Mr. Speaker, I have listened with some interest to the speech of my hon. colleague.
She is from British Columbia. She would find from coast to coast and down on the Atlantic coast where I am from that there are similar sentiments with respect to safety in the community and a desire to ensure that the legislative tools we have at our
disposal such as the Young Offenders Act, are balanced. That balance periodically must be reviewed.
At least the bill is a step in the right direction. What I hear from my community is that there is a legitimate concern. Individuals want to feel safe in their community. However, Canadians are also very tolerant individuals and they are not harsh in how they deal with individuals that somehow find themselves at the opposite end of the law.
As a member of Parliament I have seen over the last few years a marked change in the way Canadians view the criminal justice system, the fairness of the system and whether they believe that the rights of the accused have priority over the rights of the abused. Many times this is the case.
Dealing specifically with the Young Offenders Act, some measures in this bill are supportable by most reasonable thinking people. Certainly the move to transfer 16 and 17 year olds who are accused of very serious crimes like first or second degree murder and other crimes like attempted murder, manslaughter, aggravated assault and aggravated sexual assault to adult court is very positive.
The people I represent understand that wherever possible we have to have a system that takes young people who happen to find themselves on the wrong side of the law and wherever possible work to rehabilitate them. We do not want just incarceration for the sake of vengeance. What we truly seek is rehabilitation.
There must be a recognition that there are some cases-I stress that it is the minority of cases with young offenders-where we have individuals who are 16 or 17, dangerous offenders, repeat offenders, who have carried out the most despicable and unspeakable crimes that are still protected by the act. They are protected as a young offender when their crimes are severe enough to be treated more seriously by the criminal justice system.
The move to adult court as a requirement under this bill, with the provision that the offender or the prosecutor or the counsel for the accused can argue before the court that the offender should not be transferred, is a proper one.
I also agree with the increased sentences for first and second degree murder. Canadians want to make sure that individuals who are convicted of these most serious crimes do not find themselves being convicted and sentenced and in a few years back out on the street, perhaps to commit such crimes again.
I also support with some qualification the provisions in the bill that deal with access to youth records, particularly for repeat offenders, and particularly for young offenders who seem to have a goal in life of continuing to wreak havoc in their communities.
It is essential in certain conditions, and these conditions are outlined quite well in the bill, that law enforcements officers and peace officers have access to those records during the course of investigations when dealing with serious crimes. It is also essential that the courts, in the case of young offenders who have a long criminal record under the Young Offenders Act and are once again before the courts as a result of further violations of criminal law, have access to these records. However, this section does not go far enough. I have to agree with my colleague opposite.
I live in a community of approximately 70,000 people. By and large it is a law-abiding community. People feel relatively safe travelling the streets. I have three children. The oldest will be 11 in a few weeks. I have an eight-year old and I have an three-year old. I want to see my children grow up in a safe community. I get concerned when I hear on the street-and I can never figure out whether it is simply hearsay-that there are some violent young offenders who go through the system who actually abuse the system and who use the protection under the act to remain anonymous.
At the school my daughter attends, if there is a 14, 15 or 16 year old who has been convicted under the act of a crime with violence or aggravated sexual assault who has been known to carry a weapon, the rights of the people of the community to live safely far outweigh the right of that young offender to anonymity for the crimes he or she has committed.