Bill C-25 (Historical)

An Act to amend the Youth Criminal Justice Act

This enactment amends the Youth Criminal Justice Act by adding deterrence and denunciation to the principles that a court must consider when determining a youth sentence. It also clarifies that the presumption against the pre-trial detention of a young person is rebuttable and specifies the circumstances in which the presumption does not apply.

Youth Criminal Justice Act

[Guy André, Bloc, Berthier—Maskinongé, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I was listening to my colleague from the Liberal Party comment on Bill C-25. First of all, this bill seems to be modelled on American practices. It leans more toward cracking down and getting tough on youth.

In Quebec, for many years now, we have been developing an approach focused more on rehabilitating and reintegrating youth. Some people do indeed commit serious crimes and must be punished, but our approach seeks to identify what these youth need. It does not necessarily criminalize them right away or send them to detention centres, and possibly to adult detention centres, as this bill would have us do. I do not believe that is a good way to rehabilitate and reintegrate youth.

I would like the hon. member to explain why this bill seems to be modelled on the American approach, when we know that the homicide rate in the United States is three times higher than it is here in Quebec and Canada.

[Dominic LeBlanc, Liberal, Beauséjour, NB]

Mr. Speaker, my colleague from Berthier—Maskinongé has done a fine job bringing into focus a model that the rest of the country can emulate. To my knowledge, Quebec is very advanced in the areas of youth criminal justice and the treatment of young offenders. He has clearly stated the important principle of rehabilitation, which remains paramount to the Liberal Party in discussing youth justice issues.

I agree with what he said about many bills put forward by this Conservative government being inspired from failures of the Republic model in the United States, a model that never worked by the way. In Nova Scotia, Justice Nunn produced an important report on all these issues. He reviewed all the evidence relating to how to protect society and rehabilitate young offenders. We believe that his report deserves special attention. This is why we will be proposing amendments to that effect in committee.

[Tony Martin, NDP, Sault Ste. Marie, ON]

Mr. Speaker, in the member's assessment of the bill and in looking at the whole question of youth justice and the criminal justice system, did he factor in at all the whole notion of restorative justice? Has he thought about it much?

I know that a lot of research has been done. A lot of people have worked in that area and are bringing restorative justice forward as a way to reduce recidivism among youth who find themselves in trouble with the law. Plus, it adds a whole new element to the way that we grow and develop a community and the community responsibility and response in regard to this terrible challenge of youth and crime and youth who find themselves in difficulty with the law.

Could the member share with me how he sees this piece of legislation perhaps impacting on the movement to have more of a restorative justice approach to dealing with youth and the law?

[Dominic LeBlanc, Liberal, Beauséjour, NB]

Mr. Speaker, my colleague from Sault Ste. Marie raises what I think is a very good point. The legislation is a very narrowly focused piece of legislation, as I have said, designed basically to deal with two elements of the Youth Criminal Justice Act. From our perspective, it does not take into account much of the important innovation that has taken place around restorative justice.

I have two federal prisons in my constituency, in Dorchester, New Brunswick. I have had a chance to meet a number of people involved in those prisons, including social workers, people from the John Howard Society and a remarkable gentleman called Siegfrid Janzen, who in his eighties had done a number of community initiatives around restorative justice and had made great progress.

We think those innovations need to be looked at in a comprehensive way around the Youth Criminal Justice Act. We think that to focus narrowly on sentencing and pre-trial detention takes away from other very important aspects.

[Paul Crête, Bloc, Montmagny—L'Islet—Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to address this bill today. I remember a few years ago, when the Bloc Québécois fought an epic battle regarding the Youth Criminal Justice Act. Our justice critic at the time, Mr. Michel Bellehumeur, had tabled 3,000 amendments to the bill, and over 2,800 of those had been deemed in order. These proposed changes by Mr. Bellehumeur—who is now a judge—were based on the approach that has been in use in Quebec for several years.

Indeed, when it comes to youth justice, we must really promote rehabilitation. Young offenders must understand the consequences of the bad decisions that they have made, and of the actions that they have taken. They must realize that they did not do the right thing, and we have to help them reintegrate society and become good citizens again. We must avoid sending them to what is known as “crime school”, by slowly putting them on the path to penitentiaries, because these young people may then make inappropriate contacts and end up making the wrong choices. It has been demonstrated—again in the 2007 data—that Quebec's approach results in lower crime among young people, while there is an increase in all of the other provinces of Canada.

