Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to speak to the amendment to the main motion. The amendment keeps in mind that Bill C-68 has borrowed from and incorporated much of the intent the hon. member for Surrey North had in mind when the bill was originally brought forward.
I acknowledge the ongoing efforts of the member for Surrey North in this regard. Through no fault of his own and through no desire of his own, he joined a very exclusive group in the country, and that is being the survivor of a murdered victim. As a parent I think the bill and the incorporation of the bill into the Criminal Code serves as a tribute to his son Jesse.
This a very commendable focus of what in most circumstances would be a very bitter and negative energy. He has put forward what is a very positive motion which will hopefully help to prevent, perhaps in some way, matters such as this where a parent is not being held accountable and not making significant efforts to supervise a young person who is bound by a court order.
There has been much discussion throughout the debate on Bill C-260 about the new youth criminal justice act that has also been debated in the Chamber. We in the Progressive Conservative Party like all Canadians were looking forward to the changes that were coming about as a result of deliberations and as a result of the long delay endured on the issue of changes to the Young Offenders Act.
As has been stated time and time again in the House, in the media, in the coffee shops and in general debate throughout the country, the Young Offenders Act was not serving its purpose, not serving our criminal justice system, and not serving Canadians at large.
Unfortunately the new bill is a disappointment. There was an opportunity, which the minister chose not to exercise, to make changes that would have had a more significant effect. That is not to say that commendable changes have not come about. Certainly there is an element through some effort on the part of the member for Surrey North to bring in some form of parental responsibility. It is a positive measure to have the ability now to identify certain dangerous young offenders and the ability to transfer certain types of offences. That would be seen in a positive light.
However other offences have been excluded for some reason from consideration. Although we are not through the final stages of the bill, there will be an opportunity to propose amendments. At least there will be an opportunity to fix some of the glaring omissions on the part of the Department of Justice. Time will tell.
The introduction of the new bill was given a great deal of focus in the media. There was a great deal of hype and much discussion outside the Chamber by the minister. It is with sort of a heavy heart that we are facing a situation where this change to the Young Offenders Act does not exactly hit the mark.
Some of the areas where obviously there is a downturn or a failing is the inability to lower the age of criminal responsibility to 10. There is also an omission in the area of focusing on the use of weapons in the commission of a criminal offence and making mandatory minimum sentences for young offenders in situations where weapons have been used.
The focus of the bill was to be on violent versus non-violent offences. There was much discussion and acrimony about the fact that young people should be given an opportunity and should be treated differently under our criminal justice system. That is the philosophy of the old bill, of the juvenile delinquents act, and of the bill before the House.
There is difficulty in saying that we have to be more pro-active and pre-emptive when it comes to treating young people under our criminal justice system. There has to be an acknowledgement that the resources also have to be allotted.
The enforcement and administration of the legislation have to acknowledge that currently there is a funding shortage and that currently the federal government is not holding up its end of the bargain. The original intent of the old legislation, the Young Offenders Act, was that the federal government would pick up 50% of the cost of administration. Similarly the new legislation would have the same fiscal or monetary attachment. That is not the case.
We also know that the present social services are in many cases the first line of defence, that is child welfare offices, offices that have to deal with the protection of children. These offices are drastically underfunded, yet at the same time the bill will put a greater emphasis on those agencies.
I would be reticent not to mention the fact that the police are given greater powers of discretion under the new bill. It is a very laudable intention that police officers be allowed to exercise greater discretion in the field and perhaps on occasion, rather than formally charging a young person, be permitted to take the young person to his or her parents or back to the station and administer a tongue lashing, for lack of a better word. Sometimes that will have a better impact on the young person than having them go through the very formal and very sterile court process.
With all of that in mind, if the intent of the new legislation is to have this proactive attempt by police to circumvent more formal processes, there also has to be an acknowledgement that it will be a very onerous task for police in terms of taxing their time, their effort and their current resources.
They simply do not have those resources. We know that because time and time again we hear it from the policing community and from the chiefs of police. We know that the RCMP is drastically underfunded at this time. We know that its budgets have been cut time and time again. In general terms we have seen billions cut out of transfer payments to provinces that go to the administration of justice in individual provinces.
It is nothing short of lip service. It is very lame for the government to suggest that it will give more responsibility to the police and the frontline agencies which will be tasked with administering the new bill and at the same time tell them not only that they will not get more money to do so but that they will not get the same amount they used to have to administer the Young Offenders Act. There is an absolutely hypocritical nature to the bill.
With respect to what some other justice ministers in the provinces have said, I will quote from the Alberta Minister of Justice, Jon Havelock, who said in relation to contemplating the tougher spin which has been put on the legislation that to increase penalties, increase the jail time and ensure that those who were repeatedly committing offences are dealt with more appropriately under the act, the money will have to be in place.
New Brunswick justice minister, Greg Byrne, said that he could not remain partisan when speaking about the new bill. He said that it should be tougher on violent offenders. This creates an interesting dilemma for the Minister of Justice because she has cautioned Canadians that the provinces will have to come on side and enforce the provisions of the bill which will become law before the year 2000.
During the minister's year long consultation process with many of the provinces she stated continually that they were being properly consulted. Consulted is one thing but being actually listened to is another. It has become patently obvious that the ministers of justice of many of provinces, including Alberta, Ontario, Prince Edward Island and even New Brunswick, are sorrily disappointed with the outcome and the final draft of the bill.
It demonstrates to me that it is another example of broken promises. If this is the consultation that takes place, and yet at the end of the day the provinces are ignored, it is not something that will further good relations.
The federal government and the provincial governments agreed a long time ago that they would divide the cost of administering the Young Offenders Act. This is certainly the intention of the provinces today. They are still asking the federal government to pick up its fair share of the cost of the administration. No where have we ever seen the commitment of the federal government to do so.
The minister's attempt to please all of the provinces by taking bits and pieces of the suggestions and implementing them into the bill will eventually please no one, and I would suggest that includes the hon. member for Surrey North.
With the introduction of Bill C-68 we saw a lot of bells and whistles and a lot of publicity about what it is going to accomplish, but at the end of the day we saw a very cumbersome bill that will be extremely difficult to administer. The bill is twice as lengthy and includes twice as many clauses as the old Young Offenders Act. We know that the old Young Offenders Act was a very cumbersome piece of legislation. This will be a field day for lawyers, a nightmare for judges, and it will not accomplish for Canadians what we had hoped it would.