Mr. Speaker, I was not really intending to speak in this particular debate, but I am one of those on this side who happens to be doing his House duty today. I have taken the opportunity as a result of that to look at this legislation and to give it particular attention.
There is an area of the legislation that especially interests me because of my background. I am a former journalist, and actually a police reporter at one time, and I spent a portion of my youth covering crime for newspapers. Any legislation has its flaws and has its merits. I do think that this bill, when it comes to the question of the publication of the names of young offenders, has taken a few positive steps in the direction of expanding the publication of these names, not as far as I would like it to go but it has still advanced the cause.
A lot of people will say or wonder why it should be an issue, the publication of the names of young offenders. The thought in the original Young Offenders Act was that young people, because we wanted to give them every opportunity to be rehabilitated, should have the full protection or as much protection as possible from publicity so that they would have every chance of putting their lives together as adults and to become good citizens.
But this universal ban on the publication of the names of young offenders—and the ban comes with teeth; the newspapers and the television stations that would dare publish these names can be subject to severe penalty if they do so—has come with some costs. One of those costs is that sometimes when young offenders who are well known to be repeat offenders and violent offenders were at large in the community, there was still no effective way to alert the community that these dangerous young people were in the community.
Indeed, there is an instance in my own riding of the local newspaper, the Hamilton Spectator , that dared a few months ago to run a picture of a dangerous young offender who had escaped custody. The newspaper took it upon itself to actually run that photograph to alert the community that this young person was at large. There is an ongoing controversy in the community right now as to whether the newspaper really overstepped the bounds. I have to say that on the face of it, the newspaper broke the law, but I think the newspaper has a legitimate argument that it broke the law in the public interest and we cannot go around breaking laws so the law must be changed.
I think, Mr. Speaker, one of the very positive attributes of this bill when it comes to the provisions for the publication of names is that it does provide in clause 109(4) if the police officer concerned or a youth justice court determines that a young offender at large is dangerous to the community or is in a state of escaping custody, then the youth justice judge or peace officer can seek an order to release the name and presumably, the photograph of the young offender to the media.
I submit to you, Mr. Speaker, that this is a very obvious and very necessary provision in this legislation. It is a very positive step indeed. I am sure my home newspaper will feel vindicated that the legislation is moving in precisely the direction that the newspaper determined was in the interests of the community to go. I have to give credit to the newspaper even though I cannot countenance breaking laws. At least the newspaper showed a lot of courage to look after the community interests and published the picture of what appears to be a very dangerous young person.
On the other hand, Mr. Speaker, this legislation also takes a step backward, in my view, when it comes to the issue of the publication of the names and identities of people who are young offenders. Previous to this legislation, or as it exists now before this legislation passes, we have provision for a young person who is facing charges on a very serious crime, murder or other serious crimes. We can transfer that young person to adult court to be tried as an adult. This legislation changes that around and says that particular young person can remain in youth court and be tried for adult sentencing. If you understand, Mr. Speaker, the young person charged with, say, first degree murder who could face a life sentence, instead of going to adult court would stay in youth court and if convicted, would face that adult sentence which could involve life imprisonment.
The problem in that is that under the current system, if that young person being tried for a major crime is transferred to adult court, that court proceeding is done in the open. The media would be able to follow that trial from its beginning to its conclusion. If there was a conviction, we would be able to see the history. It is very important that the public would have had the opportunity to see through the media the progress of that trial leading to a very serious sentence.
Unfortunately, at least in my view, in trying to make the system work better, and I accept that the government is trying to do something positive here, but in moving it back to youth court, the government is providing for publication of the identity of a young offender convicted of a very serious offence, an adult offence with an adult sentence, only after the conviction and only on sentencing.
I suggest to you, Mr. Speaker, that I think that the government has to look at that clause very carefully. I am not one who actually likes very often to cite the charter, but I have a genuine concern that when one is on trial for one's life, whether one is 16 or 60, that trial should be an open process. All the way along it should be an open process. Unfortunately the act as amended with this provision of moving serious offences from adult court back to youth court makes somewhat of a mistake. I do hope that the justice committee, when it reviews this legislation, gives serious consideration to that one particular clause.
Just another thing, Mr. Speaker. There is another clause here that spells out that young people who are victims of the crime committed by the young offender are not allowed to have their identities released either and nothing should be done to identify those young people.
We have a funny situation where the Reform Party, with all due respect, is constantly talking about how we must pay attention to the victims of crime. Here we have a case where, and I acknowledge that it is a very difficult issue for the government, if the victims of the crime are young people, they cannot have the satisfaction of being known to be the victims of the crime, because if they are known to be the victims of the crime, then we have the possibility that the young offender could be identified. Again, this is sort of the judgment of Solomon. We want to protect the identity of the young offender, yet we take away something from the victim of the young offender's crime. Again, I think that is something that needs to be at least debated in committee.
Finally, there is one general shortcoming that the bill does not address on the issue of the identification of young offenders. It is something that in my own experience I would like to see changed. I do not think perhaps I could persuade the justice committee to change it now. I really do think that we should have considered in the legislation the possibility of publicizing the identities of young offenders who have been convicted of summary offences.
Members opposite were talking on several occasions about young people doing vandalism and this kind of thing and getting away with it. They get a slap on the wrist or whatever in the court systems, and there seems to be no decent control on these people who do these petty crimes. Indeed, I think there is a great problem in our schools for young people who resort to acts that would be considered crimes of the type that would be dealt with by summary conviction. These are lesser crimes we might say, minor assaults and that kind of thing.
I would suggest that the real control on doing this kind of thing, as it was when I was young, is the danger that one's name would appear in the local weekly newspaper and one's parents would find out.
I think this is something that we should look at again and consider. It is not just a matter of banning the publication of serious offences. We should also consider the possibility that maybe we should allow the publication of identity for minor offences.
