Mr. Speaker, this is my second opportunity to engage in this debate. Before the House prorogued last spring, I had the opportunity to speak on the bill.
I thank the member for Pictou—Antigonish—Guysborough, our justice critic, for helping me through the complexities of the bill. Being our justice critic, he has really examined this from one end to the other. He has spent a lot of time on the bill and obviously in committee as well.
After having stepped through the bill, after having read various articles from across the country and after having heard some expert testimony, my feeling is that there is a great disappointment in the bill. It is nothing more than a tinkering with the old bill, the Young Offenders Act. The government has basically taken the old bill and added to it. I will get into some of the areas where I think there has been improvement, but there is nothing more than tinkering.
In one of the earlier speeches I gave on the bill, I referred to York Regional Police Chief Julian Fantino. I know my colleague from Ontario would know the man. He is highly respected in his field.
I quote him where he said:
Many police officers and citizens right across Ontario, are frustrated with the Young Offenders Act because it seems primarily concerned with the rights of offenders...It's disappointing that the federal government won't take the opportunity to right this wrong and introduce a much tougher law to serve as an effective deterrent to youth crime.
That does not mean that we have to be tougher in terms of punishment, but I think we have to be tougher in terms of how we deal with it in the programs we offer to help some of these young offenders.
The youth criminal justice bill has provided high expectations for us but with very poor results. One of the difficulties with it is identifying and differentiating between violent and non-violent offenders. It should be putting emphasis on prevention and treatment, which it does not. It also does not provide the resources to our provinces.
What we basically have is the federal government setting the rules for the provinces. We have seen this in so many other pieces of legislation. It sets the rules but does not provide the funding.
Witness the Canada Health Act, Mr. Speaker. In your home province of Alberta today there is a raging debate on what the premier of Alberta wants to do in terms of health care and the delivery of health care services. It is being criticized in Ottawa by the health minister, a member of the very government that has gutted health care in the country.
The result is that provinces now have to go to extraordinary measures to make up for the lack of funding in health care. What we have now is the health care minister criticizing the premier of Alberta for what we might call radical surgery. I am not sure if it is that radical, but he is certainly entertaining doing something we have not seen done before. The point I am making, which reflects directly on the bill, is that the government sets the rules but does not want to provide the funding. At the end of the day, what kind of change will it initiate? I think it will be minimal at best.
One of the things we have heard in the House is that we should lower the age of the young offender. That has not been meaningfully addressed in the bill. There is a lot of evidence to suggest that some of these younger people have to be tried in adult court because we are talking about violent, and in some cases, very violent crimes.
The province of Quebec is probably the best model for the rest of Canada to follow in terms of how it addresses young offenders. The province of Quebec has a lower rate of youth crime than any other province in the country. It is willing to put money where its mouth is and that has delivered some very credible results for that province. We cannot expect all the provinces to be able to do that.
As I mentioned, there is a great disparity within the country in the delivery of health care. We regrettably have poorer provinces. Thankfully, we have provinces that are doing very well and those provinces that are doing well can deliver the services much more effectively than the poorer provinces.
As in health care, we have that same disparity across the country and a lack of support from the federal government to make the youth justice system work. The provisions within the bill end up providing the provinces with less than 50% of the administration cost of implementing the youth justice system. In some cases it goes down to about 35% funding by the federal government, so it is placing a real burden on the provinces.
The member for Pictou—Antigonish—Guysborough made some very interesting comments and I think it is worth quoting some of them. On March 11 he expressed his reaction to Bill C-3. First, he questioned the effectiveness of the new act tabled in the House and said it could be more forceful but was not. He accused the federal government of employing smoke and mirrors in the hopes of giving the appearance of strengthened legislation. He questioned whether Bill C-3 responded adequately to Canada-wide pressures to be tougher on young criminals.
At the same time he said he was disappointed that the federal government did nothing to lower the age of accountability to 10 years from 12. I mentioned that was proposed by our party during the 1997 election. In February 1998 the member for Pictou—Antigonish—Guysborough tabled a private member's bill, Bill C-313, amending the Young Offenders Act in this respect.
According to the member, the PC Party had been calling on the federal government to lower the age of accountability to 10 years of age. When a growing number of crimes are being committed by children as young as 10 years of age, there must be a mechanism to bring young persons into the system at the earliest point.
There is no question that this bill will put more pressure on police officers. It will mean more dialogue among police officers, children's aid societies and their parents. It will take officers off the street.
We know consultation has to take place which in itself is good, but at the end of the day it means that more officers will be involved in the dialogue between children's aid societies and parents, which means that fewer officers will be on the street to enforce the act we talking about today. That goes back to the question of funding by the federal government. Again it writes the rules but does not want to provide any funding.
In conclusion, the government must start to listen to debate in the House and not simply throw something up with the traditional smoke screens and mirrors as it is accustomed to doing.