Nicole Demers

[Eliminating Pardons for Serious Crimes Act, June 14th, 2010]

Madam Speaker, we are very familiar with the concept of pardon. Quebec Catholics are well aware of what “pardon” means, and what it implies.

A pardon is truly a gift of great generosity and open-mindedness from those being asked to do the pardoning. It also requires great candour, authenticity and humility from the person asking to be pardoned. They have to ask themselves what drove them to commit certain acts. It requires introspection. When one asks for a pardon, one reflects on the acts one has committed. If we eliminate the concept of pardons, perhaps we are also eliminating the opportunity to involve that person and forgetting about the human dimension to the process.

I do not have enough legal knowledge to determine the appropriateness of eliminating the word “pardon”. The concept of record suspension is also quite close to what the bill is calling for. I do not have enough legal knowledge to properly answer that question. I will leave it to my colleagues who are more knowledgeable about this than I am to answer on my behalf.

[Eliminating Pardons for Serious Crimes Act, June 14th, 2010]

Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague, who is also very knowledgeable about all the harm that can be done by inappropriate sentencing, especially in the community she represents.

In the case of female inmates, they are mostly women from aboriginal communities. Once again, we see that there is no equity, that there is no justice for the aboriginal peoples of this country. We must ensure that the aboriginal communities at least have the necessary resources to educate themselves and to transmit their culture and values.

With regard to Indian residential schools, we must ensure that healing takes place. We must ensure that aboriginal communities have running water and safe drinking water in their communities. We must ensure that education and health programs are provided consistently.

Some programs, such as smoking cessation programs and programs to combat fetal alcohol syndrome, have been cut. And yet these programs are essential. Without these programs, the people cannot break the cycle. Without these programs and without a significant investment in social housing, they cannot break the cycle. When 10 or 15 people live in one room, it leads to a certain promiscuity and despair. Sometimes, it leads to criminal acts.

We must ensure that there is justice for everyone. We must ensure that rehabilitation is an important component of the decisions we make to fight crime.

[Eliminating Pardons for Serious Crimes Act, June 14th, 2010]

Madam Speaker, I am very pleased to rise to speak to Bill C-23. Like my colleague from Abitibi—Témiscamingue who spoke earlier and my other colleagues who have debated this subject in the House, I think it is important that we be able to debate this bill in committee and decide what rules should govern the act relating to pardons and the act relating to suspensions of records. The surprising thing about this bill is that it has been presented to us at the end of the session because they are upset that someone was granted a pardon when they had broken the law by committing heinous acts against minors. I would ask that we remember that when it comes to record suspensions, in all cases where the person has committed acts against a minor or crimes relating to pedophilia, the criminal record can be suspended, but special attention is paid to that record.

When the criminal records of people we want to hire or take on as volunteers are checked, that is when we are informed that the person has something specific in their criminal record. We are entirely able to ask the Minister of Public Safety to explain the exact situation regarding the criminal record to us. The reason I am talking about it that way is that I worked for several years with a home support cooperative. When we talk about home support, we are talking about support for vulnerable people, elderly people, people who are ill. All of the people we hired had to complete a hiring process in which we asked the police to do an investigation. That was part of the hiring process. The people we wanted to hire had to go to the police station, apply for a certificate and pay for it, because there are in fact fees associated with the certificate. They had to ask the police to investigate them so they could prove to us that they had no criminal record or outstanding charges. Of course, when you do this research, you realize that first, when people have been granted a pardon, very few of them reoffend. You see that 97% of people who have been granted a pardon have never reoffended. The 3% figure is quite respectable, but when we think that 97% of those people did not reoffend, that really is a system that works relatively well.

And those are the people we are talking about. With this new law that our colleague is proposing, no one could ask for a pardon for at least five or ten years, depending on the crime committed.

