Hedy Fry

[Health, September 29th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, this is a matter that I will have to take under advisement and ask the Minister of Health because I do not know of any such study at the moment.

[Unemployment Insurance Act, September 20th, 1994]

The mandate of the forum is to develop a vision for health care in the 21st century. It will create a dialogue among the public, federal, territorial and provincial governments for renewing the better health of Canadians. It will deal with and identify priorities concerning a consensus for change in all the provinces. At the same time it is determined to respect the five principles of health care upon which medicare was built.

Obviously the forum will have to deal with issues such as setting guidelines for technology. It will have to deal with issues such as the aging society. It will have to deal with what kind of financing is required for a future health care system. All these things have been said by the minister in her press release in June and they will happen.

With respect to the hon. member's question concerning the transfer of payments in federal financing, the member well knows the government has made a commitment to stable financing in health. We have made that commitment by not cutting transfer payments for this year.

In the year 1995-96 we will begin to have our federal transfer payments financed on the gross national product minus 3 per cent. Given that we will still the following year be putting in $214 million more than we will be putting in this year, The population growth will be factored in and therefore the transfers will be increased according to population growth each year.

One of the things we will be doing in financing is that we are not touching the tax transfers. This means a sizeable amount of money is still going to be put into provincial coffers with regard to financing the health care system.

The member well knows that the health care system does not only depend on-

[Unemployment Insurance Act, September 20th, 1994]

It is going to begin in October, as the press release indicated. Of course it will involve federal and provincial relationships. It will involve public input and working groups that will deal with many of the issues the hon. member just raised in her question.

[Unemployment Insurance Act, September 20th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, it would seem the hon. leader of the New Democratic Party must have read the press release of the Minister of Health which she sent out in June with regard to the forum. She just listed all the things that were mentioned in it. The forum, as indicated in the press release, is to be an ongoing four-year forum.

[Excise Act, June 13th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, I do not think that we can accept this amendment. Tobacco is the single most preventable cause of death and disease in the world today. There are 40,000 Canadians a year who die as a result of tobacco smoking.

It is a cost of $3 billion a year to the health care industry in this country and directly to the Canadian government. When this announcement was made that we would be banning kiddie packs, it was made by the Prime Minister in this House on February 8. That was a little over four months ago.

That has been enough notice, we believe, for the manufacturers and for everyone who sells kiddie packs to take notice that we were going to do this. Second, kiddie packs are very accessible to young people. They like to buy them because they are attractive, because they cost less money and because they are easy to hide from parents and teachers.

It is very important that we take steps now to prevent this very preventable cause of smoking among young people or this very preventable adjunct to smoking in young people.

This is an addictive drug and I do not know how long we can continue to keep saying it is worthwhile keeping it up and allowing us to continue to propagate what in reality is a lethal and addictive drug. I think we have given enough time to the manufacturers and retailers to take this drug off the market.

[Excise Act, June 13th, 1994]

Mr. speaker, yes, I think we would like to look at some of the trade implications because of the fact that much of the smokeless tobacco is an import. We think it is an excellent amendment but inappropriate at this time.

[Excise Act, June 13th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, everything that the hon. member just said is true. In fact, smokeless tobacco is extremely dangerous, and I applaud his amendment.

However, it is inappropriate at this time for a few reasons. Eighty-five per cent of the tobacco sold is in the form of cigarettes in this country at the moment and, as he said, we do import all of our smokeless tobacco. Of the smokeless tobacco that we import, even of that small amount, only a very minuscule amount is in fact imported in sizes under 20 grams. What we have here is not a real marketplace problem. The act deals with banning the sale of tobacco to anyone under 18 anyway, so no one should be selling any packages of anything to people under 18.

However, we think it is inappropriate at this moment because there are some trade implications because all of our smokeless tobacco is imported and we need to analyze that. I would like us not to stall what is in fact an extraordinarily important bill right now in order to wait for that amendment to come through. You can always amend this at another time and it is quite acceptable to bring in an amendment later on. At this point while I applaud the amendment, I think it is inappropriate to do so.

[Young Offenders Act, June 6th, 1994]

With respect to increased sentences, it is in fact appropriately punishing the young people for the very serious crimes. Sorry, what was the second part of your question?

[Young Offenders Act, June 6th, 1994]

I forgot your first question. I do not believe that is what the minister means by changing the onus for 15 to 17-year olds to be tried in adult court. He said they should be tried in adult court and it should be shown why they should not be tried in adult court. It is clear they will be tried for very violent crimes in adult court and the onus is on them to prove that they should not be tried in this court. I think that is very appropriate.

Second, you talked about lowering the age from 12. I made it quite clear that I do not believe we can put 12-year olds and under 12-year olds in the same category. I do not believe that the abstract concepts of crime and punishment really apply to young people. I say this from experience, both as a parent and as a practitioner who had lots of young people in my practice.

We need to help these young people by prevention, by remedial help and by helping their parents with the resources they need to help bring their children into line. However we should not be throwing these children in jail at all.

[Young Offenders Act, June 6th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, I will be sharing my time with the hon. member for Bruce-Grey.

I am pleased to be given the opportunity to speak to the amendments to the Young Offenders Act as presented by the Minister of Justice. I have studied for many years the behaviour of young people across the spectrum from so-called normal to abnormal, in part as a parent in anticipation of the needs of my three sons and also as a family practitioner with a large adolescent practice.

After all these years I still cannot say what I understand or that I can always predict the reactions of young people to the stresses, anxiety and confusing conflicts created by the transition from child to adult.

