Prime Minister Harper plans to impose automatic jail terms on young people who commit violent crimes.
I have no problem with this. I believe that the basic sentiment is right. One in a hundred juveniles who murder and maim might be ripe candidates for rehabilitation. But the wooly-headed assumption that because a boy is 15, he's a dear who has just gone momentarily astray is nonsense.
There are killers and then there is everybody else; the divide between the two is enormous.
And some kid who crashes a human being's skull in 45 times with a rock is a crazed killer and needs, for my benefit and for yours, to be locked up forever.
Enter the Charter.
The Supreme Court is now being called upon to declare that the existing Youth Justice Act is unconstitutional because it violates the poor babies' rights under the famous Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
Adult crimes call for adult courts and adult sentences.
You want to let the bastard out some years later for good behaviour or whatever spurious reason, that's another story. But until that day, stick to some principles that we understand and that work.
