Bill Siksay

[Tackling Violent Crime Act, November 26th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for her intervention in this debate as I know that she has followed these issues carefully at the committees. I believe she was also on the legislative committee that dealt with Bill C-2.

In looking over the testimony of the various experts that appeared before the committee, one of my concerns with regard to the reverse onus on the presumption of a dangerous offender designation after three serious crimes is that one of the witnesses raised the possibility that the courts might interpret that there would have to be three offences before a dangerous offender designation could be successfully obtained.

Is there a possibility that this legislation might lead the courts to believe that this designation should not happen on a first or second crime and that it would take a third crime before the possibility would kick in? If so, that is a very serious change to the kind of legislation we have now. Also, could she comment on why the legislation looks to a third conviction and does not increase resources or the possibilities of obtaining a dangerous offender designation after a serious first or second crime?

[Youth Criminal Justice Act, November 22nd, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, my colleague is right when she says that the government is pursuing the wrong direction in so many places.

I think that going down the route of establishing stronger criminal penalties without addressing the other key issues for dealing with crime in our society, without dealing with prevention and without dealing with policing is absolutely the wrong way to go.

I think limiting a woman's choice in reproductive technologies or in abortion is absolutely the wrong way to go. I think limiting young people's choice in the expression of their sexuality is also absolutely the wrong way to go.

There are many places in dealing with the kinds of criminal justice legislation that we have had where I am very troubled by the direction of the government, where I think it is going in absolutely the wrong direction and directions that I think would have serious consequences for our society.

[Youth Criminal Justice Act, November 22nd, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, I wish I could answer that question. We would have much more success around this place if we could understand what is in the mind of the government when it comes to these sorts of things. One would think it is a no-brainer when it comes to the Conservatives' concerns about our criminal justice system, but sadly, it is one of the places where they are failing us.

There is no doubt that we need more police on the beat. That kind of policing serves all of our communities well, whether they are on the James Bay coast or in the Lower Mainland of British Columbia. We know that when police officers have the ability to build those kinds of relationships with the people they serve, including young people, aboriginal people, minorities and middle class neighbours in many of our communities, we are all the better for having that kind of relationship. However, if the resources are not being dedicated toward it and we do not have the people on the street doing that kind of work, then we do not have the benefits of those kinds of programs. Those programs are very crucial to what we should be about.

Policing is only one aspect of what we need to be doing in our criminal justice system, but we cannot ignore that piece. We also need to be talking about punishment in our criminal justice system and what works and does not work in terms of having people take responsibility for the crimes that they have committed. We also need to look at prevention. We have heard many suggestions this afternoon.

We have been speaking with people from the Federation of Canadian Municipalities, who have said there is a declining recreational infrastructure in our country. When they talk about a $123 billion infrastructure deficit, fully $40 billion of that is in recreation. If we had the best possible recreation centres and addressed that infrastructure deficit, we know it would have positive effects across the country, including positive effects in dealing with the youth crime rate.

I do not understand why we do not move in those areas and ensure that those kinds of possibilities exist for young people across Canada.

[Youth Criminal Justice Act, November 22nd, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, I am happy to have the opportunity to continue this discussion on Bill C-25, An Act to amend the Youth Criminal Justice Act.

This bill, rather surprisingly, only amends two parts of the legislation. In particular, it adds deterrence and denunciation to the principles that a court must consider when determining a youth sentence, but it also clarifies the presumption against the pretrial detention of a young person and specifies the circumstances in which the presumption does not apply.

In a sense, it is very surprising that after all the bluster and the controversy that we have heard for years from the government and the government party, the Conservative Party, about youth crime and the Youth Criminal Justice Act, this is the kind of legislation that it brings forward. It is such an incredibly limited piece of legislation. It is very surprising, given all the chest thumping and the controversy that has been created over the years, to see this proposal when it finally comes forward being so very limited in scope.

Generally, the principle that young people should be treated differently in our criminal justice system is one that has a very long history in our legal system. It is something that has been established for at least 150 years. It has gone on for that length of time without any serious challenge. I think it is something that we have to maintain in this day and age as well. I do not see any reason that we should turn our backs on that important principle. Certainly it has been part of the legislation in Canada that deals with young offenders over the years. It was a feature of the Juvenile Delinquents Act, it was a feature of the Young Offenders Act and it is certainly a feature now of the Youth Criminal Justice Act.