That was an epic battle indeed. In the end, we lost the vote in the House and the act was amended. However, a court ruling helped reduce the impact of the decision made by the federal government in office at the time, which was influenced by the American model and which felt that this was the way to go. Ultimately, the results achieved were not as bad as expected. However, the Conservative government is now going on the offensive again and wants to introduce measures that will again target youth behaviour, rather than focus on rehabilitation.

In that sense, the point of view the Bloc Québécois supports in this House is shared by all of Quebec. Our point of view is in direct opposition to the Conservative government's vision. Let us remember that the Minister of Justice said that children as young as 12 should be thrown in jail. Then we were told that the statement was being quoted out of context. However, the spirit in which this bill was tabled, the spirit in which they want it to be adopted, reflects the attitude that young people should be punished. According to this draconian policy, the justice system should punish young people, not rehabilitate them. The bill before us is not in line with choices that Quebec has made in the past. In Quebec, the crime rate has dropped.

For example, clause 1 of Bill C-25 states that the judge should presume that pre-trial detention is necessary if a young person is charged with a violent offence, has been found guilty of failing to comply with non-custodial sentences, or has been charged with a crime for which an adult would be liable to imprisonment for a term of more than two years and has a history that indicates a pattern of findings of guilt.

This is the same line of thinking that motivated the government to impose mandatory minimum sentencing in all adult cases. They want to box young people in. That kind of attitude can have a very negative impact when it comes to youth crime. We have seen how Quebec's justice system works for minors, and it is important to have an approach that makes it possible to find real solutions that will result in the rehabilitation of young people, not the opposite.

The clause before us may seem appealing at first glance, but we have to take a closer look. By attempting to transfer the burden of proof to youths, the Conservative government is challenging a basic principle of the justice system, the presumption of innocence. As we have so often seen, charges do not necessarily result in a guilty verdict. Teenagers who are detained prior to trial, and who are then found innocent, will have been subjected to the awful consequences of detention even if they did nothing wrong.

With the presumption that is weighing on him, a young person will have to prove that he does not pose a threat to society even before being found guilty of an offence. Moreover, this will even have an impact on his day-to-day life. To his classmates, it will be as if the young person was found guilty before the fact, which is not necessarily a happy choice. In our opinion, this clause is not in line with the logic that should prevail on the issue of youth crime.

Clause 2 makes a major change in sentencing criteria. It states that, from now on, sentences can be aimed at denouncing unlawful conduct or deterring the young person and other young persons from committing offences. This seems benign in and of itself, but it is anything but. It represents a fundamental shift and goes against Quebec's traditional position. Moreover, the Supreme Court issued this opinion on this issue:

Parliament has sought preferably to promote the long-term protection of the public by addressing the circumstances underlying the offending behaviour, by rehabilitating and reintegrating young persons into society and by holding young persons accountable through the imposition of meaningful sanctions related to the harm done.

This is not the spirit of the bill before us. For that reason, we believe that we are right to be opposed to the bill as introduced.

According to the Supreme Court, the fact that deterrence is not among the objectives of youth sentencing is a very significant deliberate omission. We have found that the spirit in which the federal government acted is meeting with a great deal of opposition from stakeholders in Quebec who are concerned about the whole youth crime package. We would therefore like the federal government to reverse its decision and reconsider the issue so that the approach developed in Quebec can continue to apply appropriately.

Our fear is that Bill C-25 is merely the first step. It is not necessarily surprising to see the Conservative government put forward measures like the ones in Bill C-25. It is not very surprising, coming from a party that tolerates the fact that its Minister of Justice is so blinded by his ideological approach that he is contending that the only way to eradicate the supposed wave of youth violence is to increase public safety, restore public confidence in the justice system and sentence young people to prison, even children no older than 12.

The law currently states very clearly that incarceration should be an exceptional measure and that the judge must give priority to extrajudicial measures before incarcerating a youth. So it is obvious that the bill's proposed amendments to sections of the act go against the spirit of judicial intervention in this sector. For these reasons, the Bloc Québécois believes that this bill should not be passed as is.

