Madam Speaker, after the passionate comments of my colleague from the Bloc Quebecois and his reference to the demagoguery of the Reform Party, I am afraid my salty comments from the east coast may not be quite so dramatic.
I do think it is important that we reflect upon the nature and the reasons for the introduction of the new youth criminal justice act.
It was stated by a member earlier that the old Young Offenders Act was appropriate, that it worked well in Quebec. I concur with the member. I think he is right. I think Quebec took the Young Offenders Act when it was introduced, applied it in the way it was to be applied, spent the resources in the areas where they needed to be spent and showed how that act could work.
Unfortunately other provinces did not have the resources, or chose not to implement the Young Offenders Act in the same way. I say that having had some experience with it.
I began my career as a lawyer just as the Young Offenders Act was introduced and became law. I can say unequivocally that in the province where I practised it was an exercise in frustration to appear day after day in the courts with young people charged under the Young Offenders Act. It was an exercise in frustration for the judiciary who did not have access to the types of programs the Young Offenders Act envisioned. It was an exercise in frustration for the crown. It was an exercise in frustration for the defence counsel, to say nothing of the frustration felt by both the families of the young offenders and the victims of crime.
As we approach a new piece of legislation it is important that we examine whether or not that legislation can correct some of the problems that have arisen over the last few years.
I do note that this legislation is now Bill C-3. It was Bill C-68 in the last parliament. Perhaps the government changed the numbering because it always seems to have problems with bills numbered C-68.
The symbol of justice is the scales of justice. They are an important symbol for a number of reasons. They indicate the need for balance. They indicate the need to balance the rights of the accused against the rights of society. They indicate the need to balance what goes on in the courtroom against what is perhaps demanded by society.
Justice is not a simple matter; it is complex. Justice and crime affect all communities and all the people in those communities. Children are a responsibility. All of society has a role in the upbringing and concern for our young people. When we deal with a bill that affects justice, crime and children, that bill requires careful examination by those people who represent all of the people in this country.
There are some things in the bill which I wish to address. I should point out this is the third time I have addressed this piece of legislation in some depth.
The legislation will continue to apply to young offenders between the ages of 12 and 18 years. There was some call for the bill to apply to children who were 10 and 11 years old. I say unequivocally that is not the position of the New Democratic Party. We believe that for children who are 10 or 11 years old the appropriate place to deal with them when they do not follow the rules of society, when they appear to be misled, is through social services and help to the family by the community. I am glad to see that the Minister of Justice listened to those many groups who came before the justice committee, of which I am a member, and argued that the law not apply to 10 and 11 year old children.
It would be interesting to contrast that with the children's agenda in the Speech from the Throne which we heard two weeks ago the focus of which was on children.
To somehow say that 10 and 11 year old children have the capacity to distinguish between right and wrong in the way that we demand of those who are charged with criminal offences is a stretch. The Minister of Justice listened to those groups and I can say that we concur.
There is an emphasis on prevention and alternatives to jail for non-violent offenders. They are found at clauses 4 and 5 of the proposed legislation. Those too are appropriate issues for the minister to introduce.
We know, and again I can give some evidence of my own, that in many cases what happened with the old Young Offenders Act is that there was an absence of discretion, that police officers, school teachers and people who routinely came in contact with young people ended up referring matters to the courts, even if they were the most simple matters where some cautioning or some exercise of discretion may well have dealt with the matters.
I have seen in the courts young people coming in charged with damage to property because they got into an argument with a schoolmate over a school locker or where young people end in court on trespassing charges because they walked across a neighbour's lawn. There is no need to clog the courts up with these kinds of offences when we have serious matters that have to go before the courts.
We applaud the sections of the act that provide for cautioning by police and for the exercise of discretion by those in authority. It increases the emphasis on community based sentencing with which we concur.
There are some other areas that are perhaps more contentious and some areas that require further debate and examination. There is a reverse onus in the legislation on young people between the ages of 14 and 17 years who are charged with serious violent offences.
When I say there is a reverse onus I mean for particular prescribed offences these young people will be tried as adults unless they can prove to the court that they should not be. That is a fundamental change from the other Young Offenders Act where the burden was on the state to prove that the young person should be tried as an adult. It places a reverse onus on young people to make the case that they should not be. It is a heavy and onerous burden.
When we talk about resources to the provinces one thing we have to think about is that the young person is also given the right to counsel in the legislation. That is appropriate. It is very difficult for an adult lay person to argue a reverse onus without legal counsel, let alone a 15 year old.
If we are to ensure that a young person has the right to counsel it begs the question who will pay for it. Where is counsel to come from? There is some provision in the act that when parents can afford to pay they will pay the legal costs of their children, but the statistics will tell us that there is a huge portion of young people who come before the courts whose families cannot afford to pay for legal counsel, never mind the ethical considerations as to whether or not a non-accused person should be paying the costs of counsel.
We see the beginnings of what flows through the act and that is a downloading of costs on to the provinces. While there is some contribution by the federal government toward legal aid programs across the country, we can see that the role of legal aid lawyers will increase dramatically with the legislation and its reverse onus, and that will be a further cost to the provinces. We have to examine that very carefully.
In addition, there is a provision that requires some other consideration, and that is special sentencing for young people who suffer severe psychological problems. We have to question whether or not the place for people who have severe psychological problems is in the courts in the first place.
In the criminal code there is an understanding that adults can be found not criminally responsible because of psychological problems. That is an area I will be examining carefully on the justice committee.
