Foreword to the Second Edition

• Author: Wayne Gorman
• Profession: Provincial Court of Newfoundland and Labrador
• Pages: 23-25

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Foreword to the

Second Edition

The Youth Criminal Justice Act1 came into force on April 1, 2003. Since that time, it

has been the subject of significant judicial interpretation and legislative amendment.

The most recent amendment of significance added the sentencing principles of specific

deterrence and denunciation as considerations in youth sentencing.2 Throughout all

of this, however, the Youth Criminal Justice Act has been consistently judicially inter-

preted as enacting a sentencing scheme for young people which is designed to acknow-

ledge the significant dierences between adults and children who oend. Thus, in Rv

PR, the Saskatchewan Court of Appeal indicated that imposing a sentence upon a

young oender requires “a context specific approach; an approach that diers entirely

from the sentencing regime for adult oenders.”3 This dierence was explained by the

Manitoba Court of Appeal in R v McClements, in which the court indicated that “fun-

damental” to the sentencing regime contained within the Youth Criminal Justice Act

“is the presumption of diminished moral blameworthiness for young persons, which

recognizes that ‘because of their age, young [persons] have heightened vulnerability,

less maturity and a reduced capacity for moral judgment.’”4

The approach taken by Canada is mirrored in other countries. For example, the

Sentencing Advisory Council in the Australian state of Victoria notes that one

justification for the emphasis on rehabilitation is the benefit to both the community and

the child or young person in directing them away from a potentially life-long pathway of

antisocial conduct and criminal oending. An emphasis on a child’s rehabilitation “equally

serve[s] the community’s need for protection from further crime at the hands of the

oender.” Related to this is the concern that “custody can be particularly criminogenic

for a young person, whose brain is still developing.” This very process of brain develop-

ment and maturation “is seen as providing a unique opportunity for rehabilitation and

[therefore] minimising the risk of reoending.”5

1 SC 2002, c 1.

2 See the Safe Streets and Communities Act, SC 2012, c1.

3 2018 SKCA 27 at para 61.

4 2017 MBCA 104 at para 34.

5 Reoending by Children and Young People in Victoria (Melbourne: State of Victoria, Sentencing

Advisory Council, 2016) at 51.

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