Revised Young Offenders Act Soon to Be Law
Originally published in The Toronto Star, February 4, 2002
OTTAWA (CP) — It took seven years, three drafts and more than 160 amendments, but the Liberals have pushed a revamped Young Offenders Act over the last major parliamentary hurdle.
The proposed Youth Criminal Justice Act will become law with royal assent, a final formality.
Shepherded through raucous debate Monday by Justice Minister Martin Cauchon, the new act allows provinces to lower the age, to 14 from 16, at which youths can receive adult sentences for serious crimes such as murder or sexual assault.
Defendants could still be treated under less severe youth rules, however, if their lawyers can convince the court to do so.
The proposed act cleared the Commons on Monday after adoption of a Senate amendment stressing that hardships faced by many aboriginal youth should be considered at sentencing.
That change further rankled critics who attacked the bill from both sides, calling it either too soft or too harsh.
"Why should any victim receive lesser justice based on the racial origin of his or her victimizer?" asked Canadian Alliance MP Chuck Cadman during the debate.
Cadman, youth justice critic for the Alliance, has fought for revamped legislation since his son, Jesse, was fatally stabbed in Surrey, B.C. by a 17-year-old boy on probation.
The Canadian Alliance called on the Liberals to scrap the legislation and start over with tougher measures.
The number of teens charged with violent offences rose seven per cent in 2000 from the year before while sexual assault charges increased by 18 percent, said Alliance Justice critic Vic Toews.
"The Liberals ignore these statistics."
Ontario Attorney General David Young also denounced the bill for not taking a tougher line. He wanted longer sentences, mandatory jail time for weapons offences and public identification of violent young offenders.
"It's absolutely ridiculous," Young said Monday in an interview. "Just walk past any young offenders court in southern Ontario and you'll hear young people who have utter contempt . . . for the current law. And they'll have less respect for the new one.
"It'll be cumbersome, costly and frankly it will hold young people less accountable than the current legislation."
On the other side, Bloc Quebecois MPs assailed the bill for undermining Quebec's preference for rehabilitation programs rather than jail time for young offenders.
Others have noted the need to weigh social conditions that see native teens jailed at a far higher rate than non-natives.
For example, while aboriginals make up 20 per cent of the youth population in western Canada, they represent almost 70 per cent of youth in jail. Eighty per cent of them are in custody for non-violent crimes.
Cauchon has said the new act will be flexible enough to allow provinces leeway in how it's applied.
His predecessor, Anne McLellan, called it the Liberals' effort to combine crime prevention, meaningful consequences and rehabilitation.
Violent youth crime is still rare Canada, and the vast majority of offences involve property damage.
Debate on overhauling the much-maligned Young Offenders Act started in 1995, Cauchon said before the Liberals voted Monday to curb debate on the Senate amendment.
This was the third version of the bill. The last one died on the order paper before the November 2000 election after the Bloc stalled its passage by filing some 3,000 amendments.
The Senate amendment was accepted Monday in a 145-61 vote in the Commons, with the Bloc and Alliance voting against it.
Changes To The Law For Young Offenders
Highlights of the Youth Criminal Justice Act, which revamps the Young Offenders Act:
- Lowers to 14 from 16 the age at which young people who commit serious crimes could get adult sentences; allows judges to make exceptions.
- Mandatory supervision for any young offender who has served time.
- New, tougher custody and supervision sentences for most violent, high-risk youth.
- Allows publication of names of young offenders given adult sentences or those given a youth sentence for one of several serious crimes.
- More community-based sentences.
SOURCE: The Canadian Press
