Debates of March 16th, 1999

Supply

[Nelson Riis, NDP, Kamloops, BC]

Mr. Speaker, with all due respect, my hon. friend from the Reform Party was suggesting that while overall crime has certainly decreased in Canada—thank goodness for that—violent crime involving young people appears not to have decreased. As a matter of fact it appears to have been somewhat on the increase. I think that is the point my friend was making about young people and violent crime which make the headlines.

There is unquestionably a problem with current immigration policies. He reminded us how generous Canada is. Indeed we are possibly the most generous country in the world in terms of welcoming folks into our country, in particular refugees.

I am concerned about two issues. One is about the number of people who come to Canada allegedly on a temporary visa and are guaranteed by a sponsor, or someone sponsors them, and then decide to go underground or abandon that process. We are left holding the tab and the sponsor is left not knowing where his colleague or relative is. Also there are people who sponsor people to come into the country and then essentially abandon that sponsorship.

When persons sponsor an individual, or guarantee that an individual is coming for a wedding, for a visit or whatever, has the hon. member given any thought to their posting a bond so that in the event the visitor chooses not to be a visitor the bond would be forfeited to help cover some of the costs that accrue to Canadian citizens? If a—

[The Acting Speaker (Mr. McClelland)]

I am sorry to interrupt the hon. member but we are out of time for questions and comments.

[Andrew Telegdi, Liberal, Kitchener—Waterloo, ON]

Mr. Speaker, let me say to the hon. member that we will be reviewing the act. What he suggests in terms of bonds, in terms of sponsoring visitors, is certainly one area that will be discussed and actually has been discussed by some people. That is working in the criminal justice system as far as sureties and posting of bonds are concerned, which will be worthwhile looking at when we review the act.

[John Maloney, Liberal, Erie—Lincoln, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise to speak to what I would call an omnibus resolution which certainly covers a plethora of criminal items. However I would like to concentrate my remarks on the subject of correctional facilities. It is after all perhaps the most high profile, most expensive and in many ways most important feature of our correctional system today.

As hon. members know, we have a great variety of correctional facilities operated by both levels of government, the provinces and the federal government, and in some cases by the voluntary sector. At the federal level we have institutions varied by security level: maximum, medium and minimum security levels. In addition Correctional Service Canada operates halfway houses called community correctional centres and contracts with the voluntary sector to operate other halfway houses called community residential facilities.

This was not always the case. Until about 1960 the system consisted of nine Gothic maximum security institutions built decades ago. Some of those structures are still with us today. However it was realized that the vast array of individual differences among offenders required an array of correctional approaches if the system was to achieve its fundamental principal purpose, that of protecting the public.

Public protection requires safe and secure custody which I can assure hon. members is well achieved by today's system of institutions and inmate classifications. It also requires programming that prepares offenders for their eventual release back into society and conducts that release in a careful and gradual manner. This too is achieved very successfully today.

The variety of institutional styles that exist allow for placement of offenders at the security level and with access to the correctional programs they require. By providing programs such as anger management, substance abuse reduction, psychiatric treatment and counselling, offenders can be helped to overcome the factors that caused them to adapt criminal patterns in the first place. They can be tested and observed to ensure that they are overcoming these factors. They can be carefully supervised as they move from prison back into the community.

We often hear about initiatives in other countries to privatize correctional institutions. This is not a course of action that has been adopted by the federal government. Nor does available evidence about the experience in other countries justify doing so. However it is often not realized to what extent we already have partnerships with the private voluntary sector.

Through arrangements with organizations such as the Salvation Army, the John Howard Society, the St. Leonard's Society and many others a network of halfway houses is operated to supervise and assist offenders as they make their first important steps back into the community.

Some may say we should not be releasing offenders into the community as freely as they allege we do. I ask them if it would be better to hold those offenders until the very last day of their sentences and then thrust them back on the community anonymously, without supervision, support or controls. I submit that we in Canada have chosen a better way, gradual release with conditions, supervision and assistance after a careful assessment of risk.

Almost all offenders will return to the community. Our system of justice demands it. After serving prescribed sentences most offenders must be returned to the community. We have little choice about that. The choice we have is how that release will take place and how it can be made as safe as possible, not just for the immediate future but for the long term. Treatment, risk assessment, careful release planning and graduated movement through several security levels and then into the community is the way to achieve the goal of public safety.

The record demonstrates the validity of this approach. Of all the 5,000 offenders released each year on some form of conditional release, 90% complete the balance of the sentence without committing a new offence. This record of a successful completion of conditional release has improved steadily during recent years. This is strong support for the approach we have adopted.

There are those who would measure the criminal justice system by only one test, how much punishment it dispenses and whether it is constantly being made tougher on offenders. Obviously those who break the law can and should expect to pay a price and to receive an appropriate sanction. If the purpose of the criminal justice system is to uphold society's values it must be seen to give appropriate weight to the offender's transgression.

