on earth or that locking everybody up would necessarily make us safer. After all the United States would be nirvana for everyone if locking people up made society such a better place.

We have just lived through a terrible economic recession. We know it. But we know that right now there are 424,000 more jobs than there was at this time last year. These are statistics this morning from Statistics Canada. We know that those are the kinds of measures that will help to reduce crime; helping Canadians to have jobs and hope.

Simply locking people up the way the Reform Party members pretend is the solution, is not so. Deep in their hearts they know the truth. It is about time they said it instead of the nonsense we are hearing from them.

[André Caron, Bloc, Jonquière, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I have been listening to what our friends in the Reform Party have been saying in the House, and I get the impression they are asking us to live in a world where the rich get richer and the poor go to jail.

What exactly does the Reform Party want? They say we need less government and fewer taxes. So what will that mean? It will

mean less government, fewer social programs to benefit the poor, the sick, the elderly and aboriginal people.

That is the kind of world they would have us live in. They say: cut spending, cut taxes. Sure, Canada may be spending too much and sure, we have to pay taxes, but today I read in the paper that Canada ranked fourteenth among industrialized countries in terms of the tax burden on its citizens. So there is a fallacy somewhere. They say we can no longer afford to spend, so let us look into this. They say we are overtaxed. Well, I am not crazy about taxes, but I wish they would stop and think before saying we should let the neediest in our society go hungry so we can reduce the tax burden on people who just want more money than they already have.

Today, we are talking about young offenders, and sadly, in most cases, people who go to jail are anything but wealthy. These are usually people from disadvantaged families who for all kinds of reasons became involved in crime, but the point is that we want to do something for these people and if we want to do something for our country in the process, we should try and prevent youth crime. We should try and give them some hope, and putting security people in our schools and having armed police officers controlling places where young people get together is not the answer.

In any case, I hope our friends in the Reform Party, especially as far as this legislation is concerned, will stop and think what it would be like if their children were in prison at the age of 15, 16 or 17, without much hope for the future and without much hope of being rehabilitated. I think they would change their tune. It is all very well to talk about these things and make certain suggestions and even go along with them here in the House, but out in the real world, in the schools and the prisons, when we see what young people are up against, I think the issues are far more fundamental than what we have heard today.

[Ted White, Reform, North Vancouver, BC]

Mr. Speaker, we have heard a lot of rhetoric this morning from the opposite side. Lots and lots of rhetoric. The Liberals need to remember that when they attack the Reform Party they are attacking the people of Canada because poll after poll shows that people are upset with the Young Offenders Act. They want changes made to put some teeth in it.

Like my hon. colleagues I also visited a number of schools during the break. I got the same message from the students as my colleagues did. The students are fed up with the Young Offenders Act. They feel unsafe. They do not even feel safe going to the McDonald's in North Vancouver because of the gangs that cannot be arrested, that cannot be touched by the police.

When the police approach a gang outside McDonald's on Lynn Valley Road the gang swears at the police. "F-off" they say to the police. What sort of control is that? People feel unsafe in their communities. They feel as if the government is letting them down. It is time the Liberal government dropped its rhetoric. Of course we need to get to the source of crime and to help the people at the beginning to prevent crime, but we also have to address the problem of the criminals who are already there, the ones who are making society unsafe.

We have to put those people away so that we can protect society. We have to put the rights of victims ahead of the rights of criminals.

[The Deputy Speaker]

Is the House ready for the question?

[Some hon. members]

Question.

[The Deputy Speaker]

The question is on Motion No. 2. Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[Some hon. members]

No.

[The Deputy Speaker]

All those in favour of the motion will please say yea.

[Some hon. members]

Yea.

[The Deputy Speaker]

All those opposed will please say nay.

[Some hon. members]

Nay.

[The Deputy Speaker]

In my opinion the yeas have it.

[An hon. member]

On division.

(Motion agreed to.)

[The Deputy Speaker]

The next question is on Motion No. 3. Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[Some hon. members]

No.

[The Deputy Speaker]

All those in favour of the motion will please say yea.

[Some hon. members]

Yea.