The former minister of justice said that it was acceptable to incarcerate young people aged 12 and up. At the time, there was a concern that this statement implied that the Conservatives' goal was to change the sentencing principles in the act to make incarcerating youth the rule, instead of the exception. Now we see that the minister did not make a mistake, but that this is the path the Conservative government wanted to take. This is why we will vote against Bill C-25 as it stands now.

In conclusion, I would like to remind the House about the epic battle fought by Michel Bellehumeur, the member for Berthier—Montcalm at the time, which was supported by all the Bloc Québécois members. Our strength in that battle came from the fact that we had the support of all of Quebec.

The scope of Bill C-25 is much less broad, but it still has the same goal and would still have us copy the American model. The Bloc Québécois says no to this approach and it is representing Quebeckers on this issue.

[Claude Bachand, Bloc, Saint-Jean, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I want to begin by congratulating my hon. colleague on his very good presentation. I guess I am not telling him anything he did not already know when I say that, under constant pressure from the Bloc Québécois, the government eventually recognized that there are after all two peoples in Canada: the Quebec nation and the Canadian nation. The bill before us today really highlights one of Quebec's distinguishing features. This is what I would like to question my hon. colleague about.

With its heavy-handed approach, is the government not reinforcing the idea that there are indeed two nations? On the one hand, the Quebec nation believes in rehabilitation, solidarity and providing whatever help it can to young offenders. On the other hand, on the government side, not only can a “made in USA” approach be perceived, but I would go as far as to call it a Republican approach, which contrasts even more starkly with Quebec's distinguishing feature.

In addition, I think my hon. colleague will agree with me that Quebec seems to have achieved greater success in that area, with its lower crime rate. By investing in these young people to rehabilitate them, we are showing that Quebec's society got it right. I would like to hear my colleague on this Quebec approach, as opposed to the Canadian or “made in the USA” Republican approach.

[Paul Crête, Bloc, Montmagny—L'Islet—Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague from Saint-Jean for his very relevant intervention. I would remind him that in May 2001, the National Assembly of Quebec called on the federal government to consider Quebec's approach. The text read:

That the National Assembly call on the Government of Canada to make provision within the criminal justice system for young persons for a special system for Quebec under the Young Offenders Act, in order to fully reflect its particular intervention model.

At that time, we will remember, the nation of Quebec had not yet been recognized in this House. A Bloc motion lead the debate on that issue, and the Prime Minister agreed to recognize it. The time has come for concrete actions to illustrate how this nation is different and today provides a very concrete way to do so. The Conservative Party needs only to recognize that the nation of Quebec wants a different model and that even if the rest of Canada wants a more Republican approach, modelled on the U.S. Republican Party's punitive approach, that is not the approach Quebec wants to take. If the concept of nation means anything, this would be a concrete way to prove it, and recognize that Quebec could have a different model.

Unfortunately, the Conservative party says one thing and then does another. For example: the nation was recognized, Bill C-25 is still being debated and there is no specific measure to allow Quebec to withdraw from its application. Quebec's approach has produced some interesting results. Youth crime is handled differently; rehabilitation is possible. We want that approach to continue.

Thus, we must be clear that we are against the approach in Bill C-25. In the past, there was an epic debate on this whole issue. Today, there are specific measures, but the federal government's attitude remains the same. Whether Liberal or Conservative, the government wants to impose the same repressive right-wing American model on everyone, while Quebec's model is exemplary and has been recognized. Earlier I heard some members from the Liberal Party of Canada cite it as an example.

I hope that we will come to recognize the background of this issue, the battles that have been fought and the way youth justice is applied in Quebec, so that this approach can continue to be used in that province. I also hope that the repressive approach in Bill C-25 will be dropped.

[Brian Masse, NDP, Windsor West, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise today and speak to Bill C-25, An Act to amend the Youth Criminal Justice Act. The bill has two potential consequences to the Youth Criminal Justice Act. In particular, I want to focus on the possibility of a pre-trial detention for a young person. The bill also adds denunciation and deterrence of unlawful conduct to the act's principles in sentencing.

The New Democratic Party has concerns about these two elements and also the vacancy of other public policies to prevent crime and in particular issues facing youth.

Our party is supporting the bill. We are indicating though that we do want to see amendments prior to the bill being passed. These two issues are very significant and have several consequences that relate to youth and justice in our society. We believe that the bill in its current state does not address those issues.

