Justice committee  Yes.

Justice committee  You're reading it correctly--and smart people can disagree, if Professor Bala feels this is a good amendment. The position is as set out in the paper. We're opposed to the amendments for the reasons we've set out. It would certainly be a lot easier to accept if it said somethin

Justice committee  I've seen that phenomenon, and I've also seen a phenomenon in my practice—and as I indicated earlier, I've been doing nothing but youth cases for seven and half years—that it becomes kind of a self-fulfilling prophecy. If you tell a kid that he's really bad, he's going to think,

Justice committee  That's what the act says now. As I mentioned earlier, when a young person receives an adult sentence, they are treated in all respects as though they were an adult, which means their case can be publicized.

Justice committee  Yes.

Justice committee  That's right.

Justice committee  I would disagree with that. Many of the amendments are not directed at serious violent offenders. I've already made the point that the definition of serious offence, which would effectively reverse the onus, in a certain sense, onto the young person to justify their release, in

Justice committee  Well, in some cases they might be.

Justice committee  I take some comfort from the fact that the principle is still there. But on balance we feel that the act was fine just the way it was. Certainly the Supreme Court of Canada agreed with us. In the R. v. B. (D.) case, there is substantial consideration of these principles.

Justice committee  It is still there, yes.

Justice committee  I need to clarify something arising from your question.There's something called a “serious violent offence” that has been redefined, and we agree with that. “Serious violent offence” was defined judicially as any “offence in the commission of which a...person causes...serious bod

Justice committee  I do, but I think we need to put this in context, and we've done so on page 2 of our submission. As we say there—quoting directly from the Nunn report—we think the protection of the public should be recognized as one of the goals, but not the only primary goal of the act. What tr

Justice committee  I think Gaylene and I can both speak to that. We pride ourselves at the CBA on representing the entire country. It's my recollection that there were lawyers from Quebec involved in the preparation of this submission. It was a large group. We certainly considered their input on

Justice committee  You'll have to help me with that.

Justice committee  I will respond to that on behalf of the CBA. We're talking about the Youth Criminal Justice Act, which was proclaimed and took effect in April 2003. You've touched on something of concern to us. There seems to be a philosophy that not only judges but also prosecutors are not to