Debates of Feb. 22nd, 1995

Petitions

[Randy White, Reform, Fraser Valley West, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to table two petitions in this House today, both of which I support.

The first petition calls upon Parliament to oppose any amendments to the Canadian Human Rights Act or the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms which provide for the inclusion of the phrase sexual orientation.

[Randy White, Reform, Fraser Valley West, BC]

Mr. Speaker, the second petition asks that Parliament reduce government

spending instead of increasing taxes and implement a taxpayer protection act to limit federal spending.

[Dave Chatters, Reform, Athabasca, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to present two petitions in accordance with Standing Order 36.

The first is from petitioners in the Lesser Slave Lake-Westlock area in my riding. They request simply that the hon. finance minister not increase our net taxes in this year's budget.

[Dave Chatters, Reform, Athabasca, AB]

Mr. Speaker, in the second petition the petitioners request that Parliament support laws that will severely punish all criminals who use weapons in the commission of a crime, support new Criminal Code firearms control provisions which recognize and protect the rights of law-abiding citizens to own and use recreational firearms, support legislation that will repeal and modify existing gun control laws which have not improved public safety or have proven not to be cost effective or have proven to be overly complex as to be ineffective and/or unenforceable.

I concur with the petitioners.

[Jim Hart, Reform, Okanagan—Similkameen—Merritt, BC]

Mr. Speaker, today I have three petitions all dealing with the same subject matter regarding gun legislation.

My constituents from Okanagan-Similkameen-Merritt call on Parliament to oppose further legislation for firearms acquisition and possession and to provide strict guidelines for the mandatory sentence for use or possession of a firearm in the commission of a violent crime. There are 309 signatures on these three petitions which adds to a total of 1,839 of my constituents who have signed this petition to date.

[Tony Valeri, Liberal, Lincoln, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I have the pleasure to present three petitions to the House today. Pursuant to Standing Order 36, I have the pleasure to present to the House a petition signed by the constituents of Lincoln which reads: "The courts of Canada have deemed that the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms applies to all people in Canada regardless of status. We request that the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms apply to Canadian citizens and people of landed immigrant status only".

[Tony Valeri, Liberal, Lincoln, ON]

Mr. Speaker, pursuant to Standing Order 36, I am tabling a second petition requesting that Parliament not amend the Canadian Human Rights Act or the Charter of Rights and Freedoms which would tend to indicate societal approval of same sex relations.

[Tony Valeri, Liberal, Lincoln, ON]

Lastly, Mr. Speaker, I have the honour of tabling a petition pursuant to Standing Order 36 which asks that Parliament ensure that the present provisions of the Criminal Code of Canada prohibiting assisted suicide are enforced vigorously and to make no changes in the law that would sanction or allow the aiding or abetting of suicide or active or passive euthanasia.

[Chuck Strahl, Reform, Fraser Valley East, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I do thank you for the exercise that I was able to get during this period. It was quite invigorating to be on my feet this often.

During the past month or so it has been my pleasure to distribute this petition which has been signed by over 20,000 people from Victoria to Halifax; 9,000 of these people are from my own constituency of Fraser Valley East.

The petitioners call upon the government to take notice that they are already overburdened with taxation due to high government spending. Whereas the government is considering tax increases in the next federal budget, the petitioners pray and request that Parliament reduce government spending instead of increasing taxes and implement a taxpayer protection act.

Obviously these petitions are easy to get people to sign and continue to flood into my office. It is a pleasure to present them on behalf of Canadians.

[The Acting Speaker (Mr. Kilger)]

The good news for the hon. member for Fraser Valley East is that he has to sign the back of each and every one of those.

Questions On The Order Paper

[Peter Milliken, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

I ask, Mr. Speaker, that all questions be allowed to stand.

[Jean-Paul Marchand, Bloc, Québec-Est, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I placed Question No. 93 on the Order Paper on October 19. It should not be so difficult to come up with a response since the question was tabled on October 19, over four months ago. Normally, as you know, such questions must be answered within 45 days. Despite what the hon. member said, I know full well that this is not a complicated question. The data requested is well documented.