Is our penal system perfect? No. Can it be improved? Surely it can. The government is responding. As we speak here today an all-party subcommittee of the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights is studying this issue. It is reviewing the Corrections and Conditional Release Act. It is inspecting custodial facilities across this land. It is hearing from all the stakeholders, the prison population, the frontline corrections officers, the guards, prison administration, victims groups, prosecutors and members of the general public, among others. It is seeking the opinion and the advice of these people. It is drawing on the experience of these individuals who deal on a daily basis with Correctional Service Canada.

After the subcommittee completes its investigation and studies it will prepare a report for the House and the solicitor general. If necessary, legislative change will be proposed and debated in the House. I am confident this nationwide consultation on the Corrections and Conditional Release Act will improve the overall effectiveness of Canada's correctional system.

[Ted White, Reform, North Vancouver, BC]

Mr. Speaker, the member spent a lot of time telling us about how the government is consulting with this group, that group and the other group. All I can say from my observation of almost six years here in the House is that the Liberal government for all the consultation it has ever done has never taken the slightest bit of notice of the input it receives from ordinary Canadians.

[John Maloney, Liberal, Erie—Lincoln, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I would strongly disagree with that suggestion. I was a member of the justice committee, as was the member for Crowfoot. We did a comprehensive study of the Young Offenders Act. As a result of that a report was prepared, filed in the House and given to the Minister of Justice who responded to it. We have recently seen a new youth justice criminal act which has considered many of the points we put forward in that report.

[Elsie Wayne, Progressive Conservative, Saint John, NB]

Mr. Speaker, has the government looked at the reasons we have such a problem these days with our young people? I get really worried when I hear there is to be a debate on whether we might legalize marijuana if only for health care use.

Once we do that we also send a message to young people that marijuana is all right for them to use as well. We have to look at the drug situation which is terrible. It is the worst I have ever seen in Canada.

When they took out the port police in my riding of Saint John, New Brunswick I told them we would have cocaine like never before. We have cocaine houses all over the city. They were never there before. Because of the drug situation we have the break-up of families.

We have to look at what is causing this problem with youth crime. It comes from drugs and break-up of families. We have to see how we can solidify that family unit. Have they looked at this? What steps will they take to correct this terrible ailment we have in society today?

[John Maloney, Liberal, Erie—Lincoln, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I compliment the member on her question as well as on her dress today. It is very appropriate as we lead into St. Patrick's Day. I think the question was what are we doing to prevent these matters.

Last year the Minister of Justice announced a crime prevention initiative directed toward children whereby we set aside 1% of the justice department budget, which would amount to roughly $32 million, for crime protection initiatives. These programs are now starting to come to fruition.

I agree with the member that drugs are a horrendous problem with our youth. Something must be done about it. There must be stricter enforcement. We must get to the suppliers of these illicit items. That is not only within Canada but beyond our borders. We must cut off the flow from these countries. We are working together with many of our international partners to cut off the flow of drugs to this country.

[Jean-Guy Chrétien, Bloc, Frontenac—Mégantic, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I listened with great interest to the speech by my colleague, the member for Erie—Lincoln.

He says that 10% of the 5,000 inmates released each year reoffend. There are therefore 500 of them who will commit an offence in the months or years following their release.

If our communities are not affected by these 500 individuals, we can easily turn a blind eye. But when we see the terrible crimes they commit, we would be entitled to ask the following question, which I am going to put to the member for Erie—Lincoln: Could he tell us what specifically his government is doing to prepare inmates who will be released before serving their full sentence?

[John Maloney, Liberal, Erie—Lincoln, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. member for his question. Even 1% would be too much. There is no question about that.

While these inmates are in prison they receive treatment. There is a careful release planning. They move from maximum security to medium security to minimum security, then to a half-way house. They are supervised and observed at all stages. If the individual is known to be at risk or thought to be at risk they are not released. That is an important factor to take into consideration. It is a graduated movement through various security levels into the community.

It is eminently better than having them serve their full sentence and then bang, out on the street, like a caged animal most likely to behave in a much more serious manner than perhaps the 10% who do manage to reoffend. It may be a small offence or whatever but they are very strict on them.

I have heard from some of these offenders today in our committee. For a very slight offence they are back in. They may have consumed a glass of alcohol and they are back in prison.

[Leon Benoit, Reform, Lakeland, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak to the motion today. We have heard members from the official opposition and other parties present their case in several areas.

What I want to talk about today is the problem we have with crime and how it relates to problems in the immigration system. When we look at the warnings and the variety of people who have commented on the problem, we will see it is quite a wide problem.

Ward Elcock, director of the Canadian Security and Intelligence Service, CSIS, and the attorney general for British Columbia have made some very strong statements on the problems with criminals finding their way into our country through our immigration and refugee system. We also have statements from several previous officials from the Department of Citizenship and Immigration. I will use some quotes from some of these people.

We have statements by law enforcement officers about the problems they have in dealing with the crime that is caused by bogus refugee claimants who come into our country under less than honourable terms. We even have Liberal members of parliament who have made some very strong statements on the weaknesses in our immigration system and how that leads to crime. I will quote from one or two Liberal members later.

Who pays the price for the problems in our immigration system and for the crime that comes to our country as a result of a broken system? Canadians pay the price. It is Canadians who are having their lives destroyed due to drug abuse. They can find a ready supply of drugs from, for example, bogus Honduran refugee claimants on the streets of Vancouver.

