The Chairman (Bob Horner): We're very pleased to have with us this morning Dr. Elliott Barker from the Canadian Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children. Dr. Barker: The gist of what I have to say about crime prevention is that as a nation we need to have a focus on crime prevention that is really the opposite; that is, we need to focus on building a nation of citizens who can live co-operatively and affectionately with one another. I think that's an achievable goal if we set ourselves to do it. I think other approaches to crime prevention simply will not work because they do not deal with the fundamental problems. We should set ourselves in a concerted way to effect two changes: first, to see that each new child that's born has its emotional needs met (so that it will develop the capacity for trusting and affectionate relationships), and secondly, that Canadian society deliberately aims at rewarding and enhancing affectionate behaviour amongst its citizens. As an approach to crime prevention, that probably sounds like the visionary dream of an idealist. I think it's more visionary and idealistic to believe that crime prevention is possible without achieving these two objectives. I believe that the present measures to control crime are going to be more and more necessary during the next fifteen years, though even more obviously inadequate - unless we immediately and vigorously begin to put in place programs that are aimed at the two objectives of which I have spoken: To nurture all new children adequately (at least during their first three years), and to shift our entire culture to one which aims at enhancing the affection amongst us. These two initiatives will not only result in a progressive reduction in crime over the next 15 years, but build a nation of citizens free from the fear of crime, and living co-operatively and affectionately with one another. By taking such bold initiatives we would also be holding out a light to other nations, and in the doing, have an impact in the world out of all proportion to our population. That is my opening statement, which I'm sure leads to a great many questions, some of which are addressed in the brief. I would be pleased to answer any questions from the members. The Chairman: Thank you very much, Dr. Barker. From reading your CV, I'm sure that your experience has led you to the beliefs you have enunciated now and you spell out in the brief. We'll be very interested to hear from you. Proceed with questioning, Mr. Blackburn. Mr. Blackburn (Brant): Dr. Barker, I welcome your opening remarks. You add that you felt your approach was achievable, so my first question is simply this: has this approach been attempted in any meaningful way in any other jurisdiction, any other country, that you're aware of? Dr. Barker: No, not that I'm aware of. In a small way, with regard to developing a social system or a society that enhances communion, enhances the affection amongst its members - to use what are now considered rather schmaltzy terms and expressions we don't use publicly or proudly very often - yes, I saw that develop in a most unusual place, a maximum security mental hospital at Penetanguishene in the 1960's, where it was possible to change the subculture of what was essentially a prison, a mental hospital prison, to a subculture that at times and in some of the programs, according to some visitors, demonstrated a level or a sense of communion amongst the patients, the inmates, that was certainly not felt to exist in the wider culture and not even in the best of churches. I believe it is possible too, if one approaches an institution or a country from the point of view of doctor to the system rather than to the individual breakdown products. If one has as one's objective to enhance the affection in society at large, I believe that's an achievable objective. The example I would give is within a single institution. I don't think there's been a country I am aware of that has set that out as an objective. Mr. Blackburn: It seems to me this kind of thing can be learned or taught in small groups, particularly with people who are recovering from some kind of illness in a hospital situation or halfway house in relation to people who have been convicted of crimes. It would also appear to me that probably the biggest obstacle in a program like this would be facing the outside world when you leave that kind of controlled environment, because unfortunately that's not the way life is; I wish it were. It seems to me that even the best graduates, so to speak, of that kind of process would find it very difficult turning the other cheek, as it were, for the rest of his or her life rather than being aggressive. I certainly like the concept, and I found it very refreshing in your opening remarks when you said or at least implied that we were attacking the crime problem at the wrong end. I think implicit in your opening statement was that it's not good enough just to get tougher on criminals, to have more behind bars for longer periods of time, etc. as crime prevention; that you have to get to the nub of the problem early on in life. What about coming back out into society? Dr. Barker: That was a problem in the programs I've mentioned. One has to be reconditioned to the notion that if you speak the truth to someone, you're liable to be labelled a sucker. If you act empathically in your business dealings, you won't be able to make a buck as easily as if you treat the other person as an object to manipulate for your own benefit. So, in effect, we had to coach patients to get back into a system which in many ways is self-and-other destructive. What then would happen in a world community is perhaps what you're saying. If Canada were to become in 15 years a country in which there were mutually affectionate, loving relationships, in which the objective of all aspects of society were to enhance the affection among us, would we be gobbled up by other aggressive nations? I'm not sure that's a reason not to do it. I think the reason to attempt to achieve what I'm saying might well strike a chord in many other nations. I think those objectives strike a chord in many individuals within the system we have, which is pretty aggressive and disheartening, and not rewarding of those values. The problem, and the problem within the microcosm of a mental hospital, which I was referring to, is that if individuals are treated abusively - and much of child rearing is abusive, at