Madam Speaker, it is an honour for me to participate in this debate. The first Young Offenders Act was brought forward in 1993, but it was my privilege and honour in 1993 to present a petition to the House signed by 6,000 young people. The petition came to me as the result of a visit by two young girls who were attending Mount Boucherie Secondary School. They came to me to ask if there was anything I could do about a problem they had in their school.
They were fearful because they were being harassed and challenged. They were afraid they would be attacked by a group of other girls. The problem was that the legislation did not work. Their teachers and principal could not protect them because the problem was happening in the community outside the school.
They asked what they could do. I told them one of the best things would be to get their friends and other young people to tell me about the problem. Some 6,000 young people could not come to see me, so I suggested they present a petition and that is what they did.
In 1994 the government presented a bill to the House which was completely unacceptable. My hon. colleague opposite on the Liberal benches asked what we could do to prevent it. One thing would be to have effective legislation. However there is more than that. We need to change attitudes. We need to change the attitudes of our parents, our legislators and our kids. We need to develop a set of values that will encourage people to respect one another and not accept violent behaviour.
I have a couple of values I will state. There are some virtues we need to have. The virtue of courage is an example. The virtue of character is another. We must live our lives according to what we know is right and wrong, where our word is our bond, where we keep our promises, and where truth is the watchword.
I take exception when hon. members opposite or even colleagues exaggerate or tell something that is close to not being true. Members sometimes deliberately state something that is false. We have a word to describe that. It is a three letter word and I cannot use it here. The important thing is that it happens and it should not.
If we all told the truth, wherever we were, our relationships would be different. If integrity became the watchword in our relationships with one another it would be a good idea.
I will respond directly to my Liberal colleague opposite. The greatest preventive measure, and it ties directly into what my colleague said a moment ago, is that we engender in our young people and in ourselves the recognition that we not only have rights under the charter of rights and freedoms but also concomitant responsibilities. The actions we undertake must have consequences and those consequences must be meaningful. They must entail more than a simple tap on the wrist for violent offenders or some silly little punishment that means nothing. We need to get serious.
Some people, like the hon. member for Mississauga West, will say I want to throw everyone in prison. That is not what I said at all. That is an example of telling something that is not the truth. The truth is that when there is a serious offence there must be serious consequences.
Do those consequences mean we stick people in jail? Not necessarily. Do they mean we teach people better ways of handling conflict? Yes, of course. Do they mean offenders should face their victims and recognize the pain they have caused those individuals and their families? Do they mean they should recognize that it is not only the victim who is the object of a violent attack but the victim's family and indeed the whole community?
Were the two young high school girls who came to see me concerned only about their own welfare? No, they were there to represent a whole other group of girls whom I met later. Then boys came along and said they were in the same situation. They were all victims of the threat that was out there. Let us recognize that we are responsible for our own actions. The hon. member for Mississauga West is also responsible for what he says in the House.
I will go one step further. What have we done in the act? I will refer to only one clause because it is central to the whole business we are talking about here. Paragraph 146(2)(b) of Bill C-7 states:
the person to whom the statement was made has, before the statement was made, clearly explained to the young person, in language appropriate to her age and understanding, that
(i) the young person is under no obligation to make a statement
What does this refer to? It refers to a police officer or a person trying to preserve the peace who has the responsibility to make a charge if someone has broken the law. The young person being charged does not have to make a statement.
Why is that significant? I will not use more arguments here. I will use observations made by the former attorney general of British Columbia. His name was Alex MacDonald. Lest anyone on that side of the House thinks he was a Liberal or a Conservative, he was neither of those. He was not a Canadian Alliance member either. He is retired now, but he was a member of the NDP. He later became a member of the legislative assembly and then the attorney general. Here is what he said:
In 1984, Canada's parliamentarians, perhaps inebriated by their exuberance for rights, replaced the Juvenile Delinquents Act of 1908 with the Young Offenders Act. It was as if they'd heard the word from on high: “Come to the charter waters! Drink and your souls shall live!”
I am quoting Alex MacDonald. He went on further:
The centrepiece of the Young Offenders Act is its Section 556, as it was renumbered in 1998.
It was renumbered to 145 in 1999, renumbered again in 2001 as 146, and I just read it.
The young person is under no obligation to give a statement to the police officer. Mr. MacDonald asked what kind of signal that gave to teens. It expresses one of the shibboleths of our law, one which the criminal defence bar is apparently prepared to defend to the death. Never mind that it contradicts the wisdom of the ages when it comes to raising youngsters to become responsible adults. Why? Because it allows teens two ways to escape responsibility for their mistakes.
First, as passed by parliament, the bill would allow young offenders to refuse to answer a police officer's questions about wrongdoing in which they may have been involved, even if the police officer saw them do it.
There is a case in Kamloops where a youngster was seen damaging some property. A police officer happened to be right there and asked the kid if he did it. The young kid looked at him and said he did not have to talk to him, so he did not. The law says he does not have to do so. That is the first escape.
Second, the bill would place no onus on young offenders to explain to a court what they have been up to even after a fair, though not conclusive, case has been presented against them.
Many of us as parents know only too well that when our children behave in a manner that is not appropriate they will often behave in a peculiar way. We will know that something is not quite up to snuff and that there is something bothering them. Usually, although not necessarily, they will have done something wrong.
The simplest question is to ask what is the matter. If they do not tell us it often begins to gnaw inside and turn them inside out. If they have done something really bad we could perhaps handle it. However when they keep burying it there is a problem. There comes a time when confession is good not only for the soul but for society. It needs to be done.
I wanted to talk about ways to rehabilitate young offenders but we do not have time. I am sorry about that. I would have liked to draw the attention of members to ways of amending the act so that it would resolve the issue better than is the case now.