Knowing the minister responsible for this department, I am telling you, Mr. Speaker, that the delay in answering this

question is part of the minister's strategy of silence. They are interfering with access to information and making it increasingly difficult. That was my experience with this minister and I am convinced-

[The Acting Speaker (Mr. Kilger)]

Order. I do not think this is a point of order as such.

[Peter Milliken, Liberal, Kingston and the Islands, ON]

Mr. Speaker, as I indicated to the hon. member-I think it was on Monday and also last Friday- the government considered his representations. We are in the process of drafting a response to this question. I am certain that there are people now working on the response.

[Jean-Paul Marchand, Bloc, Québec-Est, QC]

I am not so sure about that.

[Peter Milliken, Liberal, Kingston and the Islands, ON]

Yes, I am sure, because I made inquiries regarding this question on Monday before the hon. member raised his point of order, and I am certain that we will soon have a response for the hon. member, which I will table here in this House.

[English]

Once again, I thank the hon. member for raising this issue ad nauseam. I am delighted he is able to pursue it in this way. I look forward to having the response soon, as I indicated the other day.

I request that all questions be allowed to stand.

[The Acting Speaker (Mr. Kilger)]

Shall the questions be allowed to stand?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

Motions For Papers

[Peter Milliken, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, I would ask that the notice of motion for the production of papers be allowed to stand.

[The Acting Speaker (Mr. Kilger)]

Shall the notice of motion for the production of papers be allowed to stand?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

The House resumed from February 20 consideration of the motion that Bill C-37, an act to amend the Young Offenders Act and the Criminal Code, be read the third time and passed.

Young Offenders Act

[Jean-Paul Marchand, Bloc, Québec-Est, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I welcome this opportunity to speak to Bill C-37, which concerns young offenders, because this is a very important and very revealing bill. If we look at all the aspects of this bill, basically, it contains all the elements of a debate on social values.

As you know, Quebec is involved in a process that is leading up to sovereignty, and often people wonder why we in Quebec are doing this. People wonder what kind of society we want in Quebec. Well, this is a good example of the kind of legislation Quebec wants to avoid, the kind of legislation that does not reflect tendencies in Quebec at all. As long as Quebec remains in Canada, however, we will never be able to introduce legislation that, in my opinion, would be fairer and more equitable than Bill C-37.

When I say this could develop into a debate on social values, I mean that, when we talk about young offenders, we talk about young people, we talk about young people in our society and we also talk about violence. These are two subjects that go to the very heart of a society and reflect what is wrong with society. When young people commit violent crimes or commit suicide or are extreme in the way they act, it is because there is something very wrong with society.

It is symptomatic and also reflects all the problems besetting society. We cannot consider the issue of young offenders in isolation. We cannot isolate young people's problems as we would do in the case of transportation or more technical problems. We are talking strictly about the human, fundamental values in society. We cannot isolate this from the fact that we have poverty and unemployment, for instance, some of the factors by which society is defined. We cannot consider the problem in isolation. We cannot find the cause because there is no single cause.

An issue like that of young offenders must be approached with an open mind. We must consider what society is to us as well as our attitude to society and our attitude to justice within that society. We cannot take a short term view of this issue.

If we are to deal with the question of young offenders, we must have a comprehensive vision of society, a long term vision. Young offenders are a very serious problem that goes to the very heart of our society.

Once Quebec is sovereign, it will be a small and, I think, well integrated society. I think it will be able to come up with a real solution. In fact, the current legislation in Quebec that deals with young offenders is more advanced than what is being proposed by the federal government. I have the impression that a sovereign Quebec will be able to pursue this approach, to deal with the problem as we will deal with other problems, and that it will have a more enlightened sense of justice than what we see in Bill C-37.

I would say that, as long as Quebec is a part of Canada, we will never find a constructive way to deal with the problem of young

offenders, because Bill C-37 is an attempt to respond to the demands of people from the West, people who have a different perspective and take a different approach to the problem.

Bill C-37 is an attempt to respond to their concerns and their way of dealing with the problem. And consequently, this creates a problem for Quebec. It prevents us from going ahead with our own strategy.

As long as Quebec stays in Canada, there will be a jurisdictional tug of war, on this issue as on many others, because of the difference in vision. In this case, there is a very obvious difference between Western Canada and Quebec. Our two approaches are diametrically opposed.