Many times it is new Canadians who are intimidated and forced to pay protection from the criminal element that finds its way into their communities from their country of origin. These are the very people from whom new Canadians have escaped by leaving their homelands. These people are now here in our country and the same type of organized crime has followed them.

New immigrant communities pay a price in another way. We have all read story after story about problems with our immigration and refugee system which allow criminals to get into our country so easily. As we hear, read and see those stories on television, we know that it reflects negatively on the new immigrant population as a whole. I think that is sad. The new immigrant population is tarnished because of a small percentage of criminals who find their way into our country so easily through our immigration system. Canadians right across this country are victims of this problem and it must be dealt with.

I mentioned the problem with the drug trade in Vancouver, in particular the problem with Honduran people who come to Canada claiming refugee status which are bogus claims. That they are in our country is a problem in itself. How did they get to our country? We do not have proper resources up front to screen and so on, but I will talk a bit about some of the solutions at the end of my presentation. However, there is no doubt this is a problem.

I quote the member for Port Moody—Coquitlam who stated recently that refugee claimants convicted of dealing drugs should be deported immediately with no review or appeal allowed to drag things out. That is from a Liberal member who has recognized the problem.

We do not have the proper resources upfront. Therefore, people are finding their way into our country who should not be here. They should be screened by the process.

Our process is lenient and dragged out, and we allow so many appeals that we cannot get people who have been targeted and named as undesirables by the immigration department out of the country. That is what led the Liberal member to make the statement that they should be deported immediately, with no review or appeal allowed to drag things out.

The attorney general for British Columbia has stated “If you are abusing the hospitality of Canada by committing crimes, you should be deported forthwith”. He is very frustrated with this problem, in particular, but he is also frustrated with other problems, some of which I will touch on later.

A Vancouver staff sergeant stated recently that people who come in, flaunt our refugee system and sell poison to our children should be deported immediately. This again is frustration speaking. He goes on to say “I am disgusted that the system did not take action long ago”. Many of us have heard quotes like this. It is not really a quote that stands alone. This is a problem that we should not ignore.

When it is narrowed down, the most visible drug problem is that of the Honduran drug dealers in Vancouver. However, there are many others involved in organized crime which I will touch on a bit later.

Members have to be even more concerned when they find that the immigration minister and her department came down on a member of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police who made statements that are completely honest on this issue.

What happened a couple of weeks ago was that RCMP Constable Mark Applejohn suggested that refugee claimants be fingerprinted and detained until their prints are run through police databases for criminal checks. He stated that immigration laws are lax and cumbersome, allowing claimants who have broken the law to stay in Canada while their claims continue.

How does the immigration department respond? Chris Taylor, who is head of western services for the immigration department, said “I consider these comments to reflect breaches of the code of conduct and the oath of allegiance of the RCMP”.

Instead of the department attacking the problem, it attacks RCMP officers who are frustrated. They do not have the tools they need to deal with the problem. The immigration department and the immigration minister are too weak to do something about it. In five years we have had no legislation whatsoever to deal with the problem.

The frustration is bound to show. This RCMP officer should not be criticized and attacked by the head of western services, backed up by the minister in the House and in committee. Instead of attacking the police for making statements that are completely correct, the government should attack the problem. I think it is sad that has not been done.

Another issue that has become huge is people smuggling. The former solicitor general spoke at a chiefs of police conference a couple of months ago. He said “This study estimates that between 8,000 and 16,000 people arrive in Canada each year with the assistance of people smugglers”. This estimate is probably very low. He said “The human costs are staggering when we consider that these people are vulnerable, often exploited, socially isolated and sometimes forced to engage in criminal activity just to survive”. This is a problem which not only causes severe harm to this country, but also to the people who are exploited.

Often people smuggling is done by organized crime groups such as the triads and most recently Russian organized crime that has found its way to this country.

There are some common solutions to the problem. Some of them have been set out by police. For example, when all refugee claimants are fingerprinted, why do we not simply cross-check these fingerprints with our internal police forces first and then with the police forces from other countries, including the country of origin.

Many other solutions have been proposed and I would be happy to talk about those at some future time. I appreciate the time I was given to make a few comments on this issue.

[Jean-Guy Chrétien, Bloc, Frontenac—Mégantic, QC]

Mr. Speaker, according to the speaker who came before my hon. colleague from Lakeland, the member for Erie—Lincoln, 10 out of 100 prisoners obtaining early release could commit a repeat offence afterward.

On the other hand, my colleague from Lakeland focussed mainly on immigrants.

There are very few immigrants in my rural riding, in the eastern townships, in Beauce, in the area around Quebec City. Among those we have welcomed is Dominico Staniscia, an Italian gentleman who has been responsible for creating twenty or so jobs, and who is known pretty well all over Quebec.

Then there is Catherine Ballas, who employs more than 30 people. In Milan, there is Jacques Benoît, a VIP in that municipality. Disraëli owes a number of jobs to Denis Spiratos.

In Lac-Mégantic, there are 18 Serbian families helping out their community. They are putting their culture and training to use, at minimum wage, to help others and to help themselves adapt to life here.

All of these people have managed to master French, while retaining their mother tongue.

I would ask the hon. member for Lakeland if he is not getting a bit carried away. Is he not laying too much blame at the feet of the immigrants, when he refers to the trade in illegal immigrants to this country? He has even suggested a figure of 16,000. It is all very fine to bandy numbers about, but there is no need for scaremongering.

[Leon Benoit, Reform, Lakeland, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I really appreciate the question because it gives me a chance to clear up what I did say.

I want to make it very clear that the problem is not immigrants, nor is the problem legitimate refugee claimants. This government and this minister have allowed our system to continue to be completely ineffective. In five years there has not been a bit of legislation to help solve the problem.

It is a few. We do not know how many because no stats are kept, or at least they are not allowed to be released to the public. The 15,000 or 16,000 that I mentioned are only a small part of the problem. It is not the immigrants or refugees generally; it is bogus refugee claimants, the people who abuse our system, who come here with less than honourable intentions in mind.

The problem is that the system is so lax that it allows in too many people who come here to commit crimes. I am not only talking about local crime, I am also talking about organized crime. It has become a huge problem. I am talking about terrorism which is growing in this country to the point that the head of CSIS says that Canada is a country which harbours more terrorists than any other country except the United States. It is a big problem.

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I believe one of the biggest shortcomings that I have viewed in our justice system is the treatment of aboriginal people or the disproportionate representation of aboriginal people within the system.

I noted a startling figure recently. In 1969, in the Kingston Penitentiary for women, 100% of the population was aboriginal.

Recommendations were made by the aboriginal justice inquiry that came out of Manitoba and recommendations were made by the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples which deal with aboriginal involvement in the justice system.

Would the Reform member and his party agree that we should be pushing for the implementation of the recommendations of the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples as they pertain to the disproportionate representation in our penal system and in the justice system?

[Leon Benoit, Reform, Lakeland, AB]

Mr. Speaker, the question does not relate to the presentation I gave, but I am all too happy to respond to it.

What I would like to say is that the Reform Party for five years now has been proposing solutions to this problem. We are not going to solve the problem with more programs which may help to deal with the problem after it has developed. We are going to solve the problem by allowing aboriginal people to give themselves more control over their own destiny. Until that happens this problem will never be solved.

It starts with proper accountability, on the reserves in particular; proper accountability by chiefs and councils on the reserves, some of whom are abusing the trust given to them by people on the reserves. We have a list of well over 100 reserves across the country that have very serious problems with accountability. The money that goes to the aboriginal people is not going to the people who desperately need it. There is very little being done to help develop the economy, for example, so that these people can dig themselves out of this problem which has gotten worse and worse over the last 30 to 40 years.

Until we deal with the cause of the problem we are not going to be able to do anything in an effective way to deal with the problem of too many aboriginal people finding their way into our prisons.

[The Acting Speaker (Mr. McClelland)]

It is my duty, pursuant to Standing Order 38, to inform the House that the questions to be raised tonight at the time of adjournment are as follows: the hon. member for Bras d'Or—Cape Breton, DEVCO; the hon. member for Regina—Lumsden—Lake Centre, Royal Canadian Mounted Police; the hon. member for Cypress Hills—Grasslands, Canada Port Authorities; the hon. member for Davenport, Housing.

[Keith Martin, Reform, Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca, BC]

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure today to speak to the Reform supply day motion.

There are two ways we can deal with crime. We can manage it or we can prevent it. Inevitably, it is a combination of both within the context of our justice system. However, I would submit that what we have done over the past several decades is placed our focus on the management of the problem and we have utterly failed in our ability to prevent it.

If we look at what has been taking place not only within Canada but around the world, we see that there have been some innovative programs which have been developed to prevent crime. One of those programs is in Moncton.

Last spring this House passed a private member's motion that I put forth calling for a national head start program. This program would take the best from programs found in Moncton, Hawaii, Michigan, the United States; programs which have been proven to decrease child abuse by 99%, which keep kids in school longer, which have dropped youth crime by 50%, which have decreased teen pregnancies by 40% and which have saved the taxpayer $30,000 per child.

New scientific data shows very clearly that when a child is subjected in the first eight years of life to issues such as drug abuse, sexual abuse, violence, or even to more subtle things such as improper parenting or the absence of parenting, it has a dramatic negative impact upon the development of that child's brain. The neurological development of that child's brain is impeded, which has a dramatic negative effect when the child becomes a teenager and later an adult.

When we look at prison populations we find that large chunks of the prison populations were subjected to violent sexual abuse and such in the course of their childhood. While that does not exonerate them from the crimes they committed, therein lies perhaps some truths and perhaps some answers as to how we can prevent these people from becoming criminals.

Work that was done by the minister of labour and her husband in Moncton shows very clearly that when we enable children and parents to come together, when parents learn how to be good parents and ensure that children in the first eight years of life have the basic building blocks to enable them to have their basic needs met, they have a much greater chance of becoming productive, integrated members of society. Remove those or destroy the ability of that child to develop and we have the problems that I mentioned before such as criminal abuse.

