Mr. Speaker, I am delighted to have the opportunity to speak on third reading of this bill. I begin by reviewing the highlights of the bill and after that I would like to put special emphasis and focus on that part of the bill which has to do with rehabilitation.
For those who have come to the debate recently, the minister announced, when tabling the bill on June 2, the highlights would include sentences for teenagers convicted of first and second degree murder in youth court to 10 and 7 years respectively. Sixteen and 17-year olds charged with serious personal injury offences would be dealt with in adult court unless they can show a judge that public protection and rehabilitation can both be achieved through the youth court. It includes extending the time that 16 and 17-year old young offenders who have been convicted of murder in an adult court must serve before they can be considered for parole.
It also includes improved measures for information sharing between professionals like school officials and police, and with selected members of the public when public safety is at risk, as well as retaining the records of serious young offenders longer. Finally, it includes provisions to encourage rehabilitation and treatment of young offenders in the community when this is appropriate.
I want to focus on the last point. I am happy to see that the very first clause of the bill deals with the whole point of underlying causes and rehabilitation. I would like to read directly into the record clause 1(1):
(a) 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 behaviour in the future;
(a.1) while young persons should not in all instances be held accountable in the same manner or suffer the same consequences for their behaviour as adults, young persons who commit offences should nonetheless bear responsibility for their contraventions;
Clause 1(2) says:
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;
I would like to talk about this part of the bill because I believe it is an area where we in the community are not putting enough emphasis today.
I go back to a book that I had a chance to review this morning before I came to the House. It is Father Flanagan at Boys Town . Boys Town is situated about 10 miles outside of Omaha, Nebraska.
I can remember one night flying in from Toronto with a colleague from Saskatchewan. We were talking about Notre Dame in Saskatchewan, but the subject of Boys Town came up. What has been going on for many years now at Father Flanagan's Boys Town in the United States of America is something that we as legislators should take time to revisit.
For those who do not know, Father Flanagan started this environment many years ago when he took in homeless boys, young boys without parents. However he also took about 20 per cent of the number, young offenders.
The rehabilitation record of Boys Town has been described by some of the best psychiatrists and doctors as to being almost a totally mysterious phenomena. Father Flanagan worked with these young men in developing their character. He exposed them to apprenticeship and athletics. It did not matter what their religious background was. The boys could be Jewish, Protestant or Catholic, but he made sure that a portion of their life each week had some sort of religious training.
I tell this story because the track record of the Boys Town situation applies just as much today. It is just as relevant as it was many years ago when this institution started. There are just as many young people today who are involved in situations where their family life is under great stress and strain. I believe that many of these homes that we have in our communities do not have the same sophistication as that institution has.
As we go through the process of putting more emphasis on rehabilitation, we should also be reviewing the types of institutions we have to make sure they are relevant and that we are getting the maximum impact.
So often today a young offender is put into an institution where some of the values that a Boys Town has are just not present; the values of caring and sharing with one another and being a little bit more sensitive to character building. The institutions are just not sensitive. I am not saying that our institutions should be totally ignored but that they should be re-examined.
The Minister of Justice made the following statement in his press release, which I want to emphasize: "That legislation is only one part of the answer to violence among young people. Poverty, alcoholism, family violence, racism, illiteracy and many other factors may lead to criminal acts by young people and adults alike and must be tackled as a whole". The minister said this when he issued his press release. Those words are very important.
When we go through this bill I am hoping that the whole area of rehabilitation can be given very special review and emphasis. We should look at some of the rehabilitation systems and centres that exist all over North America. I would like to refer very specifically, as I said, to the Boys Town example in the United States where the track record of rehabilitation is apparently second to none anywhere in the world. If a Boys Town environment can happen in the United States why can we not have similar institutions in Canada?