I remember quite well that the people who committed crimes did so when they were young and carefree. The crimes they committed did not necessarily have a significant impact on society. But they were still crimes that resulted in a criminal record. These people, when they turn 20, 22 or 23 and want to take their place in society again, go to school, start a relationship and maybe get married, must think seriously about asking for a pardon. If they ask for it, it is important that they be able to get it, because we see how it can affect training and even automobile and home insurance applications. It can also affect work, your job and promotions if you have not asked for a pardon and you have a criminal record. A lot of young people think that because they were not charged or convicted that they do not need to ask for a pardon. However, if their fingerprints were taken, they would immediately have a record or their fingerprints somewhere. If they do not ask for a pardon, those fingerprints are there for life.

If they apply for a visa or a passport—for their work, for example—they will have a hard time obtaining them.

The Bloc Québécois has always said that it is important to support victims of crime. What is important is the guarantee that we can rehabilitate those who commit crime. We have to ensure that crime is reduced. This will not happen spontaneously simply because people are scared. It must happen steadily and over the long term because people realize that there is more to life than committing petty crime.

In many cases, people who commit crimes are those who are not necessarily fortunate enough to be among those who have an easier time of it in the labour market. Members of aboriginal communities have a very hard time getting an education and finding a job. They may turn to petty crime because it is easier. Then they go to jail and get caught in a vicious cycle.

Many of the aboriginal people who serve time in jail do not have access to rehabilitation programs. For the past few years, unfortunately, more attention has been paid to the risk of reoffending than to anything else. We know that people from aboriginal communities are less likely to pass these tests because they are more likely to reoffend once released from jail. People in their communities are very poor and do not have opportunities for paid work. Unable to find a meaningful goal, they will do what they have to to survive.

Last weekend, aboriginal peoples met in Ottawa to accept the government's apology, which they requested last year. Their forgiveness is unconditional. The pardon that aboriginal peoples granted the government is an act of generosity, love and respect. Why must the government always place a dollar value on forgiveness and manipulate public opinion to make people believe that it cares about the safety and well-being of victims?

All this government has done is introduce divisive bills and ensure that victims do not really get government support. Recently, the government cut funding for a number of victims' groups. Help centres for victims of sexual assault and other crimes do not have the funding they need to help victims recover. Victims do not have the funding they need to recover.

My colleague introduced a bill to give victims and their families more time to recover. Why does the government not agree with us when it comes to helping victims? They seem to find it much easier to punish criminals.

It would be much easier to work on rehabilitation and reintegration into society in order to ensure there are no more victims, as we do in Quebec with much success. All they do here is ensure there will be more criminals who remain criminals longer. Rather than making sure there will be no more victims by working on the reasons and the symptoms, we ensure that criminals stay in prison. There they do not become any less criminal. If they do not get the treatment, training and all they need to integrate back into society in a constructive way, they will remain criminals.

We should work together to find better ways of containing crime and ensuring that victims are protected in all ways and crime is further diminished.

By reducing poverty and ensuring there is social housing and gainful employment, we also do a lot to reduce crime. Much petty crime is due to the fact that people are struggling to survive. We should work on these issues, as well as on having programs to fight drugs and help people who want to get off drugs and away from prostitution. We need not only to punish people and put them in jail but also ensure they have the tools they need to start over and not just continue down the same old path. I think we are doing miracles in Quebec in this regard, given the paucity of support from the federal government. Luckily there are people like those in the Bloc Québécois and the NDP who believe in rehabilitation and think that individuals who have made mistakes can be rehabilitated because we all make mistakes.

I know someone who was charged with robbery in the 1960s. That person was sentenced to 15 years and spent eight in prison. They were not finally exonerated and found innocent until 2009. It is incredible to think that this person spent all those years in prison knowing they were innocent. They lived far away from their relatives and it destroyed their family and their relations with their daughter and son. It broke up their marriage. They separated. This person is still trying to get compensation from the government for all the years they spent in prison. We too make mistakes sometimes and harm people.

The committee should study all the ways of ensuring that criminals who should stay in prison do so but also that those who can be helped to get out and be rehabilitated do so as well and become full members of society.

[Criminal Code, June 10th, 2010]

moved for leave to introduce Bill C-531, An Act to amend the Criminal Code (hate propaganda)

Mr. Speaker, I am introducing this bill, with the support of the leader of the Bloc Québécois who felt it was relevant to do so, because there is an important loophole in sections 318 and 319 of the Criminal Code.

