Carole-Marie Allard

[Youth Criminal Justice Act, February 4th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, the opposition does not want to hear the truth. We cannot deprive young people of their freedom and send them to a youth detention centre if they are not a threat to themselves and to society.

Youth detention centres are not the ultimate solution for youth. These centres should not take the place of the parents and the family. We should not take away all of society's responsibilities. In the last year, many articles have exposed the situation that prevails in many youth centres in Quebec.

It is therefore very important that the bill we are debating today deals with the excessive referral of youths to the courts. A lot of this is based on the premise that we do not help youths by hauling them into juvenile court if they are not a threat to themselves and to society and if there is no major offence.

As for the young offenders and the criminal justice system, the new bill contains five main principles.

There is the age at which a young offender is liable to an adult sentence. The new act will not change anything. It is set at 14 years of age. What is said is that provinces will have the power to keep the age limit at 14. Quebec will be allowed to use this provision to maintain the limit at 14 years of age.

There is also the place where the youths will serve their sentence. The new act provides that the youths will serve their sentence in a correctional facility for youth.

As for the court, youths will not appear before the adult courts anymore. Everything will be done before the juvenile court.

Let us talk about the frequency of detention. There are two kinds of offences: minor offences and major offences. Once again, why should we send a youth before the juvenile court for a minor offence?

Currently, if a police officer stops a young person who has just committed an offence, he has no choice. He is required to report the offence to a crown attorney who will decide on whether or not to maintain the charge. What this bill proposes is establishing a very clear distinction between minor offences and young people who are not dangerous, and serious crimes which require that the youth who commit them be rehabilitated. We also need to enhance the protection of society.

When it comes to minor offences, we would like to divert them from the courts. This means that we will allow the police and community organizations to take care of these young people instead of sending them to youth court. The police and other stakeholders will have more flexibility to apply what are known as extrajudicial measures, which have been used in Quebec for many years. These measures are not specified in the Young Offenders Act, but are contained in the new bill.

These extrajudicial measures exist in Laval and throughout Quebec and may need to be applied on a more regular basis throughout Canada. This is a bill that will help young people because it will keep them out of the courts.

For example, when I was touring the Centre jeunesse de Laval, I was able to observe a whole series of measures that are currently being applied. These measures are being applied and they will continue to be applied with Bill C-7.

For example, Bill C-7 will create community youth justice committees. Citizens from the community will sit on these justice committees. They will be able to advise community organizations with respect to the treatment of young people who have committed petty crimes.

I defy the Bloc Quebecois opposition members to prove me wrong. The wording of the bill is very clear. The objective of the new system is to ensure that custody and detention will only be used for repeat offenders or for those who commit serious or violent crimes.

Youth having been kept in custody or in a youth detention centre, even those having committed designated crimes and offences, will be subject to a mandatory supervisory period in the community. This is contained in the new bill. This is not found in the Young Offenders Act.

Some improvements are necessary in Quebec. This is a bill that modernizes the system and takes into account the convention on the rights of the child. It seeks to avoid having young people find themselves before the youth court too often, because then the consequences of their acts come too late.

I met police officers in Laval.

[Youth Criminal Justice Act, February 4th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak today to a bill that I consider very important. Since my election I have been sitting on the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights and have had the opportunity to thoroughly examine what is proposed in Bill C-7.

Today I wonder if I live on another planet. I hear my colleague from the Bloc and my colleague from the New Democratic Party, who do not seem to understand at all the fundamental aspects of this bill.

I congratulate my colleague, the Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada, for his recent speeches on this issue and also the former minister of justice for the work she has done. What she proposed is a modern bill that is in keeping with international conventions signed by Canada throughout the world, particularly concerning the protection of the rights of children.

The bill goes back some years. In 1985 the present Young Offenders Act, which applies to young people who commit crimes in Canada, was passed.

In 1997 there was a proposal that the youth justice system be changed and a bill was introduced, Bill C-68, which was subsequently amended by Bill C-3.

In September 2000, more than 160 amendments were moved with respect to the bill, and after my election, when I became a member of the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights, I had before me Bill C-7, a modernized piece of legislation that satisfied all the criticisms.

We must not delude ourselves; within our Liberal delegation there are some members who are concerned about the future of Canada's young people. They have proposed amendments, There have been numerous discussions to improve the system proposed for our young offenders.

Today, therefore, I am very pleased and proud to see that this government is proposing a rehabilitation based system for young offenders. Those who claim otherwise have, unfortunately, not read the bill.

