Mr. Speaker, it is my honour and pleasure to speak today on the new youth criminal justice act.
Moderation is an ideal of virtue. Aristotle is said to have defined virtue as the middle path between extremes of excess and deficiency. It is the way of my party. It is the middle path that we have chosen in placing the bill before the House.
The youth criminal justice act replaces and improves upon the deficiencies of the Young Offenders Act. It promotes what Canadians want to see in the youth justice system: accountability, respect, responsibility and fairness. The act intends to promote these values by protecting the public and by preventing crime.
It ensures meaningful consequences for the full range of youth crime and, perhaps most important, ensures rehabilitating youth so that they can turn their lives around. It represents what some would call a tougher but more just approach to tackling youth crime.
It is not an excessive bill. It is a measured response to practical realities. We have not caved in to the banal desires of the members of the parties opposite whose quick fix proposals to youth crime would be neither quick nor effective. Might does not make right and justice should not be defined simply by whoever is strong enough to enforce it. We have an obligation to look beyond an individual criminal act to seek solutions, to seek justice.
The opposition, left to its own interests, would have us believe that compulsion is the only reason for obedience to authority, that jacking up sentences and restricting the youth justice process will lead to the reduction of youth crime. The facts simply do not support their arguments. If it were so, we would not have seen an overall reduction in crime rates in the last decade. Canada's national crime rate fell by 5% in 1999, the eighth consecutive annual decline. The youth crime rate is down 4% from 1997-98 and down 13% from 1992-93.
While last year's overall crime rate was down by 4% in the Northwest Territories, youth crime is up, as it is in many parts of northern Canada.
These reductions have not resulted from tougher sanctions but from improvements made in education and in living conditions. The higher youth crime rates in the north and among aboriginal people poses a much more difficult issue. Tougher sentences will not reduce the number of young aboriginal offenders. There are other mitigating factors. Many of them are social and others have to do with perhaps other disabilities that could be better addressed in another forum.
Improving the living conditions of northerners, including our large aboriginal population, is the way to reduce poverty and crime rates. It is a painful fact that aboriginal people represent an alarming 15% of the federal offender population but only 3% of the general population. It is more alarming when one considers that the aboriginal offender population increased from 1997 to 1999.
Tougher sentences will only ensure that aboriginal people will further increase their proportion of the federal inmate population. That is not justice. It is vindictive and ineffective. We cannot just lock people away and hope that the problem will go away. It has not worked, it does not work and it will not work.
That is why our party has taken a balanced approach. We have adopted an aboriginal justice policy that tackles these issues directly. Correctional Service Canada is working with aboriginal organizations to seek new ways to heal aboriginal offenders. The legislation before us recognizes the unique needs of aboriginal young persons. It recognizes the cultural differences of young aboriginal people, and that there are more effective ways to deal with young people than simply locking them up.
Encouraging community involvement is one of the central components of our strategy. We believe that community involvement is central to repatriating the justice system to aboriginal people, a system that for too long has been seen as a foreign system by many aboriginal youth.
Some provincial correctional authorities report that aboriginal youth constitute 80% of the youth in their correctional facilities. In my riding of the Northwest Territories it is 90%. The statistics are shameful. However, the Leader of the Opposition's platform calls upon all Canadians to be treated equally regardless of race, sex, religion or ethnic origin.
In building safer communities, the leader opposite also wants to play a leadership role internationally. Can there be any better example of the ideological failure of that party and its platform? Which country in the international community does that leader want to impress with these statistics?
That is not all. He wants to get tougher on these aboriginal youth. Clearly, there is another way. It is found in the proposed legislation. The proposed act would provide that measures should respect gender, ethnic, cultural and linguistic differences and respond to the needs of aboriginal young persons and young persons with special requirements. Clearly there must be community involvement and we must try different approaches when dealing with young aboriginal people.
In my riding justice committees have been established in 70% of our communities. The act would encourage this practice. These community committees would continue to play an important role in the development of extrajudicial measures that would be provided for in the new act.
The new act would encourage the use of non-custodial sentencing for youth. This is in keeping with the Northwest Territories' commitment to apply a restorative justice approach. These extrajudicial measures would be particularly appropriate when dealing with first-time offenders who commit minor offences.
The new act would also provides for the use of conferencing which promotes community involvement in dealing with youth involved in the justice system. We believe that the new act would respond to the needs of our justice system. We believe the new act would be a marked improvement over the Young Offenders Act. However, laws that provide a more effective framework for dealing with young offenders is only one small part of our government's approach to making Canada a better place for our young people.
We have adopted an approach that cuts to the heart of the problem. We have adopted a diverse and holistic approach to crime prevention, which attacks the social causes of crime. We are focusing on areas such as early childhood development, education and training for young people. That is why we have supported the aboriginal headstart groups and developed multi-youth purpose centres for aboriginal people. We are working to provide our youth with more opportunities so they will be less likely to come into conflict with the law. We share the same goal; a society that is safe, secure and respectful of all citizens.
It is sad but a true commentary that the Leader of the Opposition spends more time on locking up young people than supporting entrepreneurs. I had the opportunity to review the leader's aboriginal policies. He talked about aboriginal policies on one page, maybe one-quarter or half a page. That is all that was dedicated to aboriginal people. He talked about equality for Canada's aboriginal people. His definition of equality was as confused as his definition of justice. The opposition leader believes that he must take away aboriginal rights and benefits to make aboriginal people equal. What is more, this perverse logic is the cornerstone of that party's approach to social policy and the poor.
It reminds me of one of the statements by the world renowned economist, John Kenneth Galbraith, who is to be recognized as an honorary officer of the Order of Canada next month. In his book, the Culture of Contentment , Mr. Galbraith summed up the prevailing view of the contented middle class, and I believe the view of the party opposite: “To help the poor and middle classes, one must cut the taxes of the rich”.
However the party opposite wants to further help youth, aboriginal people and the poor by removing the public support system that is in place for them, including training and employment assistance. That is not our way.
We believe in a more holistic approach. We believe that in addition to criminal sanction we must have a capacity and willingness to help young people when they get into trouble. Make no mistake, young people, including young aboriginal people, can continue to count on our government to help them obtain the tools and skills that will keep them out of the criminal justice system all together. That is our way and that is the Canadian way.