least emotionally - the capacity to respond, the capacity to understand, the capacity to believe, the capacity to know what empathy, what trust, and what affection are all about is damaged. So part and parcel of such a two-pronged program is to alter the system to reward affection among us. And the other must be to begin to create new human beings who are in sync with that, who want to hear that message, and who can hear that message. There were individual patients in the example we've come to talk about who were raised in an incredibly violent and abusive early environment, who swung over to the social system of communion, but upon departure reverted to what was second nature to them. So if we don't do it right in those earliest years - and I put that figure at three years; other people put it at two or five - when affection and the capacity to respond to affection are learned, then a vigorous system of trying later on to stamp on social values that are crime-free is doomed. You have to have people well nurtured as infants and toddlers if they are to be able to respond to affection as adults. If you want to create a psychopath, simply move a newborn through a dozen different foster homes in the first three years, and then you'll produce a child with a deficient capacity for empathy, for trust and affection. If you meet the child's emotional needs in a sensitive way during those first three years, you get the opposite of a psychopath. You get a person who is receptive of those qualities, if in fact those qualities are being echoed, broadcast, and reinforced in society. Mr. Blackburn: So what you're saying, I gather, is that psychopaths are not born, they're made. Dr. Barker: There's a lot of debate about whether psychopathy has a genetic predisposition, whether psychopathy is a subtle form of anoxia of certain parts of the brain due to difficult childbirth. The bulk of the literature, I believe, supports the view that it is a failure of attachment, perhaps from six to eighteen months, and has to do with early nurturing. I would repeat that a recipe for a psychopath is to move an infant through a dozen foster homes in the first three years. All our Children's Aid Societies know that, and the thrust of early care is to avoid those kinds of separations. Mr. Blackburn: When you read the CV's, if I can use that expression, of most of our violent offenders, you'll find that they really had no family love at all. There was just no family there for them. Most of them were on the street by the time they were seven, or eight, or ten. There was no love in those early years. In fact, in retrospect, because of lack of parental love, we were virtually creating a criminal. Does it have to be parental love? Does it have to be the mother? Dr. Barker: I don't think so. But it's most likely to happen that way. I've spent a good part of my life examining in particular adolescent killers charged with murder or rape. It's not surprising to have such people come out of families who on the surface look good. Although many of them come from obviously violent family backgrounds, if you look with a microscope or look with emotional sensitivity at the quality of nurturing in some of what are on the surface respectable and successful families, one finds the explanation for some surprising and violent crimes later on. So one must look at more than the external appearance of a family that is successful in our social system, where success is defined as making a lot of money. Mr. Blackburn: "The traditional family" is an expression used almost wistfully by some people these days. Is the breakdown of what I guess we'd call traditional family values, where you have a loving mother and a loving father, and the father goes to work and the mother remains at home to raise the children from day one, not in a wealthy environment but in a reasonably comfortable environment - in other words, not poverty-stricken with all the negatives that connotes...? In your professional opinion, is that kind of family background more likely to produce the kind of person you are talking about, who can live co-operatively and affectionately in life with his or her friends and peers than the kids who are born into a single-parent family where the mother is either home all day on mother's allowance or she is out working and the child is either more or less left on its own or goes to some kind of daycare facility or something like that? That might be a pretty difficult question to answer; I don't know. It's certainly a current topic around here. Dr. Barker: Apart from looking at the two models of child care that you imply, I think we need to look at the repercussions of a patriarchal society in which arbitrary male dominance is still a factor, which penalizes half of the population, and the subtle and not-too-subtle reverberations of that for women and for children and for men. One of the more optimistic things that is occurring in our day is the straightforward attempt to redress the more sinister aspects of the unequal male-dominated social system that has been evident for so many generations. I don't think you can disentangle the child care-family issue from that issue. The second issue that undermines the appropriate nurturing of infants and toddlers is our addiction to consumption, to consumerism, and the underlying values of envy and selfishness and greed that consumerism requires and reinforces. In the first instance, if one were to create a social system in which men and women were equal, then it might be possible to begin to look at children as equals as well. Then children could be nurtured appropriately. However, we have a system that doesn't do that at all well for women. That needs to be addressed. We also have a system that does not reward or attempt to enhance the affection amongst us, whether it's the affection between men and women and children, or between co-workers in a factory. There is an absence of any echoing of those values in our social system, in sharp contrast to the values of buy, buy, buy, purchase in order to feel good. There is an absence of anywhere near the volume with which we are told, and by which we come to define ourselves, by the values of consumerism. So in regard to the debate about the traditional family, I think one can screw up kids in a traditional family just as easily as you can in a kind of patchy daycare system, where kids are looked after by less powerful, in a sense, less well paid people with changing