Mr. Speaker, the new session opened with a Speech from the Throne, in which the government was supposed to highlight its new policy thrusts during the second half of its mandate.
As justice critic for the Bloc Quebecois, I carefully examined the throne speech and I was sorry to see that it only confirmed that the government wants a Reform style justice system.
Since it paves the way for the next election, the throne speech, inevitable, was greatly influenced by the right and the intolerance movement with which both the Liberals and the Reformers seem to be so cozy. Under these circumstances, political expediency is the rule: public perception prevails over public interests.
The Reform Party, which has been actively promoting law and order ever since its election to this House, as we have seen many times, took advantage of the shift to the right and, in the last two federal elections, campaigned on a platform that called for a harsher youth justice system. Reformers decided to fight tooth and nail against what they saw as the excessive clemency of Liberal policies toward young offenders.
Given the situation, it is unlikely that the government will reconsider its plan to reform the Young Offenders Act. This is unfortunate, because the government will be missing an opportunity to show how effective the current legislation is and to distance itself from the demagogic policies of the Reform Party.
Bill C-68, the Young Offenders Act, as it was called when it was introduced, died on the Order Paper, since we started a new session. However, statistics on young offenders tell us it was a pointless piece of legislation anyway.
Statistics clearly show how effective a young offenders act can be if it is properly enforced. Many experts in Quebec have condemned the justice minister's eagerness to sacrifice several decades of expertise. Nevertheless she is standing her ground, claiming that a so-called flexibility will allow provinces, especially Quebec, to continue enforcing the model of their choice.
Such flexibility, a kind of opting out, which is as virtual as a stroll on the bow of Titanic , is not tangible and the minister knows it full well.
The system the minister has been proposing so far is based on the nature and seriousness of the offence, thereby ignoring the young offenders' needs.
As a matter of fact, the bill—and this is important—did not even mention the special needs of teenagers. However, it is precisely because the Young Offenders Act allows for individual treatment based on each teenager's own characteristics that Quebec has the lowest juvenile crime rate in Canada.
During her summer vacation in Alberta, the Minister of Justice must have had the time to review the request from the Bloc Quebecois and the Quebec government to withdraw Bill C-68 or, at the very least, to amend it in order to allow the province to continue enforcing the Young Offenders Act its own way, the Quebec way.
By granting this reasonable request, the minister would make it possible to keep intact an approach that has already proven itself. On the other hand, an outright rejection might lead to improper handling of young offenders.
According to the Speech from the Throne, “the Government will reintroduce legislation to reform the youth justice system”.
We hoped that the term “reintroduce” would not mean reintroduction of all the provisions of Bill C-68 on young offenders, a bill no one in Quebec wanted. However, based on the rumours going around the Hill, I fear that the minister will be introducing Bill C-68 in its entirety within days. Should this be the case, I trust that members will remind the Minister of Justice that it is not in the interests of either Quebecers or Canadians to back such a reform, since it is not warranted by the present situation.
The statistics the minister is quoting in support of the Young Offenders Act demonstrate that she does not need to do anything to change that act, only to require that those provinces that do not enforce it do so, in order to achieve the same results as we have had in Quebec.
Those involved in this area in Quebec have worked tirelessly to prevent juvenile delinquency from leading to “chronic delinquency”; it would be unfortunate to impose upon them an instrument unsuited to youth rehabilitation.
In the course of my summer reading, I came across a quote from Honoré de Balzac “Once the convicts were marked, once they were given their numbers, they took on an unalterable character”. It is my belief that, with the young offenders legislation, or the amendments the Minister of Justice wants to make to the Young Offenders Act, these young people will be marked forever, branded, considering all the publicity that surrounds this issue.
When the time is right, and when the minister reintroduces—as rumours on the Hill would have it—the bill to amend the Young Offenders Act, we shall see what transpires, but the fear is that the minister will go back on the prior commitments.
Too much effort has been invested in Quebec to date for us to be forced in future to regretfully apply the Balzac citation to ourselves. For our collective security, the Minister of Justice must abandon her plans once and for all.
Unfortunately, the experience with young offenders legislation reform is not the only one of its kind. By way of example, the debate on the reinstatement of life sentences for persons driving while impaired is another illustration of the need for sensationalism of the federal justice system.
By way of reminder, the government initially agreed with the Bloc Quebecois and amended Bill-82 to retain the 14 year maximum sentence for persons driving while impaired and causing death. During the negotiations preceding the adjournment for the summer recess, the Bloc Quebecois contended that a life sentence was unreasonable, despite the seriousness of such an offence.
It was a mistake to think that the government would stop there. Everything indicates, once again, according to the rumours on the Hill, that the government will introduce another bill to obtain a life sentence for impaired driving causing death.
We will see that, on the subject of justice, the Liberals, the Reformers and, to some extent, the Progressive Conservatives, are all on the far right.
At page 23, the throne speech provides:
The Government will focus attention on new and emerging threats to Canadians and their neighbours around the world. It will work to combat criminal activity that is becoming increasingly global in scope, including money laundering, terrorism, and the smuggling of people, drugs and guns.
It continues:
The Government will strengthen the capacity of the RCMP and other agencies to address threats to public security in Canada—
I do not know if the government realizes that there is a world of difference between what it says in its speech and what it does in reality. Since the Liberals took office in 1993, funding for the war against drug trafficking and organized crime has been reduced by $11 million. The throne speech talks about strengthening our capacity in that area when, in fact, there has been a decrease in funding.
As strange as it may seem, even though the federal government is aware of a 12% annual increase in drug related crimes, as reported in one of its own documents, it has reduced the number of police officers investigating these kinds of crime.
Maybe reality has caught up with the Liberals but they do not know exactly what to do. They should listen more carefully to certain proposals made by the Bloc Quebecois, including the bill introduced by the member for Charlesbourg to withdraw $1,000 notