Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise in response to some of the comments made and to discuss some of the amendments moved in this large group of amendments. It is important first of all that we come to some kind of understanding as to how we arrived at this point today.
My colleague from Pictou—Antigonish—Guysborough said we are debating amendments to what may be the most complex piece of legislation to come before the House of Commons in this setting. Indeed, one colleague who has been here a lot longer than I have told me that this was the most complex piece of legislation after the Income Tax Act.
The bill was introduced in the last session of parliament. It was then unfortunately numbered Bill C-68, not a popular bill number for the Minister of Justice. It went before committee and there was some discussion at first reading. Then for whatever reason, it was determined that parliament would prorogue and the legislation died. It came back as Bill C-3. It has had a long life.
Those watching and those who read Hansard will know that the Minister of Justice was questioned time and time again on this bill. Members asked when it would be brought forward by the government and they were told it would be in a timely fashion and it was. Unfortunately the debate has not taken place in a timely fashion.
Sadly, when this complex piece of legislation was in committee, there was no opportunity to debate the necessary and important amendments that have been placed before the House by different parties. Those amendments fall in different camps and different areas. On behalf of the New Democratic Party I moved 20 amendments, all of which I thought were reasonable and sensible, some of which would have been healthy to debate at committee. My colleagues from the Conservative Party moved another 40 or so. We will not talk about what some of those were because they are not in this group of amendments.
Let me say that there were problems with this bill on the day that it was announced. I outlined the problems and I had hoped that by the time the legislation came to the House some of those problems would have been resolved. We now know that there was an opportunity to resolve them.
I think the thrust of the bill is that the Minister of Justice has attempted to appease both those who want tougher sentences for children and those who call for restorative justice. It is a difficult balancing act.
There are some good measures in the bill that deal with extrajudicial sentencing. By extrajudicial measures we mean ways to deal with young people who find themselves in trouble with the law on their first or second offence, not a serious offence, who in many instances are acting out against society. There are provisions in the bill that allow the community to get involved in a restorative justice sense, to help work with a young person. The problem is that the provinces are to administer the criminal justice system.
At the federal level we pass the legislation dealing with the criminal code and the criminal youth justice act. It is then left to the provinces to administer the law we create. Part of the problem with the bill is that the resources will not be there to put in place the extrajudicial measures that might be so helpful to young people who find themselves in trouble with the law for a first or second time.
I do not know of one attorney general at the provincial level across the country who thinks the resources allocated by the federal government will be sufficient to put in place those measures.
I remember when the Young Offenders Act, which we are replacing, was first introduced. We ran into the same problem. I was practising in the courts in those days. On many occasions a young person would come before the judge and the judge would not want to send the young person to jail. The act had provisions for other measures but the province had no money. What was written on paper and what was provided for in the law were not put into effect by the provinces. When I questioned the Minister of Justice on this she felt that the resources were adequate and given the tight financial circumstances we found ourselves in as a nation, there were no more resources.
We know now there was a $12 billion surplus. It has gone to pay down the debt because it was not allocated for any of the other programs that might have found the money useful. I submit that putting in place this comprehensive piece of legislation and asking the provinces to take on the administration of it, those provinces could have used some of the resources the government found itself with. It would ensure that young people who come into conflict with the law would at first instance have the benefit of working with their community and the community would have the resources to work with them.
After all, we are all responsible for the children in our country. All of us are responsible for the children in our community. When a child breaks the law it is a call to all of us to respond. Poorer communities will not be able to take advantage. Poorer provinces, especially the have not provinces, and there are more of them than the have ones, will not be able to take advantage of some of the good, proactive measures that are in Bill C-3.
The other thing the Minister of Justice did in an effort to calm members of what was then the Reform Party was to make the law tougher, if that is the word one wants to use, at the other end. In the bill is legislation which allows a judge to send 14 year olds to do adult time if necessary. Under the previous legislation it was rare; an adult sentence would not be imposed on a young person unless he or she was over 16. This bill goes a little further than that. It allows the court to sentence a 14 year old to adult time for certain types of offences or if the judge feels it is necessary.
My colleague from Pictou—Antigonish—Guysborough has talked about judicial discretion. That is where I disagree with him, and I do not disagree with him often.
When we are dealing with young people in particular, no one is in a better position to understand the type of sentence that young person needs than the judge who has heard all the evidence, has seen the parents in court, has seen the victim in court, has seen, sometimes, the victim's parents in court, and has access to all kinds of information from social workers and doctors. No one has that information except the judge.
Surely if we are going to provide judicial discretion in any area of the law, that judicial discretion should be used in the case of young offenders. I have worked in the criminal court system and the criminal youth justice system for a long time. The complexity of those cases can be understood only by the judges.
There has been a shift, but before I go on to that I want to respond to the case that was raised, about the 11 year old who went in and committed a bank robbery. I submit that the appropriate measures were taken. That was a young boy. He did not know what he was doing. What became clear in the investigation was that there was an adult who directed this boy to do something. Surely the person to be charged is the adult. If we are going to start elevating 11 and 10 year olds to the criminal justice system, then I wonder where we stop.