Madam Speaker, I must say that it has been a very interesting day today listening to a variety of points of view on this legislation. I think it is fair to say that we are all pleased that the legislation is finally before us. There has been a feeling in the land, generally, that the Young Offenders Act needed improvements. I think there is almost unanimity among members in the House of Commons that this debate is long overdue. I hope we can move this debate along quickly today and into committee where we can get into some of the concerns that have been raised by so many.
If I can generally summarize my party's position, it is that we see this bill as a major step forward, and I will explain why I say that in a moment. However, we also have some serious concerns. I think they are very legitimate concerns and I want to articulate them very clearly because there is a role for opposition members, although it is probably distorted in the public's mind generally as simply to oppose things for the sake of opposing, that we are opposition and we are against everything the government does.
However, I am prepared to acknowledge for my Liberal friends that on rare occasions there are actually some good things that come forward. Today we are talking about some of those good things with this piece of legislation.
Bill C-3 is formally called the youth criminal justice act. We are starting from a whole new approach, youth justice. I want to take a few moments at the beginning of my presentation to read from the introduction of the bill itself because to me it summarizes what it is we are trying to do today. It states that Bill C-3 is an act in respect of criminal justice for young persons and that it will amend and repeal other acts.
The preamble reads:
Whereas society should be protected from youth crime through a youth criminal justice system that commands respect, fosters responsibility and ensures accountability through meaningful consequences and effective rehabilitation and reintegration, and that reserves its most serious intervention for the most serious crimes and reduces the over-reliance on incarceration for non-violent young persons;
Whereas these objectives can best be achieved by replacement of the
Young Offenders Act
with a new legal framework for the youth criminal justice system;
Whereas members of society share a responsibility to address the developmental challenges and the needs of young persons and to guide them into adulthood;
Whereas communities, families, parents and others concerned with the development of young persons should, through multidisciplinary approaches, take reasonable steps to prevent youth crime by addressing its underlying causes, to respond to the needs of young persons, and to provide guidance and support to those at risk of committing crimes;
And whereas Canada is a party to the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child and recognizes that young persons have rights and freedoms, including those stated in the
Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms and the Canadian Bill of Rights
, and have special guarantees of their rights and freedoms;
Now, therefore, Her Majesty, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate and House of Commons of Canada, enacts as follows:
That is what this whole bill is about.
In anticipation of this debate and the work that will take place over the next number of weeks, I consulted a group of people in my constituency. I went into the jails and talked to young people who were incarcerated. It was an interesting experience because I had not spent a lot of time visiting jails. I chatted to young people in halfway houses and, in general, to young people who were in some form of confinement. There were young people who were being treated in various treatment centres for addiction problems and so on.
I talked to young people on the streets of Kamloops who were practising young offenders. I met with police officers, parole board representatives, probation officers, judges, lawyers, criminal justice advocates, correction workers and others who had in some way come in contact with young offenders. I asked all of them what they thought was the fundamental reason for some young people becoming young offenders, because most do not. I think we would all agree that if we talked to young people across the country almost all of them would not be young offenders. They are hard working, decent, creative, dynamic, enthusiastic and optimistic young people who are accomplished in the sciences, arts, sports and so on. It is really quite astounding. However, there are a few people who do get into trouble with the law.
I asked all of these people if there was some commonality, if there was some reason or if they could give me a summary as to why these young folks got into trouble. Almost everybody said, more or less, two things. One was that these folks got caught. A lot of young people do unusual things and often flirt with things that are illegal, but they do not get caught, or if they do, they are released for some reason. They are caught but found not guilty. The ones who are in jail were caught. That was a small point.
The second point was that almost everyone agreed that one of the fundamental causes of young offenders in our society is poverty. Somewhere in their past, their parents, their guardians or they themselves had lived for a period of time in some form of serious poverty. They did not have the things that most kids want and have. They did not have supportive parents, nurturing or guidance. These young people were without that. They were on their own to fend for themselves.
Those of us who have raised children or know children well all appreciate that it is tough growing up. There are pressures from peers and many other pressures. If they have no one to guide them, to direct them, to care for them, to nurture them or to give them a helping hand, it is no wonder they get into trouble. I am not suggesting that if they are poor they are going to get into trouble. Obviously there is no correlation there. The correlation is that almost all of these young people, if traced back, had some element of poverty in their family's past. That is a crucial factor.
Many of us were here in November 1989 when Ed Broadbent posed a motion, seconded by me, that we would do whatever was necessary to eradicate child poverty in Canada in the next 10 years. It was a very laudable goal. I see many of my friends opposite who were here and remember that time. First, we set a goal which was to eradicate child poverty in Canada in the next 10 years. We did not do too well. As a country, one area where we have to hold our heads down in shame is that we failed in reaching that goal. As a matter of fact, statisticians have told us that in the last 10 years the number of children who live in poverty has increased by 50%. It has worsened for a whole lot of young people.