This bill, which is an attempt to strike a balance, to respond to the demands of the West, will prevent the Quebec system from going ahead. It will be a waste of time and effort, it will not solve the problem, as I have been trying to explain, and will provide no remedy at all for the problem of young offenders. It is an exercise in futility and a waste of money, time and effort. I do not see anything constructive in Bill C-37.

In fact, the bill itself focuses particularly on young people 16 and 17 years of age, who are charged with serious crimes involving violence, such as murder. It would mean that these young people could be brought before adult courts. They can be sent to youth courts, but with this bill, they could be tried in adult courts.

If young people are tried in youth courts, the sentences will be harsher. The maximum sentence for murder will increase from five to ten years. The qualifying periods for parole will increase, parole will be harder to obtain, and the records of young offenders will be retained longer.

In short, this bill imposes stiffer sentences on young persons, particularly those who are 16 and 17 years of age. This is the spirit of this bill: impose harsher sentences on young offenders. But violence among young people is the work of a few. They do not represent a particular trend in society. They represent a very small proportion of young people-a few dozen.

This bill deals with a few exceptional cases, which do not represent any sort of trend in society. There is no distressing increase in violence by 16 and 17 year olds. The figures over some 15 years in this area reveal no sort of increase.

Until 1992, there was a five per cent increase in crimes involving young persons, but since then, the figure has been more like 2 per cent. This is the general crime rate among young people. This increase compared with the increase in population reveals no startling change.

All of the experts agree that the rate of serious crimes among young people, such as murder, manslaughter, aggravated assault, has remained stable or has decreased in the past decade. This is what the statistics tell us about the number of violent crimes among young people.

We cannot even say that violent crime has increased among young people, but we can say that there have been a few cases, the exception. For example, the two boys in England who killed a child of five or six, or other cases we can cite as examples of sensationalism, which were given considerable attention on television and in the newspapers.

Bill C-37 is in response to this sort of sensationalism or this perception. We are not dealing with a critical problem for society. There is no crisis; violence is not really on the rise among young people. This bill is trying to deal with very exceptional cases.

That is the nature of the problem with this bill. I would like now to address the consequences for young persons of calling for harsher sentences at this time. The consequences are, to be sure, the same as for older criminals, that is people in adult penitentiaries. The consequences are the same and every study by every expert confirms unequivocally that the sentence offenders receive has no influence whatsoever on the crime rate.

Imposing sentences of 10, 15 or 20 years will not reduce crime. Studies show this clearly. Moreover, in looking at the situation, it seems that the more sentences are increased, the greater the number of offenders. Go visit Canadian penitentiaries. I have had the opportunity to visit every penitentiary in Canada, from Dorchester to the B.C. maximum security prison, including the Saskatchewan maximum security institution. I worked for the Canadian Penitentiary Service and visited all Canadian penitentiaries and, looking at what goes on inside them. Considering the studies and statistics, one realizes that, once a person is sent to a Canadian federal penitentiary, there is a four in five chance that he will return a second time and the odds increase.

Canadian penitentiaries are training grounds for criminals, quite simply, and this is very easy to understand. If you go to Dorchester or any other prison, you will see how the law of violence rules these places. When they get out, people are already trained for violence, especially in Canadian penitentiaries as they were in my day, where there was no training of any kind, no rehabilitation or, if there was any, they were silly things such as programs to make mail bags.

Yes, there were a few little programs here and there, for training, education, but generally speaking there was no training, no rehabilitation program whatsoever. Prisoners were left to their own devices and when released from prison, the situation was clearly disastrous. There are organizations which try to help prisoners after their release, such as the Elizabeth Fry Society for women, and there is also an organization which tries to help released prisoners, I forget the name, but there is very, very little help.

In those days, the system was such that you could predict the number of criminals society would produce. In the penitentiary system, prison construction plans were drawn up for five or ten years down the road. In fact, when I was there, my job was to try to find cities where prisons could be built. The penitentiary system was a real industry within the government.

We therefore could predict when we could fill them. Obviously, that could serve some political purpose. In fact, some politicians thought that it was desirable to have a penitentiary in their riding because it created jobs.