The Moncton head start program was focused on having parents involved in children's behaviour, teaching proper nutrition, proper discipline and what it means to be a loving, caring parent. One would be surprised to know that in some communities parents do not know that because they were never taught it or brought up in that environment. Where that is lacking in a child's development the impact can be dramatic and profoundly tragic at times. Not all children who are subjected to that wind up with deleterious effects, but it happens all too often.

The Perry preschool program in Ypsilanti, Michigan, has been in existence for some 30 years. It shows very carefully that when children's basic needs are met we save $30,000 per child. There was also a 50% reduction in teen pregnancies which we know is a route to poverty for many young women and their children.

The Hawaii head start program uses a very innovative tool which I think we could employ in our country. It uses trained volunteers, primarily women in their fifties who have had children. These women were actually integrated with families at risk. They developed a co-operative integrated relationship with those families.

What was the outcome? There was a 99% drop in child abuse among those children. We see a dramatic benefit at the level of child abuse. At the level of society now, with a large number of babies boomers in the fifties and sixties age groups, maybe there is a way of utilizing their valuable experience in parenting to help those in our community who are less able to do it.

If we are able to integrate that group of people in the way that has been done in Hawaii it would be very cheap and the profound, dramatic and positive effects on children would be amazing. We would have a paradigm shift in our thinking on social programs from one of the management of problems to the prevention of problems.

Through the head start motion I am not asking for the feds to take on the responsibility of having a national program with lots of money being poured into it, but that the ministers merely ask their provincial counterparts beforehand to come together at a meeting to find out what works in their provinces and what does not. By asking them to come to the table it will force the provinces to rationalize their programs, in which case they can remove what is not working and keep what is.

There are many programs in provinces that are done in a hodgepodge fashion that work very well for families at risk. There are also some programs that are not working well. It behoves all of us as legislators to find out what is working well and what is not. It is our responsibility to the taxpayer to do that.

By calling their provincial counterparts together the federal ministers can sit down at a table, work together and have an integrated approach with cost sharing between the feds and the provinces. The amount of money required for this would be minimum.

At point zero we could use the medical community. In the middle we could use trained volunteers. At the age of four through eight we could use the education system. By working with the provinces and the feds we could have an integrated approach which would help not only families at risk but families that are doing financially well with children who are not doing well.

One of the more subtle elements that we are not taking into consideration in our communities is latch-key children. Those children, despite coming from backgrounds that are privileged, have subtle psychological changes taking place within them because they do not have parenting.

Money is not the most important thing in the development of a child. It is good parenting. Children have their basic needs met in a loving, caring and secure environment. Perhaps the proof is in the pudding. Let us look at the number of immigrant families that come to our country with very little from a monetary perspective but have strong parenting skills. Their children are privileged to have such parents.

I grew up in environment in which there was very little money. I was very lucky to have parents with strong parenting skills. All of us who were privileged to have such parents know the value of what they gave us. They may not have given much in terms of monetary goods but they gave us a loving and caring environment and society in which to live. For that we are grateful.

Many colleagues on the other side have a great deal of expertise and experience. Many ministers and members of parliament on the other side have worked very hard on this issue. The Minister of Labour has worked very hard and has been a leader with her husband in this regard. The Secretary of State for Children and Youth has worked very hard in her aboriginal community to make this a reality as many members have done.

I challenge us to work together on the issue and make a national head start program a reality. If we were to do this, it would probably be the greatest thing we could do for children and for Canadian society in the future. By doing so we would radically change the way we think from the management of these problems to their prevention. No longer would we see half the people in jail suffering from fetal alcohol syndrome or fetal alcohol effects, the leading cause of preventable birth defects.

These individuals are suffering from irreversible brain damage. Their average IQ is 68. They cannot integrate and function properly. When they go to school they are at a loss. They are often marginalized, picked on and left in the periphery. As a result their problems are merely compounded as time passes. While not all of them will become criminals by any stretch of the imagination, a disproportionate number of them have an enormous amount of difficulty becoming integrated productive members of society.

I know my time is up. There is much more to say not only on this issue but on the RCMP and truth in sentencing. I will close with a plug for the RCMP. For Heaven's sake, please fund them. They are not getting the resources they need. The CPIC computer is ready to fall apart. My colleagues have mentioned many constructive solutions which the RCMP need to enable them to do their job. If we do not give them the support they require, they will not be able to support our community.

[Sue Barnes, Liberal, London West, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. member for his eloquent speech. He puts many of these issues back into a realm where reality reigns. He talks about the true nature of many of the problems and the predeterminants of some of the situations, especially of young people with different disadvantages which lead them to a later involvement in a system of justice that perhaps is not the best suited to the correction of problems at that stage.

Many members of the official opposition constantly cry out for longer sentences and what would appear to be much harsher penalties. Would the hon. member agree that perhaps not only tax dollars would be saved but real results could be obtained if instead of lengthier sentences some efforts went toward better use of money, behaviour modification and wrap-around systems with productive results for the child and society as a whole?

[Keith Martin, Reform, Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I know the member who asks the question has had a long interest in this issue. Many of my colleagues are dividing children who commit crimes into two sections. There are those who are violent criminals and have been proven to repeat violent offences against innocent civilians. Those people have demonstrated their wilful neglect of innocent Canadians. We want harsher penalties for them because we feel the primary role of the justice system is the protection of society, not rehabilitation. We put protection first and rehabilitation second.

