Mr. Speaker, if Canadian Alliance members want to stand up and say that they are not abdicating that the criteria for the determination of a young offender be established at age 10, I am willing to listen to that. However that is not what I have heard from Canadian Alliance members in this place. I have heard people over on that side of the House say that there is nothing wrong with taking a block of wood to the backside of a youngster as it will teach him or her something.
I just heard another member stand in his place and say that we should take a look at what we did 50 years ago, that out on the prairies things were not so bad back then, that maybe we could go back there and figure out what we were doing right; and that no matter whether we were dealing with aboriginal youth or dealing with other youth in this country that we should take a look at what went on 50 years ago.
I heard a really interesting quote the other day at committee by the new minister of immigration who said that there was a reason the front windshield in a car was bigger than the rearview mirror. He said that it was because we were looking forward, not backward.
It is so typical for a member of the official opposition to stand and say that the way we did it 50 years ago was the right way and that we should go back there. That clearly shows a lack of understanding of the problems that our youth face every day in this modern day world; the problems that confront them with young people, perhaps their peers, leading them astray; the availability of drugs; and the violence we have seen in our schools. Does anyone honestly think we should be going back 50 years to a policy, one which has been supported by members of the official opposition, that encourages the use of a cane as a disciplinary tool to whip our youngsters into shape?
This is the new millennium. Dinosaurs have no place in establishing the justice system, the rule of law and the way in which young people need to be dealt with. That is what we have been hearing from the opposite side and what we have been hearing all along.
If we were to agree to use age ten as the criteria for defining a young offender--and I am not suggesting that we would do that in a minute--I suspect that the official opposition would say that maybe it should be eight, seven--where do we stop this--or maybe it should be six.
What do we do when we put a 10, 11, 12, 14 or even 15 year old in jail with adults? Let me tell the House what we do. We create an incubating system for a full-fledged adult criminal to be abused and to learn what it is like to be a criminal. Is that what we want to do? Obviously not on this side of the House.
I reject the implication that somehow we on this side of the House are being forced by a government whip or a Prime Minister to vote for a bill. I categorically reject that. The bill would give an opportunity for young people to see rehabilitation efforts in the community. Why should that not happen? Should we put them in jail?
I have heard members opposite say that three strikes and they are out and that we should throw away the key. That is just terrific modern thinking on how to deal with our young people.
We want rehabilitation. We know statistically that Canada, on a per capita basis, puts more young people in jail than any other country in the west. We lead the way in that. That is shameful. Putting them in jail is not the way to solve youth crime. This is not about punishment. This is about rehabilitation and about saving lives.
The other thing I want to stress is that at no time have we talked in terms of young people who commit murder or rape. When we talk about the most serious aggravated assaults, the bill would allow those young people to receive an adult sentence but not be tried in an adult court. It would allow those young people to have representation in a youth court, with a clear recommendation and a clear judgment that an adult sentence should be imposed in those situations.
The bill would also do something that has been a major battle within our own ranks on this side of the House. In a situation where a young person is at large and is deemed to be a risk to the community, the name can be published so that the community can be aware that there might be a problem.
Those are positive steps that will offer a balance of protecting the community, giving people an opportunity to be aware of certain problems and, at the same time, not throwing out the baby with the bath water.
We have all witnessed some terrible tragedies. I cannot remember the name, but I recall the young baby who was beaten to death in England and thrown on the railroad tracks by two young children who were well under 10; I think they were 7 or 8 years old. The two children were arrested and actually convicted. In fact they have been in rehabilitation and in the care of the state for some time as a result of that.
My brother-in-law who lives in England made a comment at that time. He said that we know society is in trouble when the babies begin to kill the babies. We all abhor this. It is unimaginable. We cannot explain how a child can take a small child away from his parents and beat the child to death. It is just not within our power to conceive how that could happen. However the reality is that it has happened.
Does that mean we simply take those young children and lock them away? There has to be a better system. It is a tragedy for families on both sides: the victims as well as those who are found guilty.
I recall a story in my own community in Streetsville many years ago where a young man was killed in a brawl outside a bar. A group taunted this young man. Somehow pushing and shoving took place and all of a sudden someone shot their foot through--as they say, shot the boot through--and as he did so the youngster fell, hit his head and it killed him. It was an unbelievable tragedy. There were calls in Mississauga at that time for capital punishment. That was the solution.
Interestingly enough, in my days on municipal council I served on a body called the licensing review board. We had to review whether or not someone should have their licence revoked or reinstated after revocation. Lo and behold, before us appeared a young man with a lawyer who had just got out of jail having served 18 months for manslaughter. We were astounded. How does one serve 18 months for manslaughter? Our committee of three was given a copy of the pre-sentencing report. It was the exact case, a very high profile case, in Streetsville where the young man had been killed and we had before us the person who was convicted of manslaughter in that death.
We were being asked at the municipal level to return a licence for a particular type of vehicle to this young man. It was an astounding experience to find out that this was the person involved in that death. When we read the pre-sentencing report, all three of us on the committee understood that there was clearly a victim who could never be brought back and that was a tragedy, but the remorse shown by the young man who was involved in an altercation that led to a terrible incident, was very clear. What was also clear was that the young man had a family. He had a wife and two children. They had to move out of Mississauga to another city in Ontario to continue with their lives, and the young man simply wanted to get on with his.
He was a young offender when the incident occurred. He came back and was going out to work. The committee recognized that the anger in the community would be negative enough that it would be unproductive, that it would be a bad move to simply reinstate the licence in our city, and so we made other arrangements for that individual to get a job in another city in the province.
Should we have shown that kind of compassion? Some would argue, perhaps the family members of the victim—the young man who was kicked in the head and died—with some understanding, frankly, from me and others, that we should not have shown that compassion. However when we are faced with the actual information and know the entire story, it puts a different spin on it and gives us a different perspective.
I am proud to say that I think we did the right thing. We showed the compassion and helped the young man get on with his life.
One of the things we want to stress again is that we are interested in preventing crime and working with young people. Will we be able to prevent crimes by incarcerating young people? There are instances when incarceration may be the only thing we can do, but that should not be the first decision made when dealing with a young person in trouble with the law.
I believe the bill offers a balance. The balance is to work toward preventing crime and to rehabilitate and reintegrate offenders into the community, with a requirement, upon reintegration, that there be some community support.
Let us imagine young people who have been sentenced to prison for about two or three years. When they get out they are probably still only 16, 17 or 18 years old. Do we just turn them out into the community and leave them entirely on their own? The bill allows for and insists upon community support. It makes absolute sense.
There are many tremendous groups: church groups; NGOs; groups that work with new immigrants and that can work with youth; and the John Howard Society. Many different organizations are dedicated to helping young people get on with their lives. This is the positive aspect of the bill.
It is interesting to hear members opposite say that we are going too fast in invoking closure. I heard a speaker just a few moments ago say that the government has been debating this issue for eight years and that he has been following it and has been involved in it.
We know that for three years both the House of Commons and Senate committees have held hearings. Every time the bill has comes forward so far it seems to have fallen off the table for one reason or another. This time it will not. This time the amendment will carry, not because Liberals are being whipped but because Liberals believe this is just, this is fair and this is legislation that is overdue and about time.