Mr. Speaker, I am glad to have the opportunity to speak to the motion. While I believe the intentions behind the motion are excellent, the motion is seriously flawed.
If I may say to the member, what I find most wrong with the motion is that it sets the individual against the group. What he would propose to do with the motion is amend the charter to the effect that parents would have certain rights over their children.
The very essence of rights legislation is to define the limitations of the state or the group on actions of the individual. If we give rights to parents or the state it does not matter; we erode the rights of the individual. We would get into terrible difficulties if we accorded special rights to parents. We would get parents who might abuse their children in a very profound way and we would limit the ability of the state to intervene.
On the other hand the member detects, as we all detect from our constituents, an erosion of the ability of custodial parents to manage their children in a sincere and effective way because of a certain fear that the state may intervene improperly when it attempts to apply discipline or other actions on children.
This is not a problem that is limited to parents. It is also a problem that extends to other custodial figures in society like teachers and police officers in the course of their duties in a community with teenagers and other young people. In the old days before the charter of rights, the teacher, parent or the local policeman could caution a child, could say to that child “you must not do this”. They could even enforce limited discipline.
The real flaw in the charter of rights, which is causing the problem and discomfort with respect to the ability of parents, teachers or local police officers to discipline children, is that the charter accorded full civil rights to children before the age of majority, before the age of having the responsibility to exercise those rights.
We have a situation now where if a teacher attempts to impose discipline on a child in school, or even if a parent attempts to impose discipline on a child, the child can resort to the courts and actually report to the police. We have a situation in our schools now where there is a great problem with respect to teacher-student discipline simply because children are often a little too alert to their rights, which has caused a major problem in the exercise of discipline.
I feel the problem in the charter of rights is fundamental to our difficulties with the Young Offenders Act. Whatever amendments come down in the Young Offenders Act, ultimately we will have to amend the charter of rights so that we can give not full civil rights to young people but return some of the custodial opportunities to parents, teachers and the courts.
While I support in principle the idea behind the motion, I regret I cannot support the motion itself.