Mr. Speaker, the motivation behind my speech in the House regarding the changes to the Witness Protection Program Act has to do with the need to address issues related to the involvement of a disadvantaged youth population in criminal and marginal activities in response to discrimination based on ethnic and cultural origins.
As I have already indicated in a previous intervention, all too often, young people become involved in criminal groups or gangs in response to imposed marginalization and because they have accepted the role that has been assigned to a certain segment of the population or to certain individuals. My arguments are based on my own personal experience as a criminal lawyer and on my experience dealing with young people who have a record with Quebec's director of youth protection.
This premise opens the door to a summary examination of the context of anomie that leads to group mentality and the predominance of an artificial authority figure exerting undue influence on a certain stratum of youth, thereby perpetuating the downward spiral that exists in many societies dealing with the scourge of street gangs.
I will now clarify the concept of anomie. I will simply define the terms used in the field. The term “anomie” is used to describe societies or groups within a society that are unstable as a result of a lack of commonly accepted standards, whether implicit or explicit, or, worse, as a result of the presence of rules that promote isolation or even predation rather than co-operation.
My arguments and comments will be based on my professional experience, as they have been in the past. The group mentality phenomenon among young people, as seen in street gangs—if they can be referred to as such—on Indian reserves in northern Quebec, is related to the social upheaval in and dysfunction of the broader community.
The problem is that there are too few professional role models and very few parental role models. When we look at the reasons why a young person joins a gang or a criminal movement, a lack of supervision and the lack of a positive parental role model are often at the root of the problem in most, but not all, cases.
In short, to fill this void, young people often turn to negative role models. Some somewhat older role models in the community who were also caught up in the group mentality and who were also members of street gangs when they were young, have become the mentors—if I can use that expression—and leaders of these groups, which perpetuates the cycle of crime on Indian reserves. These negative role models make sure that their needs and addictions are taken care of by basically placing younger members of the gang at their beck and call.
I submit this respectfully, and I will talk more about this in the future.