caregivers and so on. I think the underlying issues are the ones we need to address rather than try to polarize around the nuclear family. The traditional nuclear family was unequal and could not hope, I think, to produce the kind of children we need to produce, because of the inequities between males and females in those families. In a new family model, in which males' and females' relationships were on a level playing field, then we could add the child on the level playing field, then the child's needs could be met appropriately, whether it's mother, father and 2.5 children in a household or not. Mr. Blackburn: Is this my last question? The Chairman: As many as you want, sir. Mr. Blackburn: Oh, thank you very much. I might as well send out for sandwiches maybe and coffee. How do we get those children who are from a very early age, the first three years, developing into psychopaths? How do we get them as a society, as a government; how do we get there to try to get them turned around? We have laws on privacy, and we have custom and tradition with respect to the home and the family, all sanctified either in law or in religion or in social customs. If a young woman has a child and wishes to raise that child in the best way she knows how, and yet we know it's the wrong way ... or in a case of a child going from one foster home to another, as you were saying, how do we get there? Obviously this is such an important topic. We see these psychopaths and criminals developing from day one, and yet what can we do about it? Dr. Barker: ...What is required is an approach that is global, that is society-wide and clear in its objectives, rather than going for the high-risk people, trying to pick off the next mass murderer in grade five and treat him, or taking the high-risk babies we identify in the delivery room and pouring in the services there. The model is different to say that every child in Canada who is born one year from now is going to have a better shake. Geared for those first three years, those programs and the templates for those programs exist. The vision to do it nationally, rather than for the high-risk people is not there. As for the other half of it, if you can create a culture that nurtures its children adequately in the first three years, and a culture that mirrors those positive images in the adult world ... if you set them simply as objectives, if you put ten people in a room and say we want to accomplish this in fifteen years ... I believe you can achieve it. There is no lobby for kids who are going to be born a year from now. In my observation as a psychiatrist who's been interested in this field for the last 10 years, it is not going to be the Children's Aid Societies, it's not going to be the Canadian Psychiatric Association, that will say that; it's going to be the crime prevention people, because of their despair of stopping crime with a policeman with a sten gun on every street corner or in every school. They're going to have to keep looking back further and further and further in childhood, and they're likely going to have to look globally at the culture to alter the march we're on, which is an increasing crime rate. Mr. Blackburn: I gather from what you've said that this would not be an expensive program and it would not be a program that requires a veritable army of specialists and professionals. Dr. Barker: I don't believe so. I think there is an expertise in enhancing the status of affection amongst us, of mutually satisfying, affectionate relationships. That expertise is there, and the Coca-Cola Company and Molson's Breweries know how to use it very effectively. The Mormon Church knew how to use it. Some of you may remember some of their very effective 30-second spot announcements. They didn't make you feel bad about the way you were dealing with your children, but they gave you just that little nudge that perhaps you shouldn't let your kids go to the dogs. They were brilliantly done. The expertise is there to begin to nudge us all towards a social system that is kindlier and more mutually responsive than the one we have now. Mr. Blackburn: When I was a kid, I remember there was a saying, give me a boy until he's seven. What you are saying, is give me a child until he or she is three. Dr. Barker: And a culture that then can resonate with that child's capacity for love and trust and affection. Mr. Blackburn: We could go on all day. It's a very fascinating subject. The Chairman: I think your final point gets to the crux of the situation. The commitment may be there; we may make a commitment to say three years from now we will have this. But I'm sorry, I still do not get the idea you have of this army of people to go out and do the nurturing. You have to have ... Is it the public health system that is, we hope, going to help parents understand? Dr. Barker: There are models for parenting education programs running from kindergarten to grade 8 and already operating in some systems. Clearly that would be part of it. So every kid, by the time he's biologically able to conceive children, has a clear notion of what's involved with the nurturing of a child. There are things that can be put into place with the tax system to enhance the nurturing. I'm not looking for specialists or experts. I don't think that's the way out. Every parent wants to do the best they can for their child. You don't have a parent having a child saying, I want to raise a mass-killer. What we need to do is to reward and enable parents to nurturing their children. The biggest impediments to it all, apart from adopting that vision politically as a nation, are the "introjects" -- the ghosts of our childhood. That's really where we all stumble. And someone here will say, I'm sure, if I show a pamphlet about the dangers of spanking a child, well, I'm successful and I was beaten, and that's the reason. The catch is that we repeat with our children what was done to us. The mechanism is one of idealizing the aggressor and saying, because I was beaten, I'm okay, so I'll do the same to my child; and in subtler forms than a physical beating. I think that's what underlies a lot of the objection to nurturing babies. We ourselves were not nurtured. We're tough. You have to be tough to survive in a tough world.That is a very real impediment to the implementation of what I am talking about. But I think that gets worked out intergenerationally. As one generation of parents is able to nurture their children better, those children- The