We do not have a problem with the publication of names of young offenders convicted of serious offences unless a judge determines otherwise. The public has called for and demanded that in some situations the names of young offenders be published so the community and other young people will know if there is a serious offender among them. My party and I concur with that.
Members of the Reform Party objected to the minister's comments when she said “in certain circumstances”. The act provides for some judicial discretion in that regard. I comment on that because it has been said that there ought not to be that discretion, that these are loopholes. I think that is how they were referred to.
In reality we have to provide some discretion to the courts. We cannot foresee each case that will come before a court. That is why we have judges. If it were easy to say that every person charged with this crime will face this penalty, we would not need the judiciary. We would have a clerk who could tick off the list and say what is the absolute penalty for someone charged and found guilty of violating a certain section of the criminal code, and nothing else would have to be taken into account.
The sentencing process is a complicated process because no two offenders are the same. Nor are two victims. Nor is the impact of a crime the same on every person. Within parameters the court needs some discretion on how it deals with offenders, especially young offenders.
In terms of the publication of names each case will require certain thoughts, which may well be best left to the judge who hears the case. That is why the discretion is there and why we would consider it important.
I have some concerns about the sections of the act that change the rules governing confessions of young persons and the admissibility of those confessions in the courtroom. I say that only because young people are not as sophisticated in many ways as adults. They do not understand their rights in the many ways adults do. We must be somewhat careful when we make a determination of a confession given to a person in authority. The way it worked under the old act was that any statement to a person in authority, whether or not a police officer, had to be examined very carefully by the court. We will examine that very carefully.
I began by talking about the right to counsel of the young person and the downloading of that cost on to the provinces. I am afraid that many of the positive aspects of the legislation, and there are some, will simply not be affordable for the provinces. I am afraid we will make the same mistake with this legislation that we made when the Young Offenders Act was introduced. We said that there were all kinds of principles. The government said that there were ways to deal with young people, but the provinces did not have the resources to do that.
This act provides even more methods of dealing with young people. I have mentioned police discretion and community sentencing are good ideas but they cost money. Let us be frank. To have special sentencing provisions for young people who suffer from psychological problems will cost money.
Unfortunately many people do not realize that the cost of the administration of justice falls to the provinces. For a province like Nova Scotia, which faces a huge deficit and has just cancelled programs for charities, it is questionable whether or not it will have the funds to prepare for some of the positive aspects of the legislation.
The Minister of Justice and the government will say that they have committed funding to help the provinces, that they have committed $206 million. What they do not say is that it is over a number of years. It is not in one year that $206 million will be given.
There is no clear indication of how that funding will be distributed across the country. I have made this statement before. The last time I spoke to the legislation I indicated my concern was that the $206 million committed by the government were not enough, especially if we looked at it on a per capita basis.
If the money is to be distributed to the provinces on a per capita basis, it will mean very insignificant funds for provinces with smaller populations and there will not be enough funds that are necessary to fulfil the purposes of the act. That would represent perhaps $2 million in Nova Scotia. For that province with its debt load to administer what the federal government is asking it to administer will simply not be possible. Again we will have an act that will frustrate the victims, the judiciary, the families of young offenders and counsel.
My party and I have some concerns about other aspects of the act. I will indicate to the House some of the statistics. Right now provinces are paying upward of 70% of the costs of administering the youth justice system. As we implement a more complex system with wider parameters those costs will escalate and the provinces will have a very heavy burden in trying to fulfil their responsibilities under the act.
There are other areas that cause us some concern. Life sentences for youth convicted in adult court give me some concern. I know I differ from my colleagues in the Reform Party on this point, but we have to wonder whether or not sentencing young people to a full life sentence will ever serve to rehabilitate them. My colleague from the Bloc Quebecois said that the prisons are our training schools for further crime. We know that.
We support measures to increase the emphasis on youth in community based diversions and alternatives and the increased focus on rehabilitation. There are not as many details as we would like to see in the act and I am concerned about the costs.
It has been said that it is not the role of the justice system to deal with social problems. When we deal with young people in particular we cannot divorce the two. It is no accident that there are huge numbers of young people who come before the courts from families in poverty. It is no accident when we look at jails, especially those south of the border, that they are full of people from poor sections of the United States, especially minority groups. It is no accident that our prison populations have a greater proportion of aboriginal people who come from poor reserves.
We cannot address the problems of dealing with crime unless we can also deal with what causes crime. The prevention of crime should be our ultimate goal. Clearly, when someone breaks the law and commits a heinous crime, it has to be dealt with swiftly, in a meaningful way as stated in the act and in some cases severely. However we cannot say there is no room for social issues in justice issues. The two are so inextricably linked that it is almost impossible to talk about one and not the other.
We have to recognize the groups such as the Church Council on Justice and the Canadian Association of Police Chiefs that appeared before the justice committee. They have been mentioned in the Quebec context by my colleague from the Bloc. All of them had recommendations. They had my word, and I think the word of members of the justice committee, that we would take into account their concerns when we examined the bill.
I also want to say that the provinces addressed concerns to the Minister of Justice which have not been addressed. We will now have an opportunity to see how Manitoba responds to this with its new government, which has expressed concerns about youth gangs, about young people 10 and 11 who were coerced into crime and how we could best deal with them.
Given the fact that my time is at an end, those are just some of the concerns we have. I can indicate at this point, given the costs associated with the program and the inability to implement it because of funding, that we have serious questions about supporting the legislation.