That is not to say we are not interested in rehabilitation. In fact we are. The member for Surrey North introduced a private member's bill which the Minister of Justice integrated into her young offenders bill.

That bill provided for younger children between the ages of 10 and 11 to be tried under the Young Offenders Act. The reason was not to have punitive measures enacted against individuals. The reason was to ensure that children at 10 and 11 years of age would have the benefits of our judicial system in terms of what the hon. member mentioned.

How do we treat these problems? The sooner we can treat the problems, the better chance we will have of the child not becoming a lifetime criminal and prevent a lot of problems in the future.

[Jean-Guy Chrétien, Bloc, Frontenac—Mégantic, QC]

Mr. Speaker, my colleague in the Reform Party would like, and this is legendary in this party, extremely harsh and long sentences, which, as my colleague in the party opposite so nicely put it, cost society a bundle.

I have two suggestions for my colleague. Would it not be a good idea first to consider full employment? Having each Canadian working? Work gets the brain going.

Second, education is a virtue. Unfortunately, our government is hanging on to significant sums that should be going toward education. We should start educating people when they are very young to get them used to working and living honourably.

Would my colleague in the Reform Party not consider these two solutions rather than invest huge sums to put people in prison for crimes often starting with petty larceny? Success at it leads to greater and greater crimes, and after 10 or 12 years in crime, an individual becomes a powerful criminal and heads into violent crime.

[Keith Martin, Reform, Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my Bloc Quebecois colleague for his question.

I want to correct the hon. member on one pervasive myth about the Reform Party. Many of our members have been in the forefront of being advocates for the prevention of criminal activity and for using innovative methods of dealing with non-violent crime. However, for individuals who have participated in violent criminal activity and have proven to be a danger to society, the Reform Party says that the primary objective of the justice system is to protect innocent civilians. That is why we believe pedophiles should be locked up. We believe people who are repeat violent offenders should be locked up for a long time.

We also believe that for individuals committing petty crimes we should find alternative, non-custodial ways of dealing with them. We also feel there should be innovative ways of dealing with drug problems. For example, instead of incarcerating individuals we should do what was done in Scandinavia.

The post-needle park Geneva experiment is perhaps the most effective and successful method of getting hard core drug abusers off the street. In a one year period of time there was at least a 50% or 60% success rate in terms of having hard core drug abusers out of jail, in society, working, and off drugs. There is no other program like it in the world. That is what the Reform Party is pushing for, along with many other innovative ways of dealing with crime.

We very much support the aboriginal initiatives and some of the methods that aboriginal communities use to deal with non-violent crime. It is something that we could all learn from.

[Jacques Saada, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to Solicitor General of Canada]

Mr. Speaker, before beginning, I wish to point out that I will be sharing my time with the member for London West.

I am very pleased to have this opportunity today to debate justice issues. Before solutions can be found to certain problems, we must first ensure that the problems are correctly identified. It happens that there are a number of myths about justice, and these myths get in the way of solutions.

Obviously, one of these myths is that parole is a very bad thing because of recidivism. This is a widespread myth, but a myth nonetheless, for it is not true.

I will give a very simple example. The success rate of supervised or unsupervised temporary absences is 98%; this is not a failure. The success rate for paroles is 89.2%. I think that one would be relatively satisfied with a mark of 89.2% on a school exam.

These myths are detrimental to the entire justice debate. Over the last five years, the number of violent offences committed by inmates released on parole dropped by 70%. I repeat: the number of violent offences committed by inmates released on parole dropped by 70%.

Because of these myths, suggestions are very often made, and unfortunately I must point out that they come primarily from certain members of the Reform Party and the Progressive Conservative Party. These proposals are very simplistic: lock the criminals up for as long as possible and everything will be fine.

This is a simplistic solution. If offenders are locked up, they are not hurting the public and the public will therefore be safe. With all due respect, this is absolutely not the case, and I will explain why.

When a person commits a criminal offence and is sentenced to jail, if the jail term is used to prepare that person to better understand the world and to reintegrate it, when that individual will regain his freedom, he will behave like a law-abiding citizen. This is the best guarantee for public safety.

An inmate who is released without any preparation after spending 10 or 15 years in jail, is not at all prepared to deal with the outside world. In these cases, the chance that the individual will reoffend is understandably greater, which means the risk is also greater.

Whether the issue is impaired driving, which we are discussing right now, whether it is Bill C-251 on cumulative sentences, whether it is the bill that we just tabled regarding young offenders, the reaction of some people in this House is invariably the same, namely that we must take harsher measures, provide more penalties, impose stiffer sentences.

I submit that these are very primary reactions, which are based on myths and perceptions, not on reality. There is no doubt that there are some erroneous perceptions among the public, and that we have to correct them. However, it would be a fundamental mistake to want to use the justice system to correct such perceptions. If the perceptions are wrong, then we have to change these perceptions, not the justice system.