Chairman: Become better nurturers. Dr. Barker: -become better nurturers themselves. We have to start at a society-wide level, not with an army of experts to nurture parents but plain, ordinary people who have babies and want to do the best for them, which is what all of them want to do. Even a 16-year old who gets pregnant doesn't say she wants to have a bad kid. The Chairman: No, I am sure everyone who is going to have a child, be it a 16-year old or whatever, male or female, wants to do what's right. They don't know how. They should be taught parenting skills and so on. In your experience, what is it that goes wrong between the time when they want to do what is best for the child and getting on to do it? Is it economic difficulties that cause problems, or what is the underlying problem? Dr. Barker: The underlying problems, I think, are the two problems I mentioned before, the status of women and a world that preaches that making a buck is where it is at, not nurturing your baby. Those things, I think, are modifiable. I don't take those as givens; I think the inequalities to women are changing. I have yet to hear a voice that talks about the true cost to your kids of working to get your Mercedes. But there are people saying that now, and that is not an impossible message to begin to convey, and it is not going to put the car companies out of business to begin to say that. What I would say is that if we can get away from the strategy of targeting the high-risk "bad" people or the "bad" parents and shift to society-wide ways of rewarding both the nurturing of all children and the enhancement of affection amongst all people in the culture at large, we could do it. Technically, it is not impossible. There are no great impediments to it. The Chairman: Before we proceed with other questions, you mentioned the tax system. Without elaborating, because we are not economists here and so on, can you tell me what you mean by using the tax system? Dr. Barker: Some people have said that you should licence parents. I think that is a bit draconian. But it might be that there would be a tax break were you to have a Grade 8 certificate, showing you had been exposed to a certain amount of child care information before you were pregnant. That is a kind of crude example. I think statistics show that large families and closely spaced children can be hazardous. You can raise them well nurtured, but it is very much tougher. I believe a tax system that rewards quantity rather than quality nurturing is going in the wrong direction. There may be tax incentives for having children well spaced. The tax system I mentioned is one thing that might begin to convey the message. For example, there are five European countries that have banned spanking. We could start by eliminating Section 43 of the Criminal Code, but I am also suggesting there are better ways of nurturing babies, or teaching them right and wrong, than spanking them. There are a whole host of things that could be done to enhance the nurturing of children and to raise the status of parenting, which is at the bottom now. They have to go hand in hand with resolving the long-standing inequalities to women and the unending preaching of consumer values as where it is at. Mr. MacLellan: Dr. Barker, I found your comments very interesting. The problem, of course, is the subjectivity, and what we need are objective tests that we can utilize. Also, there is going to be some concern raised from families about interference and exactly how you more or less do the grading. You say that when a child gets to be eight there should be a certificate and so on, and that it's the first three years, supposedly, that are the important ones. What common denominators do you use on an objective basis that could be an influence? Also, it seems that really the first common denominator we may arrive at in our present system is the school system. Do you feel there is enough being done in the school system to spot these problems, even though they're much later than age three? Do you think an ingredient in the school system that would look for these problem children, children at risk, would pay dividends and should we be doing more? Dr. Barker: I think the notion of spotting the problems early and treating them has been the traditional approach and is still the approach, because one can measure cost efficiency more clearly to pick a high-risk group and pour in the service. I think it's a model that is flawed. It has great popularity because there's a lobby for it and it has some kind of face value. I don't think you can pick off the Clifford Olsons of the next decade in grade three. You may be able to, but many of the kids you'd pick off who show these symptoms will somehow go on and not be Clifford Olsons. So if you pull them out and pour resources into them, you're wasting resources, theoretically. The other problem with early identification of high-risk cases is that treatment doesn't always work. I've examined a kid who killed two people, and his family was in therapy before he was born. Besides all that, you can't force treatment on a family. I had a call about an 11-year old boy a week ago. I could hear him shouting in the background. "I'm not going to any damn shrink!" There are not enough resources to pour in. It's not the right model. We may have to do that. We're in that game now. We're in that game with police forces and we do have to keep that mechanism in place, until the things I'm talking about begin to reduce the crime rate. I think we have to change our vision to look at the culture at large and look at every child born, not only the high-risk kids. We have to change that vision. I don't think it gets us into a litmus test or a problem of objectivity or rating parents any more than the driver's licence system does or the problem of dealing with alcoholics. We're into those value issues in many other ways. There will always be self-interest groups and lobby groups. If you're a successful entrepreneur and want to make a video game that has people tying up girls at a stake and raping them, you can make lots of money in our culture. That's what our culture is about. The crime prevention people have a right to say - and I think the population will support them - no, we think that's related to crime; you can't do it or we'll tax the heck our of you if you put that on, or have you pay for some of our prisons if you're going to make a buck in a way that is likely not to enhance