Mr. Speaker, with the consent of the House I would like to split my time with the member for Surrey Central.
In addressing this bill I would talk about a number of matters. The question of what exactly makes young offenders or how do they get to be young offenders always goes through my mind. One has to ask these days if it is parents, family problems or an educational system where people fall through loopholes and do not get picked up. Is it the drugs that menace society today which encourage more and more crime to feed a habit? Is it the fact that role models are different today? Is it television and all those other things young people watch and are influenced by? Or, is it government legislation that more or less encourages or motivates certain things to happen?
I would suggest that it is a bit of all of those things. Having worked with a number of young offenders, it comes out that all these things put together creates a problem in society. The job of the House is to try to deal with all those issues and package something called legislation for young offenders that is meaningful and tries to change their ways, if individuals become young offenders, as fast as possible so they do not get too far down the line, become incorrigible, and we end having to incarcerate them.
I will get something off my chest, to start with. I can remember in 1991 setting out things we would like to see changed in the Young Offenders Act. We even fought an election in 1992 on that.
When the new Liberal government took office in 1993 I really do not think it understood the difficulties Canadian were having with the Young Offenders Act. It took us quite a while to convince them. It was not just the Reform Party. It was many people: young offenders, victims rights groups and so on. It took time to let it sink in over there.
What particularly galls me is that once the government saw there was a problem it went the route of promotions, public relations and media advertisements saying that it would do something. All along since 1993 and here we are in 1999 on the eve of the new millennium still debating this issue in the House. It is just amazing to me how the government gets away with that with the Canadian public. It is extremely disappointing.
There is another point I want to make. One member from across the way in the Liberal government said that the Young Offenders Act hit on the hard crimes and was lenient on the soft issues.
The problem with the government and what it does not understand is that it would not be bad if it was one B and E by an individual. Then we could say do not do this again or we will escalate it, much like progressive discipline in a business or a home.
There are individuals, young offenders with 10, 20, 30 and 40 convictions and little or no progressive discipline. This is a serious problem. They fail to acknowledge that perhaps five or six break and enters, three or four possessions of a weapon, one or two robberies, and two or three minor assaults amount to something that is far more serious.
In the courtroom today lawyers will say that their young clients do not understand. They will say it is simple possession, a minor robbery or a B and E, and the judges say “Yes, I know. Poor young fellow”, and off they go. They do not tend to look at the cumulative effect of consistently not making a serious issue out of it for the individual. It is a flaw in the whole issue of justice but in particular with young offenders. It is not being addressed here. Accumulation of numerous minor offences means there is a problem and it is more serious than one minor offence.
In one year we had 14,035 B and Es from young offenders, 2,077 possession of weapons, 2,338 robberies, and on and on it goes. We had 30 murders. We must remember that those who murdered probably had a lot of B and Es, a lot of drug charges and so on. We failed to deal with it at that level and that is what is wrong with the young offenders philosophy.
I want to talk briefly about some of the issues in my area in British Columbia that are not being addressed by the bill. Joey Thompson of the Vancouver Province wrote:
Overheard during proceedings in the second storey temporary courtroom were artful methods of sucking in a judge, offered by sharpened pros to the cub offenders waiting outside for their case to be called.
One quick study eventually got before the judge and laid it on thick about how sorry he was for his crimes. The judge turned to the citizens in the public pews and delivered a heartfelt speech about the sincerity of the poor lad. Then he gave him a slap on the wrist and sent him away.
Minutes later, the offender was seen out the window running across the parking lot shouting to his friends, “Hey, it works”.
This is what I mean about cumulative issues. An article from the Abbotsford News
entitled “Team crime rally cry: When I'm 18, I'll quit”, quoted the police and indicated in part:
Repeat B & Es by teenagers is a disturbing trend...“It tends to be the same kids, which indicates that whatever punishment they are getting from the court isn't serving as a deterrent”...“The majority of times it's the same guys we're dealing with, They're released on conditions—and although the judges mean well—the kids do not uphold the conditions”.
It's not unusual to hear a kid say: “When I'm 18, then I'll quit”.
Another article entitled “14-year-old charged in cocaine sale” read:
A 14-year-old Abbotsford girl will be returning to Abbotsford provincial court on March 12 after she was arrested this week for allegedly selling cocaine in Clearbrook.
It continued:
Under provisions of the Young Offenders Act, the girl's name cannot be published.
Another article read:
With parliament...at his back, Mike Harris demanded yesterday that the prime minister get tough on young offenders.
On and on it goes. Another one entitled “Boy too drunk to convict of murder, lawyer says” read in part:
Wetaskiwin, Alberta: A 13-year-old Hobbema boy who beat a cab driver to death with a baseball was too young and too drunk to be convicted of murder, says his lawyer.
Recently a teen in my area pulled a pistol on a police officer. It was really an air gun pellet pistol but he could have been shot very easily. He was lucky he was not. This young fellow was charged but his name cannot be published due to provisions under the Young Offenders Act. He was arrested twice in May for threatening to blow up two east Abbotsford schools, and on and on it goes. Many of the parents were concerned about this. They hit roadblock after roadblock after roadblock trying to make sure their school was safe from this young fellow.
This young fellow's parents were good parents but there are problems. Nowhere today does society look after this young fellow. People everywhere want information on this and they are stymied because of the privacy provisions of the Young Offenders Act.
The government has to deal with reality with young offenders. The government has to do it this time. We have a litany of suggestions and they are not being addressed. We should allow police officers to use discretion in resolving minor incidents without laying charges. We should lower the maximum age of young offenders from 17 to 15. We should lower the minimum age from 12 to 10 and on and on it goes.
Where have these people been? Prior to the next election or maybe in the year 2000 we will be back here again talking about the Young Offenders Act. The government has to take better action than it has taken in the past, which has been nothing.