At the end of March, a judge had to dismiss a charge of inciting hatred against Jean-Claude Rochefort, who writes a blog in which he was inciting hatred against women. He was disseminating hate propaganda and defending the Polytechnique killer, who killed 14 women in that college. He was defending Marc Lépine and saying that there should be more Marc Lépines.

I believe that we should pass this bill because the Criminal Code does not define a group of women as an identifiable group. Because of this, the judge was not able to proceed with the incitement of hatred charge, as this can only be brought when the hatred is directed at an identifiable group. We need to include the word “gender” in the identifiable groups listed in sections 318 and 319 of the Criminal Code, so that women can be recognized as an identifiable group and so no one else can ever utter threats, incite hatred or distribute hate propaganda.

(Motions deemed adopted, bill read the first time and printed).

[Canadian Human Rights Act, June 8th, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, it gives me great pleasure to rise in the House to debate Bill C-389 introduced by my colleague from Burnaby—Douglas. This is a bill I am very glad to see.

When I talk about a bill, I usually refer to situations in my own life to illustrate what I am saying. Once again, I want to remind hon. members that if you have never walked a mile in the shoes of someone who is discriminated against, if you have never done what someone has to do to assert themselves, be seen as a whole person and enjoy the same rights as everyone around them, if you have never done that, then it is hard to understand the despair and the problems experienced by people who live with a sword of Damocles constantly hanging over their heads, the sword of Damocles that is discrimination. This bill does not refer to racial discrimination, but that is what I am going to talk about, because that is what I know.

At the age of 17, I fell madly in love with a black African who descended from people in the Belgian Congo. It was 1967, and when I fell madly in love with him, I did not realize just how much I was going to learn about the problems people can have when they do not have the same physical appearance or the same culture as those around them.

When we wanted to get married in 1970, the parish priest refused to marry us because he said our children would be mulatto, and he did not want any mulatto children in his parish. My father spoke out against the priest and insisted that the church allow me to be married in church. The curate agreed to marry us.

But I had already seen that people can be discriminated against even if they have done nothing wrong. My husband had done nothing wrong, but he was born black, and others held that against him. He tried so hard to find work. On the phone, he sounded like a Quebecker, and was often told that the job was available, but once he showed up, the job was already taken. Whenever I went looking for an apartment for the two of us, there was always a vacancy when I called to say I was coming to see the place, but when I showed up with my husband, the apartment was always rented.

Then, what the priest feared came to pass. I had my first child, a beautiful mulatto boy. We tried to raise him in the knowledge that we loved him and that nothing in the world could ever hurt him. But one day, when he was four, he was taking a bath, and he asked me why the kids he played with called him a Negro. He said that he was not a Negro. I did not know what to tell him. It broke my heart. I did not know how to comfort my child and make him understand just how stupid and mean people can be, how they just do not make sense sometimes. I did not know how to help him understand that. But I understood. I understood that anytime one person discriminates against another, anytime people find a way to discriminate against others, they do irreparable damage.

The bill that my colleague introduced will put an end to a type of discrimination that has been around for a very long time. We do not choose to be born a man or a woman. We do not ask to have a different gender identity than the one we are born with. We do not ask for that. We have no choice. We also do not ask for our gender expression to be different than anyone else's. Children are children, and live like children.

But as children, they may realize that they are not in the right body, that they do not have the right gender identity. A boy might realize that he should have been a girl, and a girl might realize that she should have been a boy.

Unfortunately, until now, very few people have been aware of this reality or realized how much they are harming their child when they do not want a boy to dress up as a girl, or a girl to play with a boy's toys.

Our society does not view that as normal, but what could be purer, more natural and more whole than a child? If their sexual identity seems natural to them, then why should we, as adults, not accept that? If children instinctively understand who they are and who they want to be for the rest of their lives, why is it so difficult for adults like us to understand and accept that? Why is it so hard for us to give people an opportunity to be heard when they report discrimination, hate propaganda or violence because they have chosen to express their sexual identity? I do not know.

