Warren Allmand

[High-Speed Train, May 24th, 1994]

I will second that.

A motion to adjourn the House under Standing Order 38 deemed to have been moved.

[Supply, May 12th, 1994]

I appreciate it.

[Supply, May 12th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to answer the questions of the hon. member. First of all, the proposal he is putting before the House today is not mild. It is harsh and ineffective. He is including 10 and 11-year old children under the Young Offenders Act who should be dealt with because they are below the age of puberty under child protection acts and other legislation under provincial jurisdiction.

We are against it because it is a harsh piece of legislation and it will be ineffective and it will not solve the problems he is referring to.

Second, with respect to the quote attributed to Mr. Goyer, the Solicitor General on October 7, 1971, all I can tell him is that I was appointed Solicitor General in 1972 and I took the completely opposite point of view. If he wants quotes I can give him many quotes in which I said over and over again that our principal goal and our priority is protection of the public in everything we do in the Solicitor General's department. That was the policy from 1972 right on. I can put on record if he wants-not today but any day he wants-speeches made in this House, legislation, speeches outside the House which are totally contrary to the quote attributed to Mr. Goyer. I do not know whether that quote is complete or not. Let us forget about the quotes of Mr. Goyer. I can give him quotes from myself, Mr. Fox and Mr. Blais, many Solicitors General over the years who have not supported that simple quote that was cited in the House several times.

The members of the Reform Party talk about bringing a new approach to Parliament and taking a more honest and fair approach with respect to things. Yet today the hon. member has accused me of saying that 15 years should be the maximum for criminals of all kinds. I never at any time said that and I would never support such a proposal, never. However, I see there is a letter campaign going around Parliament to all members which accuses me of saying murderers should be released automatically after 15 years. It is completely false.

What I said was that for first degree murder the parole eligibility date should be 15 years and we should do away with article 745 which gives the possibility of release after 15 years and that for second degree murder it should be 10 years. There is quite a difference from what the hon. member said and what that letter says. He should correct that. He should apologize for suggesting that I said there should be automatic release or release for all prisoners no matter what their crime after 15 years. He is wrong.

When we had parole eligibility at 10 years less than 50 per cent got released on that date. If he looks at the statistics, parole eligibility does not mean that you are released automatically. As

a matter of fact you have to prove that you are rehabilitated and no longer a danger to the public. That is not easy to do.

The purpose of parole eligibility is to ensure that those who are really rehabilitated and are not a danger to society can go back into society, pay their own way, take care of their families and not be taken care of by the state.

Let us make sure that when you cite me or you quote me that you quote me correctly. I do not mind your disagreeing with me on what I really say, but do not distort what I have said.

[Supply, May 12th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, when I read this Reform Party motion last night, I could not believe my eyes. Here we have a party, the Reform Party, which for several weeks has been standing up in this House proposing prompt and comprehensive action to deal with youth crime. As a matter of fact today the two previous speakers for the Reform Party said we must have prompt action now to deal with youth crime.

What did we get? The Reform Party had an opportunity. It had an opposition day and it could put its specific proposals to the House, but all we get is a simplistic proposal to change the age. That is going to deal with youth crime? That is the kind of prompt, comprehensive action it wants to deal with youth crime, one simplistic proposal to change the age? It is true that in his speech the member for New Westminster-Burnaby referred to other matters which should be changed, but why are they not in this votable motion, if the Reform Party thinks we need action now?

Perhaps the reason we are getting this simple one line proposal is that the Reform Party is not really sure what should be done about youth crime. Maybe it is because it has no real commitment to any other proposal but this one simple change.

Perhaps it is because the Reform Party really does not know what should be done about youth crime that we are getting such a simple one proposal motion. Maybe this one point resolution is a sign that Reform members are beginning to realize this matter is more complex than they originally thought. Maybe they are beginning to realize there is no simplistic solution that we can simply take off the shelf and youth crime will go away.

The tough hard line approach to criminal justice has been tried in some of the United States. Florida, Georgia, Texas and Louisiana have the tough hard line approach proposed by the Reform Party and what are the results?

Florida has 9 murders per 100,000 population; Georgia has 11 murders per 100,000 population; Texas has 12.7 murders per 100,000 population; and Louisiana has 17.4 murders per 100,000 population. In Canada, where we have a more humane, rehabilitative and comprehensive approach to deal with crime, we have 2.5 murders per 100,000. And the Reform Party wants to move in the direction of Louisiana, Florida, Texas, Georgia, and other states. I hear that from Reformers every day in the House.