We have adopted wholeheartedly in this country that youth should be treated differently in our criminal justice system. I believe that has served us well. We have had success in changing the lives of young people who have been in trouble with the law. That is something we should continue to work at and not abandon. The whole question of rehabilitation of young people is one that merits emphasis in our criminal justice system and through the Youth Criminal Justice Act.

There are people who would suggest, and often they sit on the Conservative benches, young people should be treated like adults in our criminal justice system, even with some specific crimes.

If we are going to move in that direction, it would seem to me that we have to give those young people similar responsibilities in other areas of their lives, not just the onerous responsibility of facing the full adult penalties of the criminal justice system, but the responsibilities of full citizenship in other areas like, for instance, lowering the voting age. We should make sure that voting and criminal responsibility are at the same level. I do not know that there are many people in the Conservative corner who would consider that kind of proposal. So, I think it is very important that we maintain the principle that youth should be treated differently in our criminal justice system.

That being said, there are issues related to youth crime that we need to address. Overall, in the last 20 years youth crime has declined and continues to decline. We have seen it decline at least 12% to 15% over the last 20 years. I think that is the result of good legislation in this area. The Youth Criminal Justice Act is a good piece of legislation.

There is concern at the moment about serious violent crime involving the use of guns and other weapons. That is something we are all concerned about. However, the reality is that overall, youth crime is going down, and it shows the effectiveness of the current legislation.

We do not know why there has been a spike in violent crime at this moment in time. Often there are those kinds of fluctuations in crime rates in specific crime areas, so it does merit our attention, but to overthrow the whole youth criminal justice system I do not think would be appropriate in that case. The Youth Criminal Justice Act has had the effect of lowering the crime rate among our youth since it came into effect.

There are other things we could be doing to address the whole issue of crime in our society. Certainly, policing and enforcement is one of the aspects that we should always look at when we are considering trying to reduce crime in our society. Unfortunately that is one area where the government has not kept its promise. More police officers have been promised and yet there has been no follow through on that promise yet.

We know that the opportunity for police to build relationships with young people is a very effective way of reducing youth crime and reducing crime generally in our communities. Certainly the work of police officers that are attached to schools in community policing demonstrates that very clearly.

There are other things that we should be pursuing. Certainly a restorative justice system would also go some way to ending recidivism in our criminal justice system. We know that whenever we incarcerate young people we are basically sending them to a school where they get more training in how to be offenders. We see that all through our criminal justice system but I think it is particularly true of young people. Anything we could do that helps young people understand their responsibility for the crimes that they have committed but keeps them in the community and builds relationships and restores relationships in the community is an important step to take.

Restorative justice programs have been shown to reduce recidivism by almost half. That is a very important example of how we should be moving and the kind of programs that we should be putting in place.

I have had the opportunity to participate in a restorative justice program after an act of vandalism at my house, albeit a very minor criminal infraction. I was very impressed with the way that worked to restore the relationships that had been altered by that and how elders from the aboriginal community, my partner, our neighbours and I all worked to see those relationships restored and responsibility taken for the actions of the young person involved. It was a very moving process, I have to say.

When we went in, we hoped that at the end of the process we would be able to see the young person as another one of our neighbours and greet that person on the street because a relationship had been restored despite his actions on my property. I think that we actually accomplished that.

I think there is something very positive to be said. Certainly the evidence from Quebec, which has spent a lot of time on restorative justice programs, has been very dramatic in terms of the positive outcomes of those programs. They are ones that we could a emulate across the country.

Sadly, in my riding of Burnaby—Douglas, there are people who would like to establish a youth restorative justice program, but there just is not money available to do that, either from the provincial government or from the federal government. This is certainly one place where we could stand to have a significant increase in funding, given the success of these programs for our communities in reducing crime and re-establishing relationships.

We know that incarceration does not do young people many favours. Canada does have a very high youth incarceration rate, one of the highest in the western world.

Just to wrap up, I want to say that I do not see the bill as changing very much. It does not change judicial discretion around pretrial release and in fact it only enshrines in law the current practices of the criminal justice system. We also know that deterrence and denunciation are not particularly effective when it comes to reducing crime overall and certainly that should be the goal of our criminal justice system.

I am not sure what the big deal is about this bill. Perhaps it merits more discussion at committee, but I would not want to see us fiddle in a very significant way with our youth criminal justice system because I think it is serving us well. That is not to mean that there could not be improvements made, but I think we are being well served.

[Trans Day of Remembrance, November 20th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, today is Trans Day of Remembrance, when people in communities across Canada and around the world gather to remember the victims of trans-phobic violence and to dedicate themselves to working to end all forms of discrimination against transgender and transsexual people.