In this connection, I would just like to point out that I have had a number of interesting experiences since becoming the Parliamentary Secretary to the Solicitor General. In particular, I asked to sit in on a parole board hearing. This was at Laval. As it happened, the person who was entitled to apply for eligibility for parole was someone who had been given a life sentence for murder.

I listened to the deliberations, and everything was more or less predictable, except for a reference made at one point to an event that had occurred several weeks or months before, when the inmate in question had made a section 745 request to appear before the board.

A member of the victim's family was in attendance. This person turned to the inmate and said “You hurt me very much, but I forgive you”. The 42-year old inmate, a tough and hardened man, burst into tears. He wanted just one thing, to discover how to try to begin to make amends for the harm he had done.

This morning, in committee, where we are working on Bill C-251, we had a similar experience. Someone who had been found guilty of murder and has been on parole for 9 years now works with young people in order to prevent them from repeating the same serious mistakes. Is this not an initiative with the greatest chance of successfully ensuring public safety?

There are two ways of looking at things: one can take the populist approach, and then when public concern starts to build, put more people in jail, increase penalties and jail time; or one can look at the true nature of things, which is that human beings change and evolve, that they are capable of change and the more they are helped to make changes, the more they are helped to understand the constraints of society, the more they will be brought to contribute to changing our society, and the more they themselves will be in a position to help contribute to public safety.

That is our position as government. It is not an easy one in political terms. I am well aware that it is easier to say to someone “Do not worry, the criminals are behind bars. There is no problem”. Criminals do indeed have to pay for their crimes, and they must serve time in jail, and prisons are necessary because there must be retribution.

But this is not the only way. There is a combination of approaches. Prison, detention, is one, reintegration through community programs combines with that, as does awareness of community needs and the role of victims too.

Is there anything more instructive for a criminal than to face their victim? When I say face, I do not mean aggressively, but face to face. Previously, the victim had just been a number, someone they did not know. Suddenly they meet and they talk.

The criminal gets a sense of the wrong he caused his victim, a wrong in the victim's daily life and sometimes an irreparable wrong. It allows the criminal to become so much more aware and to contribute so much more or at least to have the opportunity to contribute so much more to public security.

These are not easy problems. I would really hope that we do not fall into simplistic solutions. There are no easy solutions. But if I have to choose, I believe in human nature.

[Sue Barnes, Liberal, London West, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I commence by saying how much I enjoyed the logic of my colleague in his remarks just prior to this. There is logic to be utilized when we are talking about a system of justice in Canada which really is a pillar of our democracy, the justice system itself and the way we deter those people going against the social values of our communities.

There is logic to be utilized in the way that our justice system relies on a due process of law so that evidence based reality will prevail, the way that we have juries, our peer groups, to make decisions and the way we have an independent judiciary functioning every day across the country in court rooms helping to ensure just results occur based on evidence.

That is a very difficult job. Over the last year it has disturbed me greatly the number of occasions where more and more in the press and in public discussion there has been something I will term judge bashing.

I think this is a serious situation. It does not help our society. The judiciary is an arm of our system of government that is doing what many of us in the House attempt to do by way of public service to our communities.

The reason I have raised this is that if someone disagrees with my views as a politician, be it in my community or during an election campaign, it is fair game for them to target me and to voice an opposite and sometime very harsh opinion of my views.

However, at the end of the day I have the ability to stand up and defend myself by voicing my side of the same arguments. That is something that is not available to justices and judges across this land. Occasionally we will have, coming to their defence, some of the organizations such as the bar or the attorneys general. Historically it has been the attorneys general who take on this role.

That position inside the judiciary to my mind is not a position that is there for popularity. There is a service also to be done if a judge points out a piece of legislation that in their view is ambiguous or needs redefinition.

Some of us may agree that the view one is getting through a newspaper article, which obviously does not have all the facts, may be a situation that seems dead wrong. In that case, thankfully in this country we have a system of appeal. It is possible, in a very civilized and due process manner, to get a further interpretation or, if necessary, our judicial system provides us in this Chamber with the opportunity to change the laws.

Unfortunately I have not had a chance all day to hear what has been going on, but I want to stress that in Canada it is a shared jurisdiction in areas that affect justice. Here in the Chamber we can change the Criminal Code. We can put in a new act concerning youth . We can do many things with respect to the detail of the law.

However, when it touches the ground it has to be provincial or territorial jurisdictions that take the administration of those laws into the courtrooms.

We heard the Minister of Justice addressing the situation of divergent groups and divergent positions across this country. I believe that in reality the Canadian public in all the communities across the land want the best for the safety of their children and their families.

I therefore think we can all agree with the goals. I do not think there is any party in the House that can take ownership of feelings for victims as is often done by parties opposite and the official opposition. All of us are concerned about our constituents and their lives.

When one is addressing solutions in a justice situation, it is very important to not only look at the back end, the enforcement end, which often does not solve situations. What really has to be there in full force and with a lot of resources is the crime prevention end, the determinants of situations.

I know there are colleagues among in all parties who are singing from the same songbook on crime prevention. If we dig a little deeper we see situations where talk is cheap.

I just heard my hon. colleague across talking about the needs of the aboriginal communities. I know these communities have great needs. There are systemic problems in a system that would place so many aboriginal youths in jail.