the affection among us. If that's the litmus test, I don't think you're going to get into a lot of political problems or problems among people as to what enhances the affection among us, if that were to be the catch-word. That's not my own word. Professor William Line at the University of Toronto 30 years ago was talking about that, to go into industry with that question. How do we organize this plant, this factory, this school? The model we operate on is to hire a psychiatrist to go into a school and treat the asthma attacks and treat the ulcers of the kids rather than treat the school system so that it's less stressful for the kids. I think those people who believe in pouring on the stress for the kids because it's tough world, and all of that, had a tough childhood themselves. That's the other problem, the introjects of ghosts from childhood that drive those people who say, you have to be tough with these kids, you have to throw them around in the first year or two, or they don't learn what it's really about. That's a serious problem but I don't think it's a reason you can't proceed and win with this different objective of looking at the culture as a whole rather than at the breakdown products. It's as though, in Seeley's words, we favour catabolism but oppose breakdown products. We can't keep doing that. Mr. MacLellan: Yes. One thing would be to emphasize to Children's Aid Societies that you don't transfer foster homes, you try to keep the child in a foster home. Dr. Barker: They know that. Mr. MacLellan: If they know it, why is it still happening? Dr. Barker: There are the practical problems of an overloaded system as a result of a culture that does not support nurturing of children. That's the root problem. And why doesn't it? Because we don't support women. If half the members of Parliament were women ... If women and men were on a level playing field, we would look at the nurturing of children much differently. Men have traditionally abdicated the role of child rearing, and many women, in an attempt to redress that imbalance, have followed a male script and left the children to someone else. It is their attempt to achieve, within the same system that men have developed and maintained, the increasingly valueless or negative values of a consumer-oriented society. That is what I think needs to be addressed, not tinkering and toying with the breakdown products of the system. Mr. MacLellan: So it's the philosophy of a child-nurturing system that we have to emphasize. Dr. Barker: I think parents do want to nurture their babies, but they get next to no help or encouragement to do that presently. Mr. MacLellan: We hear from many sectors that we need to spend more time on rehabilitation and counselling for young offenders, who range in age from 12 to 18 years. Is there a good deal that still can be done in counselling young offenders, or have we missed the best years? Are we getting much value for the counselling we are doing or would be doing if we followed some of these recommendations? Dr. Barker: We're fixing breakdown products while we're maintaining a system that ensures us a steady supply of new breakdown products. The system ignores what it does to produce breakdown products. That's the problem. So if we don't turn off the tap and attempt to think 15 years down the road ... Will we have as steady a stream of 15-year old disturbed kids? Will they be equally as poorly nurtured? That's the target date. What can I do for every kid in Canada a year from now, everyone who's born? What's there is the parents and the grandparents. They have a stake in it. As a culture, we can shift so those parents have a greater willingness and ability to do what they want to do already. So on the question of services -- that's the business I'm in, the treatment of disturbed adolescents - I do think it works. I would like to think that the work I'm doing with these kids is helpful. But it's a ridiculous model. OHIP and the Children's Aid Society pay me to treat individual kids who have serious problems, but to go into the schools to talk to people about parenting education - there's nothing in the OHIP fee schedule about that, but that's where it's at. I once heard about a dentist who got so distressed about seeing cavities in his patients that he ran amok in a local candy store and knocked over all the candy in his frustration. Those who can see the pathology of the system most clearly turning up in its victims seldom have the time, the energy or the political clout to indict what's wrong in the system, what's not rewarding, what ought to be rewarded. We plod on, in case after case, with big caseloads, and lead out our lives fixing the breakdown products without venturing into the more dangerous kind of political or sociological territory, which I'm saying you can no longer ignore because it will not work to continue fixing breakdown products. I repeat, I think it's the crime prevention people who are going to be first in our society to say, okay, we're going to shift the model. I don't think it's going to be the Children's Aid Societies although they would agree with you, or the child psychiatrists, although they would agree with you; it's going to be the people who worry about how many people are getting robbed and raped, and how they can't stop it. The Chairman: You mentioned that there are programs available, and there are. Most people who come home from the hospital with a new baby get a phone call from the public health nurse telling them that there are clinics to teach them parenting and so on, but the problem is that not everybody takes advantage of it. Very few do, probably. You can't force people to go, can you? Dr. Barker: You can, and the Coca-Cola Company knows how to do it. It is that the marketing people who can so skillfully get us to buy stuff that is totally useless and harmful have not been turned loose to encourage us to do the things we ought to do, know we ought to do, but never quite find the time to do it. I don't think that is a difficult problem. It's a problem of deciding that societal advertising, as I've referred to in my overview, is enormously cost effective. If during the Grey Cup or the Super Bowl you saw a 30-second ad that talked about the value of prenatal care, for example. Marketing people know how to sell ridiculous things; turn them loose on things that people in their hearts want, and they'll have us doing it. I don't think I'm naive in that. Coca-cola does not spend $100,000 on an ad as a charitable operation. It pays, it works. It can create a need or a desire in people to do what they want it to do. If you turn societal marketing people, as the Mormons have done for their own interests loose with the objectives I'm talking about to create a society that will enhance the affection amongst us and create a society that will enhance the nurturing of children, they'll do it. They know how to do it, and they'll make us want to do it. Mr. Blackburn: I'm sorry to throw this in. Is there less violence among Mormons? Is there statistical evidence? Dr. Barker: I don't know. I don't know why the Mormons created those spots. Mr. Blackburn: Is there any way of knowing whether there's less violence in Mormon families? Dr. Barker: I don't know that. Whether these spots, which I think many of you have seen, were created as an ad to become a Mormon, I don't know. What they represent to me is a level of sophistication and skill, because they touch one's heart. Clearly they've done it. There are marketing organizations that can do it. There's an organization in the United States called Kids Peace, which has produced a nation-wide campaign in relation to child abuse and has used skillful marketing people -- a goldfish sitting in an ordinary home and what the goldfish sees going on -- in a way that touches people but doesn't alarm them, make them feel guilty, make them feel angry, and gets them to write for a brochure, or phone in on a toll-free number for a brochure, 24 Steps to Prevent Child Abuse. It's a very effective campaign that was developed, I think, because they had a vision of what they wanted to do. They have employed very skilful marketing people to do the rest. I do not see why we can't set those objectives, nationally and politically. In my vision, the TV spots would end with "A message from the Solicitor General of Canada in the interest of Crime Prevention", like the warning on a package of cigarettes. The Chairman: I can't give you any statistics on the Mormons as compared to any other denomination, but I can tell you that I feel that what they have in their family home evening, where the family gets together and has discussion and does things together, is a form of nurturing that they are very good at as a group. Mr.Thacker (Lethbridge): The answer to your question is yes, but it also implies equally to other communities such as the Mennonites and the Hutterites and Chinese Canadians and Japanese Canadians. They have a far dramatically lower level of "representation" in our prisons and in the psychiatric offices of the world. Mr. Chairman, I have three quick questions. Is there a perfect society anywhere, now, or in history, that you've read about? Dr. Barker: Not that I have as a model, or a perfect economic system that supports - Mr. Thacker: This isn't defeatist in attitude, but it seems to me from my reading of history that every society of every different political persuasion, every different economic system, seems to have a percentage of people who are put under stress by that system and who crack and become "criminals" in terms of that particular society's definition of criminal. Are we tilting at windmills, and there will always be a percentage, whether it's 5% or 10% or 1%, that are going to go sour? Dr. Barker: I believe not. I think we're living in exciting times not just because of the advances, small that they are, in creating a level playing field between men and women. But another great historical event has occurred in the last several decades that is going to have an impact for the history of the world if we survive, and that is the identification of the true incidence of not just child abuse but, in particular, of sexual abuse. It has been long said that the taboos against sexual abuse are universal. What in fact is more accurate, and has been shown most clearly by Lloyd DeMause, a psychohistorian, is that incest has been universal, and still is. About 20 or 25 years ago the incidence of sexual abuse, of incest, was reported in a reputable psychiatric text as one in a million. We now know the figures are, whatever, one in 10, but enormously much more frequent. Mr. Thacker: Mr. Chairman, I just wanted to wind up quickly because we have limited time. Dr. Barker: Now we know that sexual abuse and abuse of children are very frequent. I think that's a different thing in all of history. From back 2,000 years ago when infanticide was kind of routine and accepted, we now say, don't beat your children and don't sexually abuse them, and the sexual abusers are coming out of the woodwork. That is a dynamic in history that I think will set the next generations apart from the repetitive cycle of violence. Selma Fraiberg says trauma demands repetition, and trauma in the earliest years, in particular repeated sexual trauma, demands violence later in terms of war or many other terms. So I think the answer is no, just because there have always been killers, mayhem and violence in other cultures, we don't have to accept that as a given. Mr. Thacker: It seems to me there's more hope for the future. As a result of the global problems with the environment, pollution, etc. I think young people are going to have to pull together. The existence of television has enabled young people today to see themselves as members of the earth as a whole. That should play down tribalism, which is often a source of conflict and rigorous training to keep them within the tribe. What has been the role of religion? Unfortunately, my own reading tells me that religion is one of the worst forms of tribalism and has been generally pretty detrimental to the human race as a race. The Chairman: Don't get me on that. Mr. Thacker: Am I wrong in that sort of general reading? Dr. Barker: There was an interesting article in the Humanist in Canada magazine, if any of you read that, with Christianity on trial and particularly the Pope. The accusation was that his opposition to contraception and abortion has caused overpopulation, poverty and distress. There have been articles in the same publication by a psychiatrist from McMaster University on the ways Christianity induces mental ill health. I believe I listed statements from six or seven of the major religions of the world in my brief. All the religions seem to be saying, "let's do unto others as we want done unto ourselves". The church people on the one hand advocate love, trust and empathy. On the other hand, it's the old saying: the closer