I want to touch now on a couple of those issues. The first one is with regard to the first part of the bill which is a little bit different in the sense of treating young people and making sure that they are detained longer. At the present time the judicial system has that capability. What this legislation will do is codify existing practices.

The concern that the NDP has around this is that it could to some degree also take away the opportunity or impose a structure for judges that we believe would be a step backward. We think that this is one of the things that should be looked at.

As well, one of the things that is going to be happening with regard to this issue is really a deterrence as a principle of sentencing. This issue is very debatable in terms of the justice file right now and also in terms of how to prevent crimes and provide an opportunity for restorative justice.

I have spent four years and was involved in five programs with helping youth who were at risk. These youths either had some type of issue with regard to the law, committed crimes and were punished, or alternatively they were viewed at risk because they were out of school and unemployed. These youths were seen as persons who would eventually end up in those circumstances if they did not either decide to go back to school or find a job.

What I have found is that to this day those programs are not supported enough, not only in terms of the federal programs but also provincially. We heard some discussion about Quebec and that province deserves some kudos in terms of the way it has led the way in many respects in this country on making sure that youth and youth issues are looked at in a preventive style.

In my community it can be said that those programs, whether it is St. Leonard's House or New Beginnings, have been very successful because they were designed so that street level youth would have an opportunity to be able to turn their lives around.

Some of those programs I ran and still being run today. This was done with a philosophy of a small investment of the correct prevention strategy. The programs made sure that people had choices in front of them, as opposed to feeling that they had closed doors. This led to greater decision making and resulted in either finding employment or going back to school and obtaining the skills and training that would provide employment. What we see with Bill C-25 is a deterrence to sentencing.

The Supreme Court looked at this in Regina v. B.W.P. I want to read a small excerpt in terms of the discussion that came out of that decision, so people will understand what this mode is going to do. It said:

When general deterrence is factored in the determination of the sentence, the offender is punished more severely, not because he or she deserves it, but because the court decides to send a message to others who may be inclined to engage in similar criminal activity.

It is not necessarily what a person has done that is going to increase the sentence for a particular crime, but it is to send a message to others. This has generally been a philosophy adopted in the United States. Quite frankly, I am not sure that it has worked successfully there. Perhaps in some jurisdictions there may have been some modest improvements, but overall in terms of North America we actually have higher rates of incarceration of youth. One of the things that is interesting about this debate is that we do have some issues related to that in our own country.

One has to wonder whether that is going to be the way to ensure that youth are not going to make subsequent decisions or other poor choices that are going to lead to criminal activity and that will have consequences for them and society.

One can lay out programs and services like the ones I provided at the multicultural council or New Beginnings in my riding of Windsor West where individuals can be successfully unplugged from the wrong people they are hanging around or even from gangs. They can also be provided with a host of opportunities that undermine the person's attraction or so-called easy decisions at the moment that lead to poor choices and get them in subsequent trouble. They have the opportunity to turn things around.

These programs will not get to everybody. There is no doubt about that. There are some individuals who will have to face the justice system straight on. The fact of the matter is that this country has not done enough for the programs to make sure youth will make the right decisions.

I can think of a few individuals who went through the program in my riding. They had been involved with the wrong people and had been in and out of custody numerous times but, at the same time, when they were provided the stability of counselling, an opportunity to feel that they would be constructive in their place in society, as well as the economy, they became successful.

This is what I cannot understand. The government is not acting on those opportunities. It has talked about announced funding and so forth, but it has very rarely delivered.

This bill is not as comprehensive as it probably could be because there are some outstanding legal court challenges coming forth that will affect the way the government can go forward, but it is important to note that prevention still is not at the top of the order by the government.

The fact of the matter is there are supposed to be police officers in different municipalities and the government has yet to deliver on that. I recently spoke to the chief of police in my riding about this issue and there is still no support that was promised by this administration. It said it was going to put more police officers on the streets of this country and has yet to deliver on it.

That is interesting. The government makes these announcements, but they never come to fruition and it never delivers on them. The government does it in all kinds of fashions, whether it be this issue or other simple issues like infrastructure projects, where it does not sign agreements with its partners, be it the provinces or other municipalities, to get the money flowing.