I have had the opportunity to meet with the directors of the youth centre in my riding of Laval East, the Centre Jeunesse de Laval, and I can tell hon. members that the Bloc Quebecois opposition is greatly exaggerating when it states that all Quebec stakeholders are opposed to the bill.

As a government, we cannot of course please all the pressure groups. We have to make decisions. Had the bill been based on the proposals of the Quebec bar association, we would be accused of playing along with the lawyers and faulted for that. In this bill, the government chose from among the proposals that came from all sides.

I can only regret the opportunism of some members in the opposition, in the Bloc Quebecois, who have been very skilled at voicing criticisms connected with the existence of a so-called Quebec coalition.

As far as that so-called coalition is concerned, I have had the opportunity to look into just how serious a list this is. I can state in this House—

[The Budget, January 29th, 2002]

Madam Speaker, I think that our friends across the way are not making any sense. They are criticizing the infrastructure program. They are criticizing a vision for the future, the infrastructure program, for which $2 billion has been earmarked.

Where should these $2 billion have gone? They should talk to the mayors of cities in Quebec, who will tell them how badly they need it.

[The Budget, January 29th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, once again, we see how out of the picture the members opposite are.

If they were to listen to what the people of Quebec were saying, what would they hear? They would hear mayors saying that they need federal government funding, that they need the Canadian infrastructure foundation. I simply cannot understand the member's question. I think that he has it all wrong. This shows, once again, that opposition members are not listening very hard to Quebecers.

[The Budget, January 29th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, it is with pleasure that I rise to speak in support of the Minister of Finance's November 2001 budget.

I particularly wish to congratulate him because, once again, he is offering Canadians a window of opportunity for the future and a balanced approach.

Without detracting from the progress made to date and the prospects for the future, the 2001 budget brings crucial aid at a critical time. I for one particularly wish to congratulate him on his openness to the large cities of this country.

My riding of Laval East is located on Île Jésus. It is part of Laval, which, before the amalgamation of greater Montreal, was the second largest city in Quebec.

Looking at the broader picture, Laval is now part of greater Montrea, and greater Montreal must be competitive internationally.

Yesterday I listened to opposition members telling us that the Government of Canada should leave the cities to the mercy of the provinces, with only property taxes for revenue.

This strikes me as lacking foresight and something to be deplored. Fortunately, we in government are thinking on behalf of the cities. It is a Canadian reality that 80% of our population is urban. Undeniably, life in the big city holds a certain attraction.

Not surprisingly, this influx of people to the cities means that they are having to deal with some very serious problems: transportation, housing, homelessness.

Every day, our major cities, such as those in my riding of Lava East and those in your riding of Ahuntsic, Madam Speaker, need to be on the alert.

Companies in the major centres need to offer an environment that encourages innovation. They have a duty to be constantly improving their productivity in order to improve their competitive edge.

Our researchers need an environment that stimulates their creativity. Our entrepreneurs need opportunities to be entrepreneurs. Our finance minister has realized that this requires investment in research. The research of today is what produces the jobs of tomorrow.

Our government is making a substantial investment to ensure that Canada is on the leading edge of knowledge, and to ensure that research outcomes become a source of employment and growth for Canada, not just a source of ideas for others.

Providing assistance to the universities, collaborating with the academic world, funding basic research, all these are the way of the future.

I am a member of the Liberal task force on urban affairs, and I can say that our cities, our major centres, have a multitude of needs and face a multitude of challenges. If our government does not lend an attentive ear, they are in danger of running in to serious trouble.

I am therefore proud to see that this government is including in its investments the allocation of a minimum $2 billion for a new strategic infrastructure foundation, to finance major projects across Canada that exceed the capacity of existing programs.

As the member for Laval East, I cannot but applaud this, for how else could greater Montreal remain competitive, except with a decent highway system?

There are some examples. Is it normal for the people in my riding to still not have a bridge in the east of the island to get to their jobs in Montreal? Is it normal for the people in my riding to have to spend hours on the road to get to work? Is it normal for there to be no bypass in the northern part of the island? Is it normal for the western end of highway 440 not to be finished? Is it normal for the original plan for the work on highway 13 to still not be implemented?

We are citizens who are tired of being confronted with all these problems on a daily basis. We, the residents of greater Montreal, are pleased with the openness of our government, which will allow for the construction of highway 30. At last, trucks and cars that come from Toronto will be able to bypass Montreal and go directly to the United States or to Quebec City without clogging up traffic on Montreal Island.

