Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Yesterday, the Association des centres jeunesse du Québec, the Société de criminologie du Québec, the Institut Philippe-Pinel, the Canadian Criminal Justice Association and the Association des services de réhabilitation sociale du Québec formed a common front in declaring that the bill would have a harmful impact on the public. Those organizations talked about over-populated prisons, wasted money, an ineffective system and impaired social reintegration.
Patrick Altimas, who is director general of the Association des services de réhabilitation sociale du Québec, said that what the government was offering was a solution looking for a problem. Michel Gagnon, from the CCJA, said: "This intransigent attitude toward individuals in trouble with the law is a major concern for us."
All members of Quebec's National Assembly have rejected the omnibus Bill C-10, and the Barreau du Québec recently denounced the proposed measures, saying that they met no real need in the justice system. That, moreover, is the argument the government often advances when defending Bill C-10, that is to say that it meets a genuine need.
Mr. Sullivan, listening to your testimony put me in mind of that of Susan O'Sullivan. I believe she appeared last week. She only told us about the good aspects of the bill, about the fact that the government wanted victims to be consulted more, particularly at parole hearings, and about the need for dialogue with those victims.
This bill is enormous because it concerns a large number of acts. We're told that its purpose is to make the streets safer, to ensure that sentences are proportionate to and more representative of the crimes committed, so that violent crimes, serious crimes, are punished. I hear an individual who has worked and is still working with victims telling us that's not at all the case. That's what a number of specialists also assert. As an individual who is studying this bill for the first time, I must admit that it troubles me a great deal. When I associate it with other comments that we have heard, yours does not surprise me.
I would like to ask Ms. Pate the following question.
Our prisons are already quite over-populated. This will have an impact on women incarcerated at prisons for women. Prisons were not always built for women.
In your opinion, is this an additional problem of Bill C-10?