We in the Liberal Party have said that some amendments are required to the Young Offenders Act and we are going to introduce them. The Minister of Justice said he is going to introduce them within a couple of weeks. But we have also said that this is not the comprehensive solution to youth crime. Merely changing a few words in the Young Offenders Act is not going to stop youth crime.

It misleads the public. I believe certain members of the Reform Party are sincere, but they are really misleading the public when they say they want prompt action now, and they give us a one line proposal to simply change the age in the Young Offenders Act. They mislead the public if they think that is really going to deal with the problem of youth crime.

People who are familiar with the problem say over and over again that if you really want to do something about youth crime you have to address its many, many causes. Whether it is the breakdown in families, whether it is the lack of jobs, whether it is the lack of recreation, or whether as some of my colleagues have said it is that many young people have no home to go to, there are many causes. Unless you address those causes you will not get real solutions.

It appears the Reform Party has based this motion on the presumption that there has been a considerable increase in youth violent crime. That is not the case. There has been an increase in certain categories, but the impression Reform members give is that the situation is out of control.

It is much worse in some parts of the country than in others. But if we look at the statistics, offences resulting in the most serious personal injury, that is the offences of homicide, attempted murder, assault, sexual assault and so on, account for 2.4 per cent of youths charged with a violent offence, and 0.4 per cent of all youths charged with Criminal Code offences. The majority of charges, 62 per cent of those charges against youth, are for property offences.

With respect to murder, the highest rate of murder with respect to young offenders 12 to 17 years old was in 1975 when there were 68 youths between 12 and 17 who committed murder. The lowest was in 1987 when there were 35. There really is no discernible trend. Thirty-five are too many. Sixty-eight are too many. They are all too many. But this sort of panic approach that everything is out of control is completely wrong.

The Reform Party is proposing in its motion that the age be reduced from 12 to 17 years inclusive, which is the age for a young offender under the Young Offenders Act, to 10 to 15 years.

Under the present law persons who are 18 or more are treated as adults and they go before the adult courts. Those under 18 down to 12 years go to youth courts and are covered by the Young Offenders Act. As most of us know, a youth between 14 and 17 years can be transferred to the adult court on a motion presented by the crown to have that individual transferred to the adult court because the crime has been serious, a crime of violence and so on.

Let us repeat over and over again that those under 12 years are left to the jurisdiction of the provinces. It is up to the provinces to do something to protect the public and to rehabilitate and take care of those persons under 12 years.

Why did we pick 12 and 18 a few years ago when we did the Young Offenders Act? We did so because 18 was considered the general age of majority, not only in Canada but around the world. Therefore we said that once you were 18 you would be in adult courts and if you were under 18 you would be in the youth courts. We picked the age of 12 because that was the generally recognized age of puberty, and under 12 years you were considered not to have the same characteristics as a person 12 years and older. That is why we picked those ages.

As I said, the Minister of Justice is going to bring in a bill in a few weeks dealing with very specific changes to the Young Offenders Act. It will go much beyond this simplistic motion presented today by the Reform Party. He has also said he is going to refer the entire Young Offenders Act to the justice committee of which I am the chair for a complete review, no holds barred. Every part of the act will be looked at. Action will be taken, but action will be taken in a deliberative way.

Again this morning I heard Reform Party members continually asking whether we favour the rights of the offender or the rights of the victim, or do we favour the rights of the offender or the safety of society. These are not exclusive things. This is a false proposition.

It is not a contradiction to be concerned for the protection of society and for the offender. As a matter of fact if we are really interested in protecting society, we have to believe in rehabilitation because the overwhelming number of offences are limited offences and those people will be returned to society. Therefore we have to care about what happens to offenders when they are under our control, whether it is in a prison, on probation or parole, or whatever. If we do not show concern for the offender we are ignoring the safety of society.

We have to be extremely concerned and improve our programs for victims of crime and for protection of society. Sure, we must do that. But to pretend that you do one or the other and you ignore the offender and the offender's rights and the rights of society to make sure that the offender returns to society a safer person is wrong. We must do both. Rehabilitation is in the best interests of society.

In conclusion let me say this. We must deal with the Young Offenders Act and youth crime and the Minister of Justice will present us with a bill in a few weeks. We are also going to get a complete review of the Young Offenders Act. We must do that.

