Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to have this opportunity to speak to Bill C-4, An Act to amend the Youth Criminal Justice Act and to make consequential and related amendments to other Acts.
Let me say from the outset that I have very serious concerns about this legislation. That will not come as a surprise to many people given my concerns about the approach of the Conservative government to criminal justice issues generally. I have expressed that concern on many occasions here in the House.
There is a body of opinion, some represented here in the House and more broadly in the community, that the Youth Criminal Justice Act does require some tweaking. It is not an old piece of legislation but it is a piece of legislation that does need attention. There are people who think some minor aspects of it need some attention. However, I think the bill before us goes way beyond tweaking and way beyond fixing the small problems with the act that need attention. The bill contains some very significant changes.
Here is how some of the bill's key provisions have been described.
The bill would make protection of society the primary goal of the act. The bill adds denunciation and deterrence to the sentencing provisions. That is a very significant addition. The bill would require the court to consider lifting the publication ban on the names of young offenders convicted of violent offences when youth sentences are given. It is very important to note that the government has also changed the definition of violent offences and serious violent offences in this legislation.
The bill would require police forces to keep records of extrajudicial measures used to deal with young persons in order to make it easier to identify patterns of reoffending. I will speak about that later.
The bill proposes to detain youth charged with a serious offence while he or she awaits a trial.
The bill would allow custody of young persons where they have committed an indictable offence for which an adult would be liable to imprisonment for a term of more than two years and has a history that indicates a pattern of extrajudicial sanctions.
Finally, among other provisions, there is a provision that would require offenders under the age of 18 who are sentenced to custody to be placed in youth facilities only, even if they receive an adult sentence.
The last provision in this legislation is the one that is clearly supportable. It marks a huge turnaround for the Conservatives. It comes after they blew it in the last election when folks in Quebec in particular made it clear that they thought youth should not be doing time in adult prisons. That was a significant issue in the last federal election campaign.
I am concerned, however, that the burden of implementing this provision falls to provincial governments, and the federal government has not indicated if it will assist them to assure it is fully implemented. Without that kind of assistance, it could easily be an empty promise.
Even the best part of this bill, ensuring that youth are not sentenced and serve time in an adult prison, could very well be inoperative without a specific commitment from the government to assist provinces to implement that provision.
I do have very serious questions about other provisions in the bill.
Our justice system has always held that youth must be treated differently with respect to criminal justice issues. Children are not adults. We assume they do not have the same maturity as adults. We know they rarely appreciate the consequences of their actions when they break the law. The distinction between how we deal with adults and youth and child criminals must be maintained and not weakened. This is an important principle of our criminal justice system.
It is particularly true when we limit the rights of children in other ways. For instance, we do not allow them to participate in the democratic process in this country until they are 18.
If we are treating children as adults in the criminal justice system, we are not giving them a say in developing the rules of that system until they have become an adult. That is an indication of the unfairness of this kind of proposal.
The bill would make a significant change to the goals of the Youth Criminal Justice Act. This bill would place protection of society as the primary goal of the act rather than accountability for the youth who are convicted, rather than the promotion of rehabilitation, and rather than support for crime prevention.
There is no doubt that in criminal justice matters the protection of society has to be a key goal, but I believe that by making it the primary goal of the Youth Criminal Justice Act is a step in the wrong direction.
We must never write off young people. We must do all we can to ensure their rehabilitation after they have committed a crime. We must put the restoration of their relationship with their community after a criminal conviction as they key goal of our youth criminal justice system. If we want a primary goal or a key goal, that is the goal that should be in place.
Placing the protection of society first, especially when the current Conservative government often uses protection of society as a euphemism for being tough on crime and more punitive, runs contrary to what youth criminal justice should be about.
There has been some considerable debate already about this legislation. Here is what a recent Toronto Star editorial says on this issue:
What Sébastien's Law would do, though, is change the tone of our youth criminal justice system from rehabilitation and reintegration to punishment and public shaming.
This is particularly troubling given the likelihood that the bill will do nothing to reduce crime but may, in fact, turn more juvenile offenders into hardened criminals and cost taxpayers plenty to keep them locked up.
The government says it will “make protection of society a primary goal of the legislation.”
But legal experts argue compellingly that this can't be done by tinkering with our criminal justice system. Harsher sentences, particularly for impulsive and immature young people, do not make offenders think twice about committing crimes, says criminologist and youth-justice expert Nicholas Bala.
Contrary to the government's assertions, this view is supported by evidence both here and in the United States, the poster child for tough-on-crime laws that have cost taxpayers billions without actually helping to reduce crime.
That is what the Toronto Star said in a recent editorial. It has used very strong language to say that the bill is about punishment and public shaming, and not about rehabilitation and reintegration. It is very, very troubling.
Other commentators have also been very critical of the bill. The Montreal Gazette looked at the changes to sentencing that are included in this legislation. It noted in an editorial that it had concerns about the provision that would allow the courts to take into consideration so-called extrajudicial sanctions, and here is what it said on that specific issue:
A sentencing judge would be allowed, for example, to take into account previous “extra-judicial sanctions”—warnings or referrals to community agencies—that were not subject to a court hearing and did not result in a formal criminal conviction.
By their very nature, extra-judicial measures do not involve a careful sifting of evidence, or even the opportunity for a young person to mount a proper defence. To base a prison sentence on such informal interventions is contrary to the normal course of justice. The very goal of informal sanctions is to give young people another chance. No family would go along with extra-judicial measures if there is a risk they will be used against a youngster at any time in the future. In one fell swoop an approach that has amply proven its worth could be undermined.
That is what the Montreal Gazette, in an editorial, said about the whole issue of how the government is proposing to use extrajudicial sanctions when it comes to sentencing a young person. I think again it is very, very strong language and very troubling.
Overall, the Montreal Gazette gave a big thumbs-down to the bill. In the editorial, it concluded:
The thrust of this bill, unfortunately, is to move away from rehabilitation and toward retribution.
It also said:
This legislation still appears to be driven by ideology and political showmanship, not by research or common sense.
It says that it should go back to the drawing board.
That is another editorial board of an important Canadian newspaper that has looked at this legislation and in very strong language has criticized it and said, in fact, that it should be withdrawn because of the serious problems.