We can agree that imposing longer and heavier prison sentences is not the solution. Nobody thinks that this is the way to help people who have committed serious crimes, especially young offenders. There is hope in setting up rehabilitation and training programs for young people. At least they can be rehabilitated. It is not by imposing heavier sentences that we can hope to rehabilitate offenders.

From the way this bill is taking shape, it seems that we will be able to send 16 and 17 year olds to penitentiaries. The 27-year olds leaving jail after 10-year prison terms will be hardened criminals. This resolves nothing.

In fact, Bill C-37 has sprung from a thirst for revenge. It was also created to please politicians from the right who think that heavier sentences will thin out the criminal element. It resolves nothing. It does not improve the lot of young people.

The bill itself is incoherent. It will create administrative problems and delays for Quebec, which has already taken the rehabilitation route. Quebec is already well on its way to helping young offenders, and Bill C-37 will slow us down in this endeavour.

It seems to me that anyone with a heart will realize that young people do not need to be put away, they need to be closely supervised. In my opinion, this is the best solution. Quebec already is on the right track, and a sovereign Quebec will be able to continue in that direction, not only when it comes to assistance for young offenders, but also when it comes to the issues of justice and violence. As a country, we will be able to propose real solutions, rather than measures like Bill C-37, which in no way resolve a very, very serious problem.

[Paul Forseth, Reform, New Westminster—Burnaby, BC]

Mr. Speaker, at the beginning of his speech the member talked about a more fair and equitable policy. More fair to whom, the offenders or the victims; fairer to law-abiders or lawbreakers?

He introduced a notion of values that should be upheld. He also indicated that there was no single cause of crime. He tried to turn that around to say that we need some long term global view rooted in the basic problems of society. He advocated a more insular cohesive Quebec with reduced interaction with the larger social world and that somehow that would ameliorate the young offender problem. I assert to the member that is just another version of separatist fantasy stories.

Then he talked about Bill C-37, that perhaps it was only requested because of problems arising in the west. I advise the member that the human heart is the same and the propensity for young offenders to offend is the same across the country.

It seems every comment from the Bloc is turned into a territorial turf question about who is in control and has a varied sociological view. This does nothing to constructively build a better Canadian society. The member denies the reality of youth crime in his own province. He advocates a separatist ideology of expansive social order and an inappropriate response to youth crime.

Canadians across the country have subsidized rehabilitation efforts for offenders in Quebec. We do that with transfer payments yet he wants to abandon it. He claims that a separate country of Quebec could do a lot better. I say he is mistaken about his dreams. I advise him that the polls tell us that most Quebecers also say he is just dreaming.

[Jean-Paul Marchand, Bloc, Québec-Est, QC]

Mr. Speaker, thank God I am dreaming. Thank God that I can hope to improve or to speak in ways that can improve society.

The system of justice is for whom? Certain people in the House speak only about the victims. As far as I am concerned from what I have read, the system of justice was conceived to protect and improve society. People who think that hanging the person who killed so-and-so will make the family of the victim better off are not thinking clearly or do not have a grasp of the problem.

We need laws that try to improve society as a whole. It is not by imposing more severe punishment on young offenders that we will improve the lot of society.

In response again to the hon. member, in Quebec we have the capacity to bring in a better system. We already have because in Quebec we understand. We have a sense of humanity in respect of young offenders that allows us to think in terms of rehabilitating them rather than thinking exclusively of putting them into prison and increasing the punishment, which has proven to be totally useless not only for the young but for the older criminals.

We are already on a progressive path in respect of that problem. Bill C-37 is retrograde. It is coercive. It is repressive. It is like going back to the Middle Ages. That is why I say that in Quebec, and especially in a sovereign Quebec, we will probably,

hopefully, be able to do things a bit better. I hope people elsewhere will also be able to do better.

It is not just a question of territorial control. Certainly it is a question of justice. It is a question of cultural sovereignty. It is a way of interpreting justice. Our way in Quebec of interpreting how young offenders should be judged is more equitable or more profitable in the long term for society than forcing young offenders to be submitted to longer terms of imprisonment, which are a total waste of human life.