They do not make enough money. I do not think we could pay police officers enough for the work they do on our behalf.
They were here the other day pointing out the frustration they experience in attempting to uphold the laws. We are probably not short of laws but it is the way the laws are being interpreted, the way they are being administered, and the way the judicial branch is dealing with the laws.
I will go back to the Shaw decision in British Columbia. We would be remiss today if we did not mention one of the more unfortunate issues relating to our corrections system, that is the large number of aboriginal inmates in our jails. A large number of first nations men and women are incarcerated in Canada by and large because they often cannot afford a good lawyer to argue their case. As a result of living in conditions that can only be akin to poverty and being unable to get the legal advice and support they require, they end up serving time in jail, which as someone said earlier is really a crime college.
If a young offender who is in some difficulty wants to become a full time criminal, there is no better place to learn the art of crime than in jail. If a young offender breaks the law in some form we have to be very cautious and see jail as a last resort. Steps need to be taken in an attempt to break the cycle of crime as opposed to sending the young person off to crime college, as I call it.
If we are to make our streets and neighbourhoods safe, we cannot rely on the police to do it. We cannot rely on the judicial system itself to do it. We all have to be part of the solution. In other words, communities have to buy into the fact that they too have to be part of the security.
I am thinking of the various protection plans which exist in neighbourhoods, the neighbourhood watch approach. People look out for one another. If they see a suspicious character they call the police. If someone is breaking down someone's back door, he is probably not an uncle trying to get in.
This brings me back to the whole issue of adequate funding for our police forces. I do not think there is a single jurisdiction in Canada or a single taxpayer in Canada that would not wilfully add a few cents to the tax load if it was going into better policing for neighbourhoods and safeguarding streets and communities across the country. I think we all admit that government funding when it comes to security, particularly in terms of funding our police forces, has not been sufficient. As a result Canada's security has suffered to a certain extent.
We have to send a signal, which I think this debate today will help to do, to the judicial aspect of our system in Canada. Many people have suggested that we have a good legal system but there is not much justice in it. Often we see justice being set aside for all kinds of spurious reasons. I hope the judges, particularly the ones that have made some terribly goofy decisions in the last little while, will take note of our discussions today.
I want to make an appeal in my closing comments. While we are dealing with crime and how to deal with those who break the law or have been alleged to have broken the law, we need to spend some time looking at the causes of crime. Why do people break laws? Why do people decide to do something they know is illegal?
I suspect there are two fundamental causes. One is people do goofy things. I am thinking particularly of many young offenders who do something as a result of youthful exuberance or a moment of misjudgment. They are not criminals; they just do something stupid. I suspect an odd one of us in this room has probably been in that category at one time or another.
Second, let us admit that a fundamental cause of crime is extremely dysfunctional families that have become dysfunctional often because of some element of poverty.
I am not linking poverty and crime. I am saying that high levels of poverty, excessive levels of poverty, often lead to very dysfunctional families and result in dysfunctional behaviour in society and consequently to crime. Let us spend some time on the causes of crime, not only on crime itself.