With this infrastructure foundation the government is saying “Let us set aside this money; let us use it to help our cities; let us set it aside and then we will see”. The real question is, what are the chances of seeing our cities truly play their role if we leave them at the mercy of the provincial governments?

Municipal authorities in major cities everywhere told us that they needed funding. They all said the same thing, whether it was in Vancouver, Calgary, Toronto, Montreal or Halifax. The cities are all urging us to help them.

It is somewhat sad to hear the opposition criticize the new infrastructure foundation, considering that the federal government sees it as the only means that will allow cities to be confident about the future.

I say to the members of this House, let us stop engaging in demagoguery and let us realize that this government knows how to manage and how to listen to Canadians. After the events of September 11, we showed how effective we were in our response. Our government invested $2.2 billion to strengthen security for Canadians. We reviewed our legislation in record time.

I know the work that was done by the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights—I sit on that committee—to tighten the noose around terrorists. Today, Canadians are safer, again because this government took its responsibilities.

The nice thing is that all these investments were made while preserving our country's fiscal balance. We maintained the tax cuts that had been announced for all Canadians. Indeed, $100 billion in tax cut will be maintained, because the Minister of Finance felt it was important to give some hope to Canadians by lowering taxes.

While the opposition meets with Mexican leaders to discuss globalization and monetary union, Liberal members are consulting with leaders in our major cities to try to find solutions to the plight of the homeless, to the housing issue and to the transportation problem. Given that attitude, it is no wonder that the Liberals were elected for a third consecutive term.

[Committees of the House, December 13th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, opposition members are condemning the government's response to the needs of Canada's major urban centres and the allocation of $600 million to build necessary infrastructures.

As a member of the special committee on urban affairs, I can say that it is large cities that asked the government to put more money into infrastructures.

Could the hon. member explain the advantages of creating a $2 billion infrastructure foundation, as announced by the Minister of Finance?

[Committees of the House, December 13th, 2001]

Madam Speaker, I cannot help but rise in connection with the statement made by my colleague for Drummond, who is probably unaware of the demands being made by the municipalities concerning additional help with infrastructure.

Today I cannot understand how she can fault our desire to help municipalities upgrade their infrastructure. I also do not understand how she can fault an additional $600 million for the infrastructure program, specifically to help the provinces, including Quebec where we both come from, to equip themselves with highway infrastructure that meets the public's expectations.

Nor can I understand her criticism of the $2 billion for a new foundation that will make it possible to find out what all provinces require and to finally come up with the necessary infrastructure to help Canadian businesses and to help Canadians move around the country more readily.

I would like to ask my hon. colleague whether she is aware that the municipalities of Quebec have been demanding more assistance for infrastructure?

[Human Rights, December 10th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, today, we celebrate the anniversary of the UN General Assembly's adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948. This document sets out the responsibilities and fundamental rights of all humanity, vital to human existence and co-existence.

Human rights underlie the values held by Canadians. The rights to freedom, life, liberty and security of person support and protect the values we hold dear, such as inclusion, justice, security, peace, innovation and growth.

Respect for human rights is one of Canadians' most important values and so it should be. It is a vital part of our social fabric.

This fabric was sorely tested on September 11, but I am pleased to say that it held, which shows clearly that our efforts in the past have made it strong. However, if we lose a thread or drop a stitch, the whole fabric will weaken--

[Youth Strategy Initiative, November 29th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, I congratulate the Secretary of State for the Economic Development Agency of Canada for the regions of Quebec, the hon. member for Outremont, for the assistance he is providing young people from all regions of Canada.

I learned this weekend that young people have access to strategic information, consultant services, loans and other key stakeholders in the export sector, through a program that has a proven track record, the Youth Strategy initiative. This program is implemented in co-operation with Community Futures Development Corporations.

For the year 2001 alone, the Youth Strategy initiative provided funding to 1,516 entrepreneurs, helped create or maintain 4,580 jobs and generated $102 million in investments. These are concrete results.

The issue of young people leaving rural areas is of great concern to the government. This past weekend, Laval hosted the 12th convention of the Regroupement des jeunes gens d'affaires du Québec. This event was organized by Laval's Jeune chambre de commerce et d'industrie. This issue was on the agenda.

Congratulations to our young entrepreneurs.

[Amateur Sport, November 28th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, will the Secretary of State for Amateur Sport please tell the House what action the Government of Canada has taken to help promote women in sport?