However, we should not deal with youth crime in the simplistic manner suggested to us this morning by members of the Reform Party. It will have no effect on the youth crime rate in this country. It will not solve the problems they refer to and they have raised some pretty serious problems.

They keep raising these individual cases which are horrible examples of crime by young people. Everybody will agree that these are horrible examples. By the way, because these crimes are reported in a spectacular way in the press the public has the perception that the youth crime problem is more widespread than it is. However we admit there are serious problems but we do not deal with them in the simplistic way the Reform Party suggests today.

We are going to get a bill in a few weeks. We are going to have a complete and thoughtful review. We are going to hear from individuals and organizations from all parts of the country.

That is the way to do it. We hear from all sides. We get input from experts and ordinary citizens. We get input from the police. We get input from correctional officers, social workers, teach-

ers, psychologists, the whole gambit of people who have some interest in this matter.

We will do it that way. That is the way we should do it. I invite the public during that review to work with us in Parliament to improve the situation and have better laws and a better situation with respect to youth crime.

[National Sport Act, April 27th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to support this bill as amended. It was originally a bill to declare hockey our national sport and now it is a bill to have hockey accepted as our national winter sport and lacrosse as our national summer sport.

I fully support the amendment but I principally want to talk about hockey. I love this game. I love playing it. I love watching it. I love talking about it. Some of my greatest friendships have been formed through hockey.

As many know I come from Montreal, the hockey capital of the world. Montrealers, like no other citizens of any other city, breathe, live and die for hockey.

Last year was the 100th anniversary of the Stanley Cup.

In those 100 years, six Montreal teams won the Stanley Cup 41 times, including the first time in 1893. The Canadiens won it 24 times. I am saying that because I want to correct the record. Many newspapers in Canada, in listing last year those that won the Stanley Cup in those 100 years, mentioned that the Canadiens won it 24 times and that the Leafs won it so many times. They forgot that there were five other Montreal teams that won it to make it a total of 41 times for Montreal, way beyond any other city or community in Canada. This not to belittle the other cities

but simply to remind Canadians that Montreal is the capital of hockey in Canada.

I have been playing hockey since I was six years old and despite my ancient appearance I am still playing. At this time I want to pay tribute to the many Canadians who are still playing and organizing oldtimer hockey. There are now thousands of leagues in Canada, many tournaments and every weekend a lot of us old guys go here and there to play weekend tournaments.

I think all this goes to show what many people are saying here in this House. It shows that Canadians of all ages and both sexes love this game. We are supporting this bill to make hockey our national winter sport. I hope it would mean more than simply lip service to the game.

What I hope it would mean is that we as Canadians will really support this game at all levels from peewee to international hockey. There have been times in recent years when we have not at the government level and at the private sector level supported it as we should.

By making it part of our legislation, I would hope that our commitment to hockey as our national winter sport will make us more aware of its place in our history and in our tradition and culture.

I have only one concern and I will end with it. My concern is that the cost to young people playing hockey today is escalating to the point at which many young people can no longer play. I am sad to say that in many cases hockey is now becoming a rich man's sport.

That was not the case when I was young in Montreal. We played on outdoor rinks at the peewee level, the bantam level. If you played in a school then you might get on an artificial rink. Our equipment was not that expensive and we did not have many long trips or a long schedule.

I am not arguing with it but simply pointing out my fears. Today players at 11, 12, 13 are playing all their games on indoor artificial rinks which is very expensive. It is very expensive for the parents. They are fully equipped with the best of equipment. They have long schedules and often very expensive travel schedules.

I give credit to the parents who are doing outstanding jobs following their young boys and girls around with these teams. They are paying sometimes up to $1,000 a year simply to keep their children in minor hockey. If that had been the case we may not have had the Maurice Richards, the Boom Boom Geffrions and the Gordie Howes and many other of these players who came from moderate backgrounds and who went up the ranks and became outstanding hockey players.

I fully support this bill. Canadians fully support this bill but I hope once we pass it, it will not simply be a memory for us but will be what it means; namely a commitment by the Parliament of Canada to really support these two games, hockey and lacrosse, from the very minor level to the international level and the professional level.

[Handguns, April 27th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Justice.

On Monday the Minister of Justice met with representatives of Concordia University, the Canadian Safety Council, the Canadian Bar Association, the Ottawa Chief of Police and others who asked for a ban on handguns.

Since handguns are not used for hunting but are very often used for criminal purpose, will the minister propose legislative amendments to implement these proposals? What was his answer to these groups on Monday?