The Reform Party taxpayers budget was going to remove $800 million from the resources going to aboriginal populations. It is easy to say we support, we support, but when push comes to shove, the support realistically has to be implemented with budgets that are real and for a goal that has as its desired outcome a change of behaviour or support for existing conditions.

I think specifically about fetal alcohol syndrome. More resources need to be directed to the mother of the youth rather than directed to the youth. Some of the contraindications of partaking in alcohol affects taxpayers and communities and particularly the affected child who pays throughout his or her life. This is preventable. It is not going to be fixed by enforcement. Never.

That is why we talk about the difference between a real solution and the simplistic sound bite “Well, I am really going to fix this because I am going to be tougher”.

In my city experiments are going on with sentencing circles, youth justice circles. It is a new way of diverting youth from the formalized court system especially with minor property offences. It takes the example from the aboriginal community. The aboriginal community started sentencing circles. They are effectively working in London, Ontario today and they are being expanded.

The circles involve the victim, community players, volunteers from the community and the offender. In our case we are using it for youth. There has to be an admission of a wrongdoing. There has to be some sort of restitution. The committee itself in less than a couple of hours has to come up with some sort of support to wrap around the individual to help change his or her behaviour or address the deficiencies in his or her life.

I have talked with many people who have sat on these sentencing circles, including youth who are participating in them. They see this as something that will work. They see the possibility of rehabilitation.

There are many such examples. We have a crime prevention initiative with $32 million ongoing. The resources that are available to communities and their groups are not only those enforcement resources. Yes, they are important and they serve a function and there is a time and a place for them. Generally speaking we want to modify unacceptable behaviour.

I have personal experience as a member of the Ontario Criminal Code review board for six years. I dealt in a quasi-judicial role with people who had very bad behaviour who through no fault of their own but because of a mental incapacity were involved in horrible acts against society. They needed to be there to address some of the underlying forces.

I know that with my colleagues we will start addressing root causes.

[Ted White, Reform, North Vancouver, BC]

Madam Speaker, the member mentioned how pleased she was that we have an independent judiciary. The fact is that many of our judiciary are political patronage appointees, especially at the higher levels. They are clearly setting out to accomplish a social engineering agenda and the public does not like it.

As the member mentioned, she can be held accountable by the voters. She has the opportunity to defend her record and to ask her constituents to return her to this place. That is exactly why Reform has suggested a more transparent and open process of appointing judges. There really should be a system that more publicly examines a person who is going to be in a judiciary position so the public can have confidence in that person's ability to be totally independent.

Frankly I think perhaps a lot of the judges like the rule where they cannot defend themselves because they cannot defend themselves. They cannot defend the decisions they make, as being completely out of touch with the community standards.

I have sat in the courts in North Vancouver and I have seen plenty of decisions made that are completely out of touch with the community standards. The people in the court have almost booed at what has been done there. This is a problem that needs to be addressed. It is as if the judges have become desensitized over time because they have seen so much crime in their courts.

I refer the member to the case of New York which had a zero tolerance policy. Taking care of the small things automatically takes care of the big things. If there is a zero tolerance for small crimes, the big crimes do not happen.

Finally, with respect to the aboriginal affairs situation, around 250 Squamish band members have contacted me in relation to Bill C-49. As part of that process a number of them submitted to me budgets of the Squamish band. In one social services part of that band budget which is supposed to look after children, the budget is $1.5 million and almost $900,000 of it is used on administration. The band members are complaining about it because it is not flowing to the people who should be getting the help.

That is the point Reform is making. There is plenty of money in Indian and northern affairs. It is just not getting to the right places.

[Sue Barnes, Liberal, London West, ON]

Mr. Speaker, on those comments I would not know where to start. There are so many issues that could be addressed.

Suffice it to say that in every situation there are difficult decisions for our judiciary. Unlike many people who have spoken and the comments I have heard over the last year, I have respect for the judiciary. I am very grateful that in Canada we have due process of law.

Many I would call moves to shortcuts to make life easier. If someone was charged in our household we would want full due process of law and every opportunity for a proper defence. At the end of the system we would want proper sanctioning.

Proper sanctioning has nothing to do with length of sentence. It has to do with obtaining a result that will be better for the safety of the community and which will work toward a rehabilitation of the individual.

Public safety and security is of utmost importance. One of the ways this is accomplished is through rehabilitation. The reality is that most offenders will get out of the system. At the end of the day as a society, do we want them better functioning when they leave than when they went in, or do we just want them hardened and bitter and without hope? At the end of the day they are going to be members of our society.

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Solicitor General commented earlier about how useful the parole system is in having some limitation on whom people can engage with, where they must report to, where they live. These are safeguards that are in the system. If we checked the recidivism rates, we would actually see that where there are no parole systems in place, the small percentage of people where there is no parole provision, they are the ones who are more likely to reoffend.

The hon. member has asked something about which I could talk for hours addressing all of those situations. Suffice it to say that I have a lot of faith in our democratic judicial system, a democracy supporting an independent judicial system. I certainly would never want to see elections for judges. I believe that there is not a justice in this country appointed to the bench who was not qualified.