These are problems because the government is not providing a vision on how we should move forward. We also lack the opportunity to uproot some of the most important issues that centre around youth criminal justice and that is to make youth feel that they are going to have a good future, engage in good choices and, most importantly, feel like productive members of society.

There are individuals who are going through troubled times in their lives and I have not even touched on the issue of mental illness and the lack of supports. In my province of Ontario there are individuals who are not getting the proper medical and psychological support which would enable them to maintain productivity in terms of being citizens and not engaging in activities that harm other individuals or making bad decisions that have significant consequences. This is really important. With every dollar that we put toward prevention, we can save double or triple that when it comes to incarceration later on.

This is an important bill. The act has been amended several times. It has been debated hotly politically, but at the end of the day we have to do something that is going to be an improvement for youth, so that those who have to go through our justice system, and create victims who are affected by these poor decisions, are going to receive the penalties through the justice system in a full and accountable way.

At the same time, the government and society have to do a lot more to provide opportunities to help youth make the right decisions or, if they have made wrong decisions and are willing to turn things around, have the opportunity to do so. That comes with support and a community that is inclusive.

[Larry Bagnell, Liberal, Yukon, YT]

Mr. Speaker, it is opportune that we have several justice bills before us this week. It is a good chance for the three opposition parties to point to the failure of the whole justice agenda of the government. I would like the member to comment on that.

The government has failed in a number of areas. It has failed the rights of Canadians as related to court challenges. It has been a disaster as related to capital punishment. It has been a disaster as related to alternative sentencing, and only the opposition parties held the government back from making mistakes in that instance. It has been a disaster as related to reforming the legal system through the Law Reform Commission. It has been a disaster in reducing aboriginal overpopulation in prisons.

It has been a disaster in crime reduction factors. When the government first came to power, crime in Canada was going down, but just a week ago the government had to introduce a bill to increase the number of judges because crime has not decreased dramatically.

Our position in the Liberal Party is that one of the reasons for this is that the Conservatives are not focusing at all on things that would reduce crime, such as prevention of the root causes, as well as an area where we had some success, alternative sentencing for youth. The government is also not dealing with the determinants of crime. Also it is not focusing on not putting everyone in prison longer in cases where, as the experts have told us at committee time and again, it actually is going to increase crime.

There are a lot of areas on which my colleague would agree. He has a lot of experience and he could depict the areas where he could offer more productive ways to reduce crime in Canada.

[Brian Masse, NDP, Windsor West, ON]

Mr. Speaker, my colleague is right in his intervention when he says there are all kinds of issues out there, such as capital punishment and the current court challenges situation.

He mentioned one issue, though, that I think needs some attention and that I did not get into due to lack of time, but I do want to read for members a little research on the issue of the aboriginal population. I think it is an important connection to prevention and also to the systemic issues we have. The research states that currently:

Aboriginal youth are overrepresented in the youth criminal justice system. While aboriginal young people comprised only 8% of Canada's youth population in 2002-2003, they made up “44% of admissions to remand, 46% of sentenced custody admissions and 32% of probation admissions, and 21% of alternative measure cases reaching agreement”.

The point is that we know just from this evidence that there are systemic problems in dealing with our aboriginal youth and that we in this House collectively have failed in many regards to resolve this situation.

On an issue like that, we would hope to find non-partisan ground to change things around. Quite frankly, this is an international embarrassment to our country. It is well known outside our borders what we have done in Canada with regard to our aboriginal people. Although there has been some recent success on some issues with regard to residential schools and the apology, at the same time we know we have systemic issues.

I would offer to my hon. colleague as a suggestion to the House that we support those programs that work with youth. From my perspective of formerly doing this type of work, we should make sure to have regular and routine funding. We always had a problem with that. We were always going after a small amount of funding to keep the program going as opposed to having long term, stable funding that is accountable and fully reviewed. That has great expectations attached to it, but it also has a measure of stability so that the professionals involved can make sure there is going to be continuity. That, and working with the youth in local populations, is how to provide opportunities for people to make better decisions, because there is that connection.

It is something I would like to see and which we can control. When we provide funding we must make sure it is long term, stable and predictable. The community organizations providing this work will have no problem whatsoever with being accountable and being reviewed, but at the same time they need to be supported appropriately.