[Supply, April 18th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, on his first point, with respect to the true costs, I would agree with him. If the present costs that are put forward by the government are not the complete costs then let us have the complete costs. I do not think it serves the debate well to have varying versions of the costs.

I do not know whether these costs are the full costs or not but we will have a chance in the committee to tie officials down on that. I think all the costs should be put on the table and then we can judge. I am sure, however, that in comparison to other programs they are still very small as a percentage base compared to health care, social services and so on.

His next point was with respect to what should be the exact definition of where the people demand the services. I was on the official languages committee in 1968-69 for the first act. We spent almost a year on it. I was on the committee in 1988 for the second version and we went through at great length the points that are being raised by the member: How narrow or how wide should the definition be in covering minority language communities? Should you cover Gravelbourg or not cover Gravelbourg? Should you just cover large areas like the east and north of Ontario and leave out, let us say, the Acadian community in Nova Scotia? We went through that for months and months in 1988.

The hon. member and myself are both on the official languages committee and we will have a chance to go through it again. That does not strike to the heart of the legislation, to the principles. Here we are debating how wide or how narrow, that concept of which populations should be served and where, how big that should be before we give the services. We will have a chance to go at that.

It comes also to a question of justice. Take the eastern townships as an example. There is a majority of francophones in the eastern townships now but the first Europeans to come to that part of Quebec were anglophones who fled from the United States to towns like Cowansville, Knowlton and Frelighsburg. I have lived there. I lived in Sherbrooke. They built a university there and they built colleges; Stanstead, Bishop's, Compton Hall and so on. Now it is mostly French speaking. Are we to leave these people out altogether with these long historic rights? That is a very important question.

We studied it before and we will study it again.

[Supply, April 18th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, of course health care is important. I do not have the figures here today as to how much at both the federal and provincial levels we are spending on health care, but it is probably not enough. However, to suggest that you can save hospitals with the little bits of money that we are spending on our bilingual program at the federal level is to mislead Canadians. It plays to the minds and hearts of bigots when you do that.

I am not saying that the member is one, but when you suggest that you can save the health care system with the budget that we have for official languages that is distorting the situation.

I will give examples. They could be given in English Canada as well. An elderly anglophone who is close to me went to a hospital, in this case in Quebec but it could happen to a francophone outside Quebec, for health care and could not communicate with the nurses or the doctors in that hospital because nobody could speak English. I know there are many examples on the other side where francophones go to hospitals and they cannot get service in French and they are trying to describe their ailments, which is not easy even if you have a doctor or nurse who speaks your own language.

Therefore, to suggest that it is either one or the other, it is health care or official languages policies or services, is to mislead Canadians. Both are necessary on a basis of justice and social policy. I suggest that you will never save one hospital or one major health care program in this country with the little bitsy budget that we have for official languages.

[Supply, April 18th, 1994]

I have zero time on such an important subject.

Unfortunately we do not have the time to debate this important matter in the way it should be debated. I have many points I would still like to make. I will have to come back on another day.

Please put the motion before the House again so we can all get at it once more.

[Supply, April 18th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, I will be sharing my time with the hon. member for St. Boniface. Unfortunately in the 10 minutes I will have and the 10 minutes he will have, we will not have enough time to respond to all of the arguments that have been put forward in this debate, especially some which I believe are false and misleading.

The hon. member from Nanaimo of the Reform Party proposes three things in his motion. First he proposes to amend the Official Languages Act to provide territorial language rights. Generally speaking it would mean there would only be one official language in Quebec, which would be French and one official language in the rest of Canada which would be English.

While he did not accept that extreme expression of the territorial principle, some members in his party in speaking to the debate have supported it. The Reform Party has not been completely together on this one. He said that bilingual services should apply in the east and north of Ontario, in the northeastern part of New Brunswick and west of Montreal. He gave those as examples. When I questioned him on it, he said he was not hard and fast on the examples but at least it gave us an idea of the territorial bilingualism he had in mind. As I pointed out in the question which I put to him, it would leave out the anglophones in the eastern townships, the anglophones in the Gaspé and the anglophones in the Outaouais region. It would leave out the francophones of Manitoba that have had historic rights in that province. It would leave out the francophones in Nova Scotia, the Acadians.

What we are talking about is how wide or how narrow is interpreted the expression "when numbers warrant". It would seem that the hon. member from the Reform Party would interpret it widely so it would be very difficult for many minority communities to qualify. He would interpret it in a way that would leave out, to a greater extent than we do, minority language communities.

