The panel, which includes one of Italy's top Mafioso fighting prosecutors says naivety about the threat of organized crime, preoccupation with personal rights make Canada a virtual free market for the underworld. Again, I have some real concerns about where we are heading in Canada.

When the Young Offenders Act was brought in, we had a vision in Canada of innocent young people who, through situations that were out of their control, got into some trouble. And, quite rightly, society said let's treat them differently than we treat other criminals. But times have changed in the last 12 years. Now some of our young people are hardened thugs. For 10 years now, the Ministers of Justice across the country have tried to bring changes to the Young Offenders Act, and for whatever reason, changes are delayed time and time again. Again, with our preoccupation with rights of one segment of society, we're forgetting about the rights of the vast majority of Canadians.

Society has changed dramatically over the past 12 years since the Canadian Charter of Rights was introduced with great fanfare. I feel that, as a society and as a legal system, we're incredibly naive as to the type and numbers of dangerously sick and hardened individuals who increasingly prey upon innocent victims in our society. It seems to many Canadians that the Charter of Rights is being abused by an increasing number of dangerous Canadians who know that our legal system will go to almost any lengths to protect their rights.

A case in point -- and I brought it up here in the House -- was the Charles Ng case; a brutal accused murderer from California where there were actual graphic tapes of the torture and murder of victims. He came to Canada -- again because Canada has a pretty lenient system -- and was arrested here. Again, I think of an unjustifiable preoccupation with rights, we cannot without tremendous difficulty extradite somebody, even to the United States, if they can face the death penalty. Now if anybody deserves to face the death penalty it's Charles Ng. Four years and approximately $4 million later, the Justice Minister actually got him out in the middle of the night and sent him to California, for which was harshly criticized. Where is the justice?

In the Homolka/Teale case, it seems like our society is going to inordinate lengths to ensure that the very best defence is available to the accused. Again, when the facts of that case are made public, it will chill everybody in this room. The facts are unbelievably ugly and somehow or other we are still living in a world that can't respond properly.

So I ask what has happened to the Charter in the last 12 years? What's happened to the Charter's responsibility to protect the rights of victims, of defenceless children who are being preyed upon by sick and bizarre psychopaths?

We've abolished capital punishment in this country because we feel it's immoral for society to take a life. I'll give you the case of Clifford Olsen. Again, a string of brutal murders. And I would almost guarantee that if anybody in this room could have been a witness to one of those tortures and murders, they would have no hesitation whatsoever in agreeing to capital punishment. This man to whom we have offered the full rights of our legal system, has written letters to the families of victims and victimized the families again. This man has taken our penitentiary system to court on numerous occasions. Finally, a judge said it's a nuisance but we've afforded him on dozens of occasions the luxury of taking our system to court because he wasn't able to read books or because certain of his rights he thought were being contravened.

Something is obviously wrong here. I think we have to understand that here in Canada, we don't have a justice system, what we have is a legal system. It is a legal system where the pursuit of justice is becoming increasingly sporadic.

But, we can't blame the justice system for all our ills because the justice system is a product of our society. To me, the major culprit is the naive, trustful nature of the Canadian psyche. It is like we're living in a dream world, as our world is slowly crumbling around us. We're pretending we're still living in the 1960s. What can we do, people ask. There are two diametrically opposed concepts. One is the right-wing approach, which is more police, harsher penalties and bring back the death penalty. The other one is more left-wing approach, and that is, let's treat the young people, let's intervene aggressively and treat at-risk youth. Unfortunately, the debate has become such that you have to be one or the other. I think we need a combination of both of these approaches.

The charter has to be modernized. It is very difficult to do it constitutionally and we can only hope that judicial interpretations of the charter will give it more equality in its treatments of victims as well as the accused. Even though the charter was put there for the rights of individuals, I don't think we can forget the rights of society. The charter has to reflect modern reality and it must protect all Canadians, not just the criminals and those accused of violent crimes.

I, for one, think that the people who have been convicted of violent crimes should be punished severely. I've heard the argument that jail sentences are not deterrents and they eventually get out, et cetera. That is true but, on the other hand, we have to give a strong message that our society will not condone that sort of behaviour. I think the sort of thing we're trying here is to mobilize communities against crime and violence. It is key and all of Canadian society has to do that. We've talked about resources for police and there is the same call across the country: police need the tools to do the job. I agree with the Justice Minister that more police and more judges aren't the complete answer, but they are part of the answer and there has to be better cooperation and support from the community for the police and better interaction of the police with the community.

I think that governments must intervene massively and aggressively with young people right across the country. We are now able to identify troubled youngsters. We can predict, with a certain amount of certainty, that they are going to get themselves into serious trouble. I think we have to start spending the money and intervene early. People have to recognize that in the area of human resources, you can't do everything. So, it means, in one sense, that you're not going to be able to spend the resources on the present generation. In one sense, you have to almost warehouse them, do what you have to do, but put new money to save the next generation.

You have to protect the future, otherwise I see that what is happening in the inner core of major cities in the United States where you can't live, is going to happen here. They're out of control; there is anarchy. There is no respect for law and order, there is no respect for life. Gangs have taken over southern Los Angeles, Washington, Chicago and New York. You can tell from the last election there that politicians are held in the lowest regard. I don't know where it all goes. As you saw, the last political campaign in the United States was totally negative; everything about it was negative. Ultimately, that negative attitude permeates society and people believe that there is no way out of the mess. We are not there yet in Canada, but I think we have a responsibility to make sure we do get there. I think victims must be supported in a major way.

I heard a report that Doug French, who is the father of one of the young girls brutally murdered in Ontario, appeared before a parliamentary committee and said victims have no rights, I have no rights. He said, here is a man whose life has been changed irrevocably and he's an example of many. When someone is brutally murdered, their families will never recover and their friends will never recover. It doesn't just affect one person; there are probably hundreds of people affected by each one of these crimes. What about their rights? It is fine to say that Homolka/Teale has rights, but what about the rights of the families whose lives have been totally shattered?

I feel that here in the Northwest Territories, our government is giving some good examples to the rest of the country and I applaud them for that. But, I think we have to act quickly and very decisively or we will face a breakdown of law and order and the violence that we see in the United States. Canadians take so much for granted. There is no doubt in my mind that the world, in the 1990s, is a nasty place. There is a lot of violence and there are a lot of very nasty people out there. That reality is hitting our country very, very quickly. I think that we may wake up one day and discover a Canada we don't recognize or like. Thank you, Madam Speaker.

---Applause