[Carole Freeman, Bloc, Châteauguay—Saint-Constant, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to participate in today's debate at second reading of Bill C-25 to amend the Youth Criminal Justice Act. This bill has two main purposes. First, it broadens the circumstances allowing for custodial remand and, second, it adds denunciation and the deterrence of crime to the principles of sentencing. In addition, Bill C-25 clarifies that the presumption against the pre-trial detention of a young person is rebuttable and specifies the circumstances in which the presumption does not apply.

I want to make it very clear from the beginning that this bill is very much in line with the Conservative ideology, which consists of punishing the offender rather than preventing the offence. We have become accustomed to seeing this from this government since the Conservatives came to power in 2006.

So that our listeners may fully understand the impact of Bill C-25, I will comment on each of the provisions included in the bill and explain how this bill reacts to a deplorable situation, rather than preventing it from occurring in the first place.

The first provision states: a judge must presume that the pretrial detention of a young person is necessary if the young person is charged with a violent offence or an offence that otherwise endangered the public by creating a substantial likelihood of serious bodily harm to another person; the young person has been found guilty of failing to comply with non-custodial sentences or conditions of release; or the young person is charged with an indictable offence for which an adult would be liable to imprisonment for a term of more than two years and has a history that indicates a pattern of findings of guilt.

Those who are hearing this provision for the first time may consider the amendments appropriate and even logical since they refer to serious situations and offences. However, by transferring the burden of proof to the young person, the government is tampering with a fundamental feature of the justice system: the presumption of innocence. This is not the first time this government has tried to amend this aspect, but it must realize that we regularly see proof that not all charges lead to a guilty verdict.

In such a case, a youth who is detained before his trial and then is found innocent, will have experienced the often undesirable consequences of detention even though he did no wrong. In addition, because of the burden of proof on his shoulders, the youth will have to prove that he does not represent a risk even before being accused. The fact remains that we must avoid increased costs to communities to comply with the additional requirements. This logic is even more pertinent for those who are quite innocent but penalized by Bill C-25.

I have spoken often of the social and monetary costs of massive and preventive imprisonment in speeches on previous government justice legislation. Bill C-25 specifies that, henceforth, the sentence may have the objective of denouncing unlawful conduct or deterring one or more young persons from committing offences. Once again, anyone not very familiar with the law could find that this provision makes sense and would be a reasonable solution to a recurring problem. However, that is not the case at all.

This very ideological provision rejects the federal government's previous approach and runs directly counter to Quebec's traditional position. First, the fact that deterrence is not one of the objectives for youth sentencing in the Youth Criminal Justice Act is revealing. Why? Because the federal government in power at the time resisted imposing punishment for the sake of punishment and wanted to address the root causes of crime. It sought to focus on the reintegration of youth, often called for by parliamentarians in Quebec's National Assembly. However, the Conservative amendment is attacking efforts to not marginalize youth who make mistakes and to not send them to prison, the university of crime.

I want to emphasize that Quebec has already taken a stand in this matter. With regard to young offenders, it has traditionally opted for an approach based on rehabilitation and reintegration, a position strengthened by the passage of time and the results achieved.

When the federal government passed the Youth Criminal Justice Act, which replaced the Young Offenders Act, it was heavily criticized by the Quebec government for having ignored what Quebec had done in this area.

Specifically, the Government of Quebec felt that the new act undermined its approach, which is based on the reintegration of young offenders rather than on the seriousness of the offence. I remind the House that Quebec’s approach has enabled it to achieve the lowest rate of juvenile crime and recidivism in Canada.

Quebec has already challenged the constitutionality of certain provisions in the act before the Quebec Court of Appeal in view of the inflexibility shown by the federal government toward Quebec’s own specific approach.

It is clear, therefore, that although Bill C-25 may seem reassuring, it actually harbours objectives that are injurious to individuals and to Quebec.

The Bloc Québécois was vehemently opposed at the time to the reform of the Young Offenders Act, deeming it worthless and even dangerous because of its likely effects on the long-term reduction of crime. At the very least, Quebec should have been exempted from it. Quebec should be allowed to pursue its own approach based on the needs of young people and emphasizing prevention rather than rehabilitation.

Getting back to the Youth Criminal Justice Act, the government seems to have forgotten that the current act already permits the incarceration of violent young people who are at least 12 years old. It defines a young person as “a person who is…twelve years old or older but less than eighteen”. It also states unambiguously that incarceration should be the exception and judges should look first to extrajudicial measures before considering imprisonment.