Let us understand that the reason those young people are living in poverty is because their parents live in poverty. We do not have poor children living in rich homes. Because of that poverty good housing and support are often not there. As we deal with this new version of the Young Offenders Act and concern ourselves with assisting young people, particularly those who are on the edges of trouble, let us acknowledge that we cannot simply do this through this legislation. Other initiatives are required as well, such as alleviating poverty in our country, particularly child poverty.
There are some people in our country who assume that child poverty is a reality, that nothing can be done about it, that there is always going to be 5% of the population which is poor and that is just the way the world is. However, that is not the way the world is in some parts. There are countries where there are no poor children. There are no children living in poverty because there are no parents living in poverty. Those countries exist. It is possible to eradicate poverty and it ought to be a laudable millennium goal for us to have. We should eradicate child poverty in our country.
Based on whatever kind of questionable statistics or images, a lot of people do not feel that society is a safe place today, particularly elderly people who watch the news on television. Every bad kid in the world gets front page coverage, so we get the impression of one large madhouse with thousands of people killing, raping and murdering. In fact the opposite is true. By and large the rates are going down in our country in terms of violent crime. However, because of instantaneous communication and the fact that people watching television are not sure if the young people are from Canada or the United States, or from other countries, there is a sense that we are living in an increasingly violent society. People feel unsafe in their homes. There are instances, of course, where that is the case and people have committed heinous crimes, but we must keep in mind that these are isolated incidents.
I listened carefully to my colleague who represents a riding close to mine. He spoke about the intervention programs that have been successful in his constituency. I could name a number of programs that have been very effective in the Kamloops region in diverting young people away from a life of crime, which carry out all sorts of parole practices that result in people not reoffending.
My friend talked about his experiences in Trail and Castlegar, British Columbia where the intervention programs have been very successful. I appreciate that kind of information.
We have to create the impression that we are talking about a very small group of young people who get into trouble. Most of them, if dealt with properly in the justice system, do not reoffend. They learn their lesson, smarten up and do not do that type of activity again, whether it is stealing a car, breaking into someone's house and stealing a VCR or whatever.
We would all acknowledge the fact that there are young people, very few in number, who really have to be set aside so that society is protected from their behaviour. These are young people who participate in murder and manslaughter, rape and pillage and so on. We have to acknowledge that there are some really troubled people and society has to be protected from them. Those are the ones who we want to see in our jails.
There are a lot of people in jails who, quite frankly, we do not have to be protected from. If a guy has been writing bad cheques time and time again, do we really have to pen that person up in a cage? I do not think we do.
Our friends from Quebec have been pointing out the success they have had in dealing with young offenders in that province. In terms of young people who re-offend, the province of Quebec has probably had the greatest, most impressive track record of any other province or territory and we have to acknowledge that.
Quebec has made tremendous advances in the area of native justice, particularly native youth justice.
I had the occasion a while back to visit the Navajo reservation in the United States. They have had a youth justice system in place for some time and I wanted to see what it was about their system that was so effective. I spent about four or five days on the Navajo reservation with a number of lawyers and judges and sat in on a number of sessions.
I will explain how that worked. It was absolutely marvellous. One day little Johnny stole a VCR from a neighbour's house on the Navaho reservation. He was charged and the day was set for his court hearing. I am not a lawyer so I do not know the proper terminology, but the court was called and little Johnny was there. He had to bring his entire extended family with him: uncles, aunts, grandparents, brothers and sisters. They were all lined up all over the courtroom. The whole family was there.
They were not happy campers because they were busy. They had jobs and stuff but they had to set aside this time to go to court because little Johnny had stolen their neighbour's VCR.
The old judge got up there and asked “Johnny, how do you plead?” The kid was kind of mumbling. “Speak up”, the judge told him, “so all the court can hear you”. “Not guilty, sir.” “Okay”, said the judge.
It was something to see, Madam Speaker. You should have seen it. The judge went to the kid and asked him if he could explain who the older lady was sitting at the table with him. The kid said “That's my grandmother”. “Speak up”, said the judge. “That's my grandmother”, said the kid.
“Could you explain to the court how you think your grandmother feels today about what you did,” the judge asked the kid. The reply was not clear so the judge said “Speak up”. “She is probably not very happy with me,” said Johnny. The judge said “Tell me some more”. “She is probably embarrassed that I am her grandson”, and the story went on and on.
The judge then went to the mother, the father, the cousins and brothers and sisters, and they were all embarrassed by this kid's activities. They said his actions were inappropriate. They were sorry and embarrassed that their grandchild or brother had behaved the way he had.
By the time they had gone through the entire extended family, the little kid was just like a melted pile of wax. He was beaten up, feeling like a complete idiot and wondering what he had done. Obviously he was found guilty.
What was the sentence? He had to do some community work. Every day after school for six months he had to take a plastic bag, go around the reservation and pick up paper until he filled the bag and then leave it at the judge's house door each night before he could quit.
In the centre of the Navaho reservation the
pueblos
have a central area where people hang out. Every Saturday he had to sit on a chair by himself from sun up to sun down in the middle of the reservation. Nobody could talk to him but everybody would know who little Johnny was. They would have to keep an eye out for him because he steals things from his neighbours and friends. They all figured out who he was. He had to do that for a certain length of time.