I believe I have gained some valuable insights into these issues with the help of my three sons and my young patients, many of whom confided in me over the years the nature of their feelings and anxieties, and by yet others who were brought to me by their parents or social workers because of problematic behaviour.

I do know from painful experience that the solutions to the problems of young people's behaviour, violent or otherwise, are neither simplistic nor linear because the problems and anxieties that beset our youth are highly emotional, complex and volatile, and the answers need to be flexible, individually focused and multi-faceted. They also need to strike a careful balance between the requirement to punish and the need for rehabilitation and prevention.

As a member of Parliament for a very metropolitan urban riding the issue of young offenders is particularly pertinent. I have heard from many of my constituents, both adults who are anxious and fearful, and youth, particularly street youth who are homeless and lost.

I believe I have heard all sides of this complex, emotional and controversial issue and I agree that there is urgent need for appropriate and sensitive action. It is in this light that I have assessed the amendments to the Young Offenders Act proposed by the justice minister.

I will not go into specific details of each amendment, as time does not permit. I will instead deal with the overall intent and philosophy of these changes. I believe that they need to fulfil three specific criteria: safety and protection, accountability, which must include punishment and rehabilitation, and cause and prevention.

We need to balance within these concerns the rights and responsibilities of all persons, the victim, the offender, the justice system and society at large.

I will deal first with the issues of safety and protection. I think we all agree that our responsibility as parliamentarians is to ensure that Canadians are protected from harm and to maintain a safe environment for them to live in wherever possible. We know that women, seniors, youth and the most vulnerable in our society live with anxiety and fear because of the perceived or real escalation of violent crimes among our youth.

Allaying these fears and ensuring safety are of prime importance. To do this it is essential to securely isolate young offenders at least until we can be sure that they are rehabilitated enough to re-enter society without threat.

The Minister of Justice's amendments concerning the lengthening of sentences for severe violent crimes regardless of age address this issue appropriately. The provisions for the sharing of information regarding the violent offender with those in society who have responsibility for the safety and protection of others such as school authorities, law enforcement officers and child welfare workers will also be effective in ensuring public safety.

At the same time by restricting the information only to those who have a clear need to know and authority to act, the minister has achieved a balance between protection of society from the young offender and protection of the young offender from understandable but illegal vigilante action and media sensationalism.

With regard to the second issue of accountability and punishment, I believe that the amendments separating the punishment for severe violent crimes such as murder, rape, aggravated assault and manslaughter from those of the less severe young offences address appropriately the maxim from Gilbert and Sullivan's "Mikado", that the punishment must fit the crime.

Punishment should take into consideration not only the enormity of the act and the culpability of the perpetrator but must also be mindful of the responsibility to impart a lesson. If this responsibility is not observed then punishment is nothing more than revenge.

I believe this important balance is achieved in the new proposals that would allow a judge to authorize medical or psychological assessment of a serious or chronic offender and to impose treatment in rehabilitation as part of a sentence. The amendment that allows for a victim impact statement is another extension of this accountability lesson. It teaches the offender that singular, specific acts of violence have far reaching consequences that affect the lives of more than the victim.

Further to this whole issue of culpability, I support fully the minister's decision to keep the minimum age of the young offender to 12. I believe, based on my experience as a parent and family physician, that young people under 12 do not fully comprehend the broader, more abstract concept of cause and effect, especially in the very serious crime of murder.

There is a clear difference between a child's understanding of right and wrong and the more mature understanding of the tragic consequences of murder and rape, especially on the victim's family and on the permanence of the deed. Our children do not live in a vacuum. Media messages today glorify and condone these extreme acts of violence and minimize the enormity of effect, often rendering them trivial and commonplace, especially to a child. Persons under 12 are children.

Moreover, the amendments that now require a young offender between the ages of 15 and 17 to be treated in adult court further strengthen this concept of maturity as a factor in culpability.

Finally, I would like to address the proposed amendments to the Young Offenders Act under the third criterion of cause and prevention. In this, the International Year of the Family, we have a clear duty to all children, especially as parliamentarians to Canadian children.

Children and youth are among the most vulnerable in society. In the early years of life they depend on us completely for security and protection. We have a responsibility as parents and later as teachers to guide and nurture them, imparting to them a sense of self-esteem and worth, an understanding of our societal values, also furnishing them with the skills for coping with the conflicts and stresses of life within the context of good citizenship and with regard for rights and responsibilities.

Our children and youth have no secure ground on which to build a future. In these times of economic instability and unemployment our children are filled with a sense of futility and hopelessness. As they see us, adults, buffeted often helplessly by these endless stresses, they also experience our sense of powerlessness.

In this environment some of our young people are fortunate enough to weather these stresses in a family atmosphere of love and security, but there are many others whose fears are compounded by the isolation of neglect and abuse. Our neglected and abused children come from all social and economic groups. Abuse is not only an active thing, it can be inflicted passively when we deny love and guidance. If then some of our children and youth act out their feelings of anxiety and powerlessness in violent behaviour we must seek not only to be protected from their actions and to punish them appropriately, but we must also recognize these actions for what they are, a tragic response to seemingly insurmountable odds.

Whenever we exert our right to punish we must be conscious of our responsibility to rehabilitate and our duty to prevent the creation of further generations of lost and violent youth.

As parliamentarians we must act now as a priority to provide resources for families who need assistance in coping with difficult and recalcitrant children and youth. However these measures must be remedial and preventive rather than punitive.

Like it or not, our youth are our hope for the future. We are the only ones who can influence that future by how we deal with the problems today.

I support the justice minister's amendments to the Young Offenders Act because I believe they present realistic solutions to the problems of today while building a secure and safe future for tomorrow.