you are to the church, the farther from God. That's a big issue and kind of a polarizing one. I don't think you'll get opposition from church people if you set up a crime prevention department with the goal of having a society where everything enhances the affection among us. I don't think you'd have churches picketing you to shut it down. I don't think, at root, their message is opposed to enhancing the amount of affection in society. There are some churches that advocate corporal punishment of children. I suspect that will soon be against the law in Canada. Mr. Thacker: My last question relates to the Young Offenders Act. It's just a practical question, accepting the world as it is today. I'm of the view the public damage to public morale and the counter-reaction that's building out there against crime is every much aggravated by the fact that the maximum age for the Young Offenders Act is 18. If that were reduced to age 16, do you think it would in some way - perceptually at least - make the public feel more secure? People who are 16 and 17 are really adults. They're into their crime patterns and we're treating them the same as 12-year olds. That's just not washing with the public, and I think we have to make some changes. I would like your views as to what the effect would be if the age were reduced to 16. Dr. Barker: The police will tell you, and I will tell you, I've known 13 and 14 year olds who were as sinister and rooted in lives of crime as any 30-year old. They're tough and they know the rules. It's clear some teenagers with that orientation do their dirtiest, hoping at the maximum they'll get a reduced penalty. On the other hand, there are people below the age of 18 headed for a life of crime who are probably salvageable in a way they wouldn't be at the age of 30. I'm a great believer in creating a system where the public at large feels justice is being done. I think they don't feel that over the issue you're talking about with the young offenders. I think that if you set your objective to enhance the affection among the people in Canada and to nurture children, you may need some political saw-offs to make people feel that justice is being done in those kinds of situations, but only if you know you're really working at the root cause and let people know that you are, that there is going to have to be a 15-year pause here where you're going to need perhaps more correctional system, more police officers with more fire power. We're going to try to protect you from getting raped and robbed with tougher laws. We know that is not the solution; we are now working on the solution, which is to make Canada a country of loving and mutually accepting and co-operative human beings. That's where it's at, people. In the meantime we'll do what we can with the losing game of trying to do damage control with the people who are in the system and coming down the pipeline who are now age three, four, five, six and seven and whom we're going to have to deal with for the next fifteen years. The Chairman: You mentioned 15 years. That is the time frame you see. Dr. Barker: I would say that if what I'm talking about doesn't work, if you don't see clear evidence of it in 15 years, there should be a sunset clause on the whole thing. And I don't know where you go then. May you just go to more fire power, but I think you would see changes, you would aim for changes. You would aim that things be different for every child born a year from now in Canada. You would start up now and you would aim there, but you're really looking for a different culture 15 years from now so that the people who are coming on stream are going to be receptive to that culture and, for the criminals then aged 20 and 25 and 30, you'll have enough manpower to deal with what's in place. Mrs. Jacques (Mercier): Dr. Barker, I wish to congratulate you for a most interesting overview of the question and to thank you for sharing with us your rich experience. You are right to say that we are dealing with a social phenomenon. People often say: Before having another child, we will buy a car, or a house and so on. The recent past has seen a tremendous rise of materialistic values. Equity in the workplace has brought about a tremendous change to our traditional values. Women used to stay at home to raise children. Today, we often see both parents working. In a single parent family, the woman will not only have to raise the children but also hold down a job. You were saying that very often the spouse pays no support.What do you do in a situation like that? I know we have to take steps to change this, but it is extremely difficult to restore, in our society, those basic values of love, affection and trust in others. Dr. Barker: I don't believe there's been any attempt with the energy and ability of every large corporation that advertises on TV to market those values that all of us in our quieter moments know are the real values. I think that should be done. I don't think it's an impossible task at all to get us all wanting to be the best we can for each other, rather than drink more Coca-Cola than Pepsi. A simple example, perhaps, is that when I walk out of the local shopping mall I see an ad --a beautiful picture of an eight-or-nine year old girl on a poster and the caption reads, "Now, tell her again why it's okay that Daddy doesn't pay her support". I don't know how many fathers who are not paying child support walk by that poster, but to me that conveys a very powerful message, even to fathers who are perhaps callous and indifferent. That brings us to the other part of the problem, involving the callousness and indifference, the lack of empathy and lack of trust. I don't think you can put trust into kids who have not had the best nurturing in the earliest years. So the approach has to be a two-pronged attack; one, to get the best care in place during those early years; and two, to have a culture that is rewarding and that involves what's best for all of us to be doing. It is a matter of clearly setting those factors as objectives. I can imagine a group of five or six people who are clearly dedicated to those two visions. I can imagine that this group would list a hundred or two hundred ways of beginning to shift the culture in that direction, which would address the issue of both parents needing to work in one of the richest countries of the world, and the issue of why there are so many single-parent families. Again and again, I come back to the