The government and this House could take an important step toward ensuring the full equality of transgender and transsexual Canadians by including gender identity and expression as a prohibited ground of discrimination in the Canadian Human Rights Act. Other actions are needed to end discrimination in the workplace, in housing, in health care, in the justice system and in the provision of identity documents.

The theme of this year's Trans Day of Remembrance is “Claiming our history, claiming our pride, contributing to our community”.

Transgender and transsexual people are members of our families and they are our neighbours and our co-workers. Canada is richer for their life experiences and the many ways in which they contribute to our understanding of our humanity and the meaning of equality.

New Democrats are honoured to stand in solidarity with them on this day and in this struggle.

[Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, November 20th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, I want to put a question to the hon. member about the special advocate process, because unfortunately, I tend to believe that the provisions for a special advocate that have been introduced in Bill C-3 amount to tinkering with a very fundamentally flawed bill.

Certainly the provisions that we do have in the legislation seem to be modelled on the system in Britain. In the United Kingdom a number of special advocates have withdrawn from that process because they believe that it was too significant a compromise to the principles of basic fairness in the criminal justice system there. In fact, just recently the joint human rights committee of the British parliament said that the special advocate process was Kafkaesque and amounted to a star chamber. Those are very serious criticisms of that system.

A former special advocate, Ian Macdonald, said that what he was doing as a special advocate was adding a fig leaf of respectability to a very odious process and he resigned because of that.

Given those very significant criticisms of the special advocate process that the government seems to have adopted in this legislation, why would anyone want to support a bad bill, a fundamentally flawed process that compromises basic human rights and compromises our justice system in Canada?

[Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, November 20th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, the security certificate provisions of the immigration act allow for the deportation of people who are alleged to have participated in very serious criminal activity in Canada, activity related to terrorism, to plotting against the national security of Canada, to espionage and to organized crime. It allows for their deportation without them ever having been charged or convicted of those very serious crimes. Here we are removing people from Canada who are alleged to have committed very serious criminal violations but have never been charged, convicted or punished for those crimes.

I wonder if the member believes that it is appropriate to remove people from Canada without holding them accountable for serious criminal activity, like terrorism or threats to national security, and then sending them to their home country or to another jurisdiction without them ever having been charged, convicted and punished for those serious criminal matters.

[Questions Passed as Orders for Returns, November 20th, 2007]

With respect to oil spills in British Columbia's coastal waters in the last five years: (a) what was the total cost of clean ups, on annual basis; (b) on annual basis, what portion of the cost of clean up was paid (i) by Environment Canada, (ii) by Canada Wildlife Service, (iii) by the responsible polluter; (c) what was the date and location of each of the spills; (d) what was the size of each of the spills; (e) what was the extent of the wildlife damage in each of these spills; (f) how many birds and mammals were rehabilitated and released; (g) how many birds and mammals were euthanized; and (h) how many dead birds and mammals were retrieved?

[Petitions, November 20th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, the second petition is signed by over 400 people from the provinces of Ontario, Quebec and Alberta. They call on the government and the House to pass Bill C-326, a private member's bill, which I in fact have tabled, to amend the Canadian Human Rights Act to include gender identity and expression as prohibited grounds for discrimination in order to fight discrimination and social exclusion of transgender, transexual and genderqueer people. I think it is particularly appropriate to table this today on the Trans Day of Remembrance.

[Petitions, November 20th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, I have the honour to table two petitions this morning. The first is signed by over 500 residents in my constituency of Burnaby--Douglas and other communities in the lower mainland of British Columbia.

The petitioners point out that 21 year old Amanda Wei Zhao was murdered in Burnaby, B.C. in October 2002 and that two Chinese foreign students were charged in the murder. Mr. Ang Li was charged with second degree murder and Mr. Han Zhang was charged with accessory to murder, but Mr. Li was able to return to China before the charges were laid.

The petitioners note that China and Canada do not have an extradition agreement, that both sides are exerting prosecutorial jurisdiction and that the murder investigation remains stuck as a result. It has been five years since Amanda Zhao was murdered and her parents, Bao-ying Yang and Zi-Sheng Zhao, are still waiting for due process and justice to take place.

The petitioners call on the Government of Canada to work with the relevant Chinese authorities to ensure, at long last, a fair process of justice for the Zhao family and to work with the Zhao family to ensure they receive support and access to information regarding their daughter's murder investigation.