Maybe some of us think that we have all of the answers, that we know better because we make the laws. That is what we do here in the House. However, before we make any decisions about people's rights, we should think long and hard. We may well be putting the lives of our own children into the hands of people who will discriminate against them. In many cases, such decisions will affect people we know but who have kept their true selves hidden because there is still shame associated with expressing one's sexual identity openly.

Would people we do not know but who seem normal and likable suddenly be different if they chose to express their sexual identity? Would they no longer have the same morals and values as before? Not at all.

If we are honest with ourselves, we have to admit that our understanding of all of the dimensions of human beings is medieval. I am glad that my colleague introduced this bill, which will put an end to years of injustice.

Before coming here today, I received a message from Brian Rushfeld urging me not to vote for this bill because it would have terrible consequences and result in abnormal and abominable sexual activities. What is so abominable about a man who identifies as a woman or a woman who identifies as a man? Can anyone tell me? I see nothing wrong with that at all. Mr. Rushfeld's concerns are exaggerated, and it will be my pleasure to vote alongside my Bloc Québécois colleagues in favour of this bill.

[Jobs and Economic Growth Act, June 8th, 2010]

Madam Speaker, Mike Blanchfield and Jim Bronskill, from The Canadian Press, are claiming that no Conservative members can speak without first getting the authorization of the Prime Minister's Office or of the Prime Minister himself.

Assuming these reporters' claims are credible, does the member not think that Conservative members are not necessarily saying what they think about the budget, but instead are being told to believe in the budget in order to stay in the good graces of their leader? They are forced to keep quiet about their real feelings on the budget, because their leader is telling them to believe that it is a good budget.

[Maternal and Child Health, June 7th, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, while the largest summit on maternal health in the world is going on in Washington as a prelude to the G20 summit, the Prime Minister did not even bother to respond to the invitation. This is even more disturbing because the Conservative government claims that maternal and child health is one of its priorities for the G20.

When the time comes to lobby for the banks, and strongly speak out against plans to impose a bank tax, the Prime Minister does not hesitate to fly all over the world, but he cannot be bothered to take a short, one-hour plane trip for women.

This is just one of a long series of misogynistic decisions made by this Conservative government: refusing to fund abortions in developing countries; making cuts to funding for women's groups; supporting bills that limit access to abortion.

This Reform-Conservative government, led by the Prime Minister, must stop trying to score political points at the expense of women, and must start promoting a maternal and child health policy that includes abortion.

[Points of Order, June 2nd, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, I rise here today as a member of this House, but also as a mother and grandmother. I rise as a citizen and as a woman. I rise in the House because when one took an oath as a police officer, one swore to tell the truth and not to manipulate the truth in any way. One took that oath. When we took the oath to serve our fellow citizens, we swore that we would serve them honestly and ethically. When we took the oath to become members of this House, because we were democratically elected, we did so honestly and legitimately.

Once again today, the member for Saint Boniface repeated this unfair notion that we do not consider our children, that we do not want our children to be protected, that we do not want women to be protected.

On behalf of all children, on behalf of all the women in this House, I rise to say that it is shameful, that such things should not be said and they should never be repeated. Our relevance and right to be here must never be questioned. and neither should the fact that women will always stand up and denounce any abuse of children.

What the member said is false. She used moral manipulation and moral blackmail, and I object to it.

[Status of Women, May 26th, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, the Conservative government says it does not wish to reopen the abortion debate. However, it was Conservative members who introduced bills to restrict access to abortion and it is the Conservative government that is proposing to stop funding abortion abroad. Even Msgr. Ouellet stated that he was prompted to make a public statement because the Conservative government had reopened the debate.

Will the government admit that it has reopened the debate on abortion to satisfy the religious fundamentalists of the Conservative Party?

[Business of Supply, May 11th, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, since we are into semantics and symbolism, I would like the member to explain a paradox. While proclaiming to defend Quebec's interests, every time the National Assembly adopts a unanimous motion, the member for Lotbinière—Chutes-de-la-Chaudière votes against it.

How can he pretend to defend Quebec's interests when he always votes against what Quebec decides for itself at the National Assembly? I remind him that the National Assembly is made up of members from different political parties, including parties that are close to the Conservative Party of Canada. The member should vote in favour of the decisions made by the Quebec National Assembly.