It is obvious, therefore, that Bill C-25 is a backward step based on an unproven, punitive approach. What is worse, I remember that the former justice minister, my hon. colleague from Provencher, was toying with the idea of extending the act to include children as young as 10. How telling, Mr. Speaker, are the real intentions of this government.

Once again, the Bloc Québécois is proposing an approach that is suited to the situation in Quebec and defends its fundamental interests, this time in regard to justice.

First of all, we firmly believe that prevention remains the most effective approach. We need to address the causes of crime. This means that we have to prevent crime instead of waiting to repair the damage after a crime has been committed. Not only is it the most effective approach, but we believe that it is also the most beneficial, both socially and financially.

It could not be any clearer. As I have said on previous occasions, we must first deal with poverty, inequity and all forms of exclusion. In fact, exclusion breeds frustration, which in turn can lead to violence and crime as an outlet for these frustrations.

In the context of Bill C-25, youth justice should not be an exception. Young people should benefit from a healthy environment, they should not be living in extreme poverty and they should have access to affordable education. In all these areas, Quebec has made choices that set it apart, and we support these choices. As I mentioned earlier, the approach chosen by Quebec is yielding good results, thereby proving the lack of merit of the ideological and sensationalist shortcuts proposed by this government.

Of course, the Bloc Québécois is fully aware of the fact the young people commit crimes and that they must be brought to justice. It is the government's duty to use all the tools at its disposal to ensure that Quebeckers and Canadians can live in peace and safety.

In this regard, the measures that are brought forward must have a real, positive impact on crime, an effort that goes beyond sheer rhetoric and fearmongering. We need more than a mere imitation of the American model, which is yielding unconvincing results.

Like my colleagues, I also deplore the lack of seriousness with which the Conservative government brings in amendments or measures that reflect on the foundations of our justice system.

In conclusion, Bill C-25 should have been more than a response to mere impressions.

It should build on what is already working well and also allow Quebec to continue—

[The Acting Speaker, Conservative, Royal Galipeau]

I am sorry, but we have to move on to questions and comments.

The hon. member for Yukon has the floor.

[Larry Bagnell, Liberal, Yukon, YT]

Mr. Speaker, I think the theme this week will be the failure of the Conservative government to deal with crime.

We had dozens of expert witnesses in committee who gave us direction. As a member of the justice committee, how does she feel about the fact that the witnesses gave us suggestions on how we could reduce crime in Canada and the government ignored them? It must be very frustrating.

Being on that committee, I have found that people have studied this for years and have given us examples on how to reduce crime. It is very sad for the victims of crime, who will be victimized again. More Canadians will be victimized because the government is not making changes to the agenda to follow what the experts have told us about reducing crime.

Could the member, who is a very thoughtful member on the justice committee, comment on that?

[Carole Freeman, Bloc, Châteauguay—Saint-Constant, QC]

Mr. Speaker, first, I want to thank my colleague for his two-part question on how to reduce crime and on the solutions that could be used.

As regards reducing crime, there are models that exist. Currently, this government is very much influenced by the American and Republican ideology which, as confirmed by the statistics, is not producing any positive results. It does not reduce crime.

We have here a model that has proven its effectiveness, namely the Quebec model. There is absolutely no question about that. As the hon. member for Beauséjour mentioned earlier in his speech, the Quebec model should serve as an example to all legislatures, beginning with this government.

Quebec is currently the province with the lowest crime rate. That also applies to young people. When there is such a model around, we should follow it, push for prevention and rehabilitation, and work with young people right from the beginning. It so happens that this legislation deals with teenagers. It is at this stage in their lives, when young people may take a bad turn, that we must salvage and rehabilitate them, we must invest in prevention, instead of sending them to jail, to a place where, instead, they will learn about crime.

This approach, which the government is once again trying to impose on us, does not work. Studies and statistics constantly show that this approach does not yield any positive results and does not solve any problem. On the contrary, it creates more.

To answer my colleague, there are measures available. The Quebec model includes many of them. More importantly, these are effective, as is clearly confirmed by all the statistics.

[The Acting Speaker, Conservative, Royal Galipeau]

The member for Saint-Jean has the floor for a brief question.