Madam Speaker, I will try to address the points made by my colleague from Crowfoot who was a valued member of the justice committee. I know he has tremendous practical experience having worked as a police officer within the justice system for many years. I will not comment as to my own abilities as a crown prosecutor.
I will try to address the issue with respect to transfers. I personally took part in a number of transfers from youth to adult court under the old system. They were extremely cumbersome, perhaps even more so than a trial itself. At the end of the day, one was left to wonder whether one could even call upon the victims who were often forced to testify two, three and four times as a result of those old provisions. I welcome this change in terms of having one trial.
However, I take issue, as the hon. member has pointed out, with the decision being made at the very end of the trial after it has taken place in youth court, which is often subject to different rules of admissibility, and with whether this is actually the proper focus.
The question addressed to me is more specifically aimed at judicial activism. This perhaps should form the focus of an entire debate. It is not something we can deal with very quickly in this context. I agree we have to empower judges, but with legislation such as this we sometimes have to put parameters in place. The way to do that in some instances is to have definitions of certain crimes that require mandatory minimum sentences.
I do believe that for the most part judges themselves behave in a responsible way. Unfortunately, there are some that do not. When that happens, perhaps we should look at methods of dealing with judges.