Mr. Speaker, I invite the Liberals to stick around and listen. What I have to say is extremely interesting. I extend that invitation to the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister in particular. It would be worth her while.
To get back to what I was saying before I was interrupted by the quorum call, which incidentally the government, and not the opposition, is responsible for maintaining—if a quorum is called for, it is because there are not enough government MPs in the House, and this needs to be explained because people are not aware of it—
What the government MPs fail to understand is that it is up to them to maintain a presence in this House. They are the ones who have to maintain a quorum, not the Bloc Quebecois, not the Conservatives, not the NDP. They are the ones in power, and they are the ones who have to be here if the House is to keep operating.
That said—they cut me off in the best part and they are annoying me—the Minister of Justice's strategy for juvenile crime may be summarized as follows.
Mr. Speaker, my colleague should not leave but listen. She sets up an expensive and unsatisfactory new plan; she turns a deaf ear to remarks by Quebec, which properly applies the law; she refuses to reimburse Quebec for applying the law and, in the end, she is making political points in the West. Once again, the Liberal government should be ashamed of the way it manages its priorities.
Instead of spending most of this money on unlawful political forays such as the reference to the Supreme Court of Canada and unsuitable programs such as the reform of the Young Offenders Act and all the programs involving young offenders, the federal government should respond to the desperate needs of the people and to the legitimate expectations of Quebeckers.
For example, when will the government agree to make the necessary changes to the Freedom of Information Act, among others? How many reports by the commissioner of information have to be tabled in this House before the Minister of Justice agrees to reform a law which lacks the teeth to ensure access to information in Canada?
I will quote the information commissioner, who says “After 15 years, the Freedom of Information Act must be consolidated and modernized”.
He went on to say “The blame lies neither with fate nor with the law, it lies with the government and officials who prefer to complain of the demands of access to information rather than espouse its noble objectives, who prefer to deny the public the information it paid for with its taxes”.
If the government spent carefully, perhaps we might see an access to information act that would give Canadians and Quebeckers the transparency democracy requires.
What is strange, when one looks at past Debates , is that when the Liberals were the opposition, they made comments, for instance about the Access to Information Act, to the effect that it did not meet their needs, that it did not give access to all documents, that things were being concealed. They said that it was not strict enough, or this or that.
Now they are on the other side. They could amend the Access to Information Act, to reflect their criticisms while in opposition. But when one is on the gravy train, when one is busy concealing all manner of things from the public, and when one is in government, there is no desire to change things. That is where the Liberals are at now. They are hiding behind a law that needs changing, even the access to information commissioner says so.
I could also say a great deal about all the unnecessary expenditures, or more particularly what the department is not doing and ought to be doing, with the $193 million or so that will be voted to it this evening.
Among other things, it could introduce a money laundering bill. Why does the federal government not spend some money on looking at the possibility of legislation to tighten things up so that Canada is no longer the hub of money laundering? Billions pass through Quebec, Ontario and the other provinces for that very purpose, and the federal government sits there with its arms folded.
It says “Isn't it terrible about all that money laundering” but does nothing. The opposition has often asked questions on this and the members of the government do nothing about it.
The Bloc Quebecois did manage, through its efforts, to push the government across the way into introducing anti-gang legislation. I see the hon. member for Hochelaga—Maisonneuve who worked hard with me on this issue in the Standing Committee on Justice, when we were the official opposition. We managed to get the Liberal government to make concessions, although not as many as we would have liked.
If we are going to give a little over $193 million to the Department of Justice, why not add certain provisions to the anti-gang legislation, so we can go after gang leaders? As we know, all those who implement this legislation say that it does not allow them to go after the leaders.
It is time the government used its money for legitimate purposes. It is time it admitted to making some bad choices. It is time it recognized that things are done differently in Quebec and listened to Quebeckers' concerns about, among other things, the Young Offenders Act, which is a very simple piece of legislation.