Madam Speaker, there are a couple of rather interesting points.
First, I find myself rising today to speak in support of a bill, principles and comments put forward by a member of the Reform Party. For me, that is quite an unusual experience to have and I admit that openly.
Then I see what just happened. I see the politics of the Young Offenders Act which, until this previous attempt to involve politics, was going in the right direction. The member asked for unanimous consent when we have not even finished the first hour of the three hours of debate which have been allocated to this worthwhile bill. I am sure the member who did that will be sending out a press release saying is it not awful the government will not allow this bill to go through. I thought for a moment we actually had a chance to get along, yet I see the opportunism taking place. I just had to comment on that.
I want to go back and try to get along on this bill for a couple of reasons; I think it is important and the government has recognized in the new legislation that the issue is very significant. Also, the bill comes clearly from the heart of a member of this place and his family who have had to suffer the worst possible experience that any parent could ever imagine. He has come before this place and has put a bill forward that might prevent other families from having the same experience.
I suppose it could be seen as being condescending for members on this side of the House to congratulate the member, but I believe that in this case, and hopefully in many more cases, there are reasons we should understand the passion someone brings to this place. We should understand that someone has had to go through a terrible experience and is now trying to do something about it.
I want to quote from the letter sent to all of us by the hon. member for Surrey North asking us to support his bill. He states:
The impetus for this bill comes from personal experience. Some of you may be aware that my son, Jesse, was murdered by a young offender in 1992. What you may not know is that his killer was free in the community on a section 7.1 undertaking, one condition of which was a dusk to dawn curfew. The murder occurred at midnight.
<—obviously in violation of that curfew. The member goes on to say:
In my opinion, the person who signed that undertaking willfully failed in his responsibility to supervise. My son, my family, paid the price.
Frankly, the point the member has made is one of the more thoughtful positions I have heard in this place. The supervising parent of the now convicted murderer who is doing I believe 25 years at the present time—I can be corrected, but he is in jail—made an undertaking to supervise the individual. The member clearly said that knowing that the young offender was violating the terms of that undertaking and the terms of the parole, had the parent made a phone call to the police, there is a possibility, one never knows but there is a possibility, that the authorities could have taken some action. That is so critical in this.
The Minister of Justice has recognized the significance of this kind of an amendment. I say to the member that if for some reason he has heard some members say that they are not going to vote in favour of his bill, one member earlier said because it was redundant and would be in the new legislation, I too would share his concern that we do not delay things too long to make this new amendment reality.
By introducing Bill C-68 dealing with young offenders, the government is saying that it wants to see this implemented. Hopefully the opposition, for a miraculous moment or a slight change, will co-operate with the government so that we can fast track the new bill dealing with young offenders. Why am I skeptical that that will not happen?
The politics of the Young Offenders Act that are played out by the extreme right wing make it very difficult to put in place thoughtful amendments such as the one the member is putting forth today.
We hear about boot camps being the solution. I remember pre-1995 and knocking on doors during the provincial election campaign. As I campaigned, a lot of people said that they really liked the idea of boot camps and getting these guys into some kind of a disciplinary situation where they would have to wear uniforms and perform military service. People thought that was the solution.
I do not say this with reference to the case that impacted on the family of the member for Surrey North, but the real tragedy in many cases with young offenders is that there are parenting problems. There is a lack of direction. There is a lack of a role model. There is a lack of discipline. There is a lack of love. Often that is the case. Young offenders too often come from broken families, from poverty, from the bad part of town if you will. Sometimes they get in with the wrong group. Drugs may be involved.
For us to adopt the rhetoric we hear so often from the Reform Party, that we are not hard enough on 10 year olds is the latest one with regard to the new bill, would be unfortunate. I wish more members opposite would learn from the experience of the member for Surrey North. None of us can really understand the pain of that, but let us learn from it. The member has put forward a very thoughtful solution to a very serious problem.
It is also important that we get the message through to the media that this does not mean a parent is suddenly going to pay the price for a young person's crime. Although there are members opposite who I am quite sure would agree with that sentiment. I know. I have heard speeches by members in this place and in the Ontario legislature where the sole solution to reducing youth crime was to simply find a way to make the parent pay the price.
I had a call very recently from a constituent who suggested we should go further, that we should make school teachers pay the price if the student in their classroom committed a crime. Where do these kinds of half-baked ideas come from? They are destructive. The real long term solution to dealing with youth crime is to reintegrate and help these people.
I am reminded of a time I spent on the licence appeal board when I was a municipal councillor. It pales in comparison to the kinds of issues we are talking about. We have to realize that 87% of the crimes committed by young people are not violent crimes. Thirteen percent is an enormously high figure in my view and something we cannot ignore, but the vast majority of crimes do not fall into that category.
I would like to go back to my example because it very much shaped my thinking on justice issues. We were a three person body that had to sit in a judicial format. It was not like a council meeting where we could leave the room. We heard about a very high profile case in the community that generated a petition for the return of capital punishment.
Because we had to get into the details, we were able to understand that without a doubt there was a tragedy but there was also tremendous remorse. A serious problem had occurred to another family and it totally changed the position of the members on that committee. Justice issues and violence issues are not simple.
Let me once again commend the member for Surrey North for his doggedness and dedication in memory of his son. He does his son's memory proud. I congratulate him for bringing this forward. He and his family can take credit for this being part of the new legislation.