issues of addressing the inequities of a patriarchal society and of consumption as our religion. I see that approach as being in sharp contrast to wondering if we need more social workers and psychiatrists picking up kids in grade 3 to treat them. Mrs. Jacques: Here's an example. In my riding, people have created something called Les Relevailles. This agency takes care of children up to three years old. It also takes care of mothers or parents who are experiencing difficulties. I'm proud of this organization because for several years now, I have funded it through the job development programs. Young mothers often feel discouraged, not knowing what to do with their baby, losing all patience. It's often in cases such as these that the child gets beaten. Well, that organization helps young mothers who are really feeling down. Going on to something else, however, I would like to bring up the issue of violence and television. What do you think of that? I personally am appalled. Toys too sometimes encourage violence. It's a social phenomenon. Ninja turtles and all those other things you see on television encourage violence in young children. I would just like to comment, Mr. Chairman. I met a school principal who told me that drugs in school, were the scourge of our youth. In my riding, there is a high school where more than 35% of the students take drugs. The principal said he'd found a wallet belonging to a ten-year old girl. Well that wallet not only had the girl's ID, but condoms as well! Can you imagine! The school principal phoned the girl's mother and said: We are calling you because your daughter lost her wallet. We found it and it contains condoms. Her mother answered: I'd rather have her use condoms than get pregnant. She accepted the fact that her ten-year old daughter was having sexual relations with young boys. I find that frightening. It's a social phenomenon. That's what people are doing, it seems. Can you imagine! Dr. Barker: I can imagine that if you were to establish a group whose task was to see that every child was well nurtured, they would be looking at a time even earlier than your group of zero to three. For example, there's a program in Detroit that reaches out to pregnant mothers, to begin helping there. Clearly, the earlier the better, and I think the statistics are there of the cost effectiveness of that. However, I'm arguing for targeting not certain high-risk people but the culture at large. If you had a group to sit down to ask how we can create a Canada that shines a light on the world insofar as its citizens aim to enhance the affection amongst each other, then what would that group be saying as the World Wrestling Federation presents its programs, and could one not ask the dvertisers that support those programs - and I'm sure there are more violent ones that are terribly popular -- what their program is doing to enhance the affection amongst us? That is the question that should be asked of those programs, and it should be asked by the people who are worrying about crime prevention. You will, though, run into the problem of social science research from vested interests. That's inherent in your attempts to stop tobacco. Very well-respected scientists on each side of the question will give you opposing results, and that's particularly true where a lot of money is at stake, as there is in violence in entertainment. You will simply get study after study after study that will befuddle you so that you won't do what seems to be common sense. When I studied social psychology in graduate school, just one year, 30 years ago, the professor said that there is confusion between physical and social sciences. If we lost all our knowledge of the physical sciences, then we would be back to the cave days tomorrow. If we lost all knowledge we had from social sciences, then you wouldn't notice one thing different. I don't know if that's true or not, but it does put a kind of perspective on social science, as Seeley has said, as being perhaps one notch better than propaganda. Social science is respectable and so on, but one must understand that social scientists can, with great sincerity and rigorous techniques, produce opposing results, given their own personal biases or who they're working for. So you have to be clear in what you're trying to achieve, and if it's clear you're trying to achieve a Canada in which the things going on in Canada serve to enhance the affection amongst us, then you ask some pretty blunt questions about violence in the media. There is a more sinister aspect of our attraction to the violence. I think our attraction to it is a mirror of the violence that was done to us as children, which is repressed and forgotten. The media aren't creating that stuff in a vacuum and the advertisers are not paying for those programs because there's somehow no interest in them. I think the interest in the violence that is so much a part of our culture reflects how far we have to go in the sensitive nurturing of the emotional needs of very young children. On the war on drugs, clearly we have again an inadequate perception of the demand, of the amount of pain in Canadians, in human beings, who require to anaesthetize themselves with all the legitimate drugs that we as doctors prescribe, all the alcohol, and all the illicit drugs. What is it? Why is it that as one of the wealthiest countries of the world, we have a social system that creates individuals who, at the ages of 10 and 11, want to be stoned rather than unstoned? What is the pain they're suffering that requires so much Valium and so much alcohol? That's the question. If we think we're all right, we aren't, and it isn't just the more obvious violence or crime in our society. It's much more subtle and much more pervasive, and that's why I believe you have to set a much higher objective -- to facilitate the capacity of all infants and toddlers to develop the capacity to trust and the capacity for affection because you can't put them in later with treatment. About the cost-effectiveness of that in drug enforcement, drug use, psychosomatic illness, as well as crime, there's no doubt in my mind. As I've said many times, that's the vision the crime prevention people ought to present and would clearly have a mandate for, I believe, from every citizen in the country who has a stake in not being raped or robbed. The Chairman: Thank you very much, Dr. Barker. I know you'll continue working with your Society to do what's best for children.