We oppose the first proposition in his resolution because we believe that the one million francophones outside Quebec, as citizens of Canada, have rights and those rights should be protected. The approximately 800,000 anglophones in Quebec have the same rights, to be protected under the federal Official Languages Act and policy.

The second point in his resolution is to provide for English and French in the Parliament of Canada and the institutions relating to the Parliament of Canada and to the Federal Court. That is the law and the policy right now. I do not know how that part of his resolution would change anything. I may be incorrect. He did not spend much time speaking to that part of his resolution.

The third part of his resolution asks that we refrain from spending on those aspects of language which come under provincial jurisdiction. He did not speak to that part of his resolution either but if we were to adopt that policy, it would mean cutting assistance to the provinces for minority language education and second language education, including immersion. That would be a bad thing.

The money the federal government provides to the provinces for second language education, including immersion, and for minority language education is a good thing. It is done for the national unity of the country because many of the provinces could not afford to give adequate minority language education.

The hon. member from Nanaimo asked that we keep an open mind. I came to this debate with an open mind but I must say in listening to the speeches, as a party the policy has been unclear and ambiguous. I am not saying all of them. I listened to them all. I was here for the entire debate. They gave different versions. In fact some of them proposed things that were contrary to the resolution. Some of the proposals they spoke of were truly retrograde, a step backward in protecting the language rights of Canadians, including minority language rights.

He said in his opening remarks that the act was not working well, therefore it had to be changed. He said in many cases it was divisive and too expensive. He suggested that commissioners of official languages had supported that criticism.

That is not correct. It is true that from time to time, and the reports of the official languages commissioner will attest to that, they are critical of the administration for not following the provisions of the act or where there have been mistakes or errors. That is the role of the Commissioner of Official Lan-

guages, to point out where the administration has failed to live up to the principles in the act.

No commissioner that I know of has criticized the principles and the general policy of the act. As a matter of fact, all commissioners agree that without the act things would be much worse with respect to our language minorities.

As to whether it is working well or not working well, these are relative concepts. In fact, there are now 162,000 francophones outside Quebec in 700 French primary schools. There are 23,000 francophones outside Quebec in 45 colleges and universities. Four million Canadians, or 16 per cent of the population, speak both official languages.

The second criticism he made is that it is too expensive. Again, I do not know of any Commissioner of Official Languages who criticized the entire policy as being too expensive. The present commissioner criticized the bonus program and suggested we get rid of it but he has not said that the policy is too expensive in a global sense.

Commissioners have criticized specifics within the policy and asked that they be corrected, but not that the entire policy be cancelled or cut back.

With respect to expense, in fact it only costs 20 cents out of every $100 that the federal government spends on programs. That comes to three cents per day per Canadian. In response to the member of the Reform Party, it will not keep many hospitals open that are closing in his constituency. The cost for official language policy is a very small percentage of our entire budget.

Finally, he says it is divisive. Again I do not know of any Commissioner of Official Languages who says that the principles of the act are divisive. It is divisive in the sense that some people will not accept the principles in the Official Languages Act. It is their democratic right to oppose it and we hear that today. I do not think the reason, the cause of the divisiveness, is the principles in the act. It is just that some people will not recognize the rights of linguistic minorities.

The polls that I have looked at-I do not want to spend too much time, but they are on the record-indicate that from 60 to 75 per cent of Canadians support the policies in the Official Languages Act.

The purpose of the Official Languages Act is to provide legally enforceable language rights and language justice for the two official language communities in Canada, that is the one million francophones outside of Quebec and the approximately 800,000 anglophones in Quebec. It is also to serve the interests of the six million francophones in Canada, including those in Quebec because they are a minority in the entire country.

It is a law that is based principally or inspired by a need for tolerance, understanding and generosity. I am pleased that our government is going to bring back the court challenges program because it is no use having rights in law if you cannot enforce them in the courts.

There is no obligation to become bilingual under the Official Languages Act but I heard members of the Reform Party once again saying today that French is being thrust down their throats. No language is being thrust down the throat of the consumer of services. It is true that if you are going to provide those services some people have to speak French and some people have to speak English in order to provide the services but generally speaking that is in the institution.

By the way, 70 per cent of all federal government positions are unilingual either English or French. Only 30 per cent of the positions are bilingual.

I thought I had until 5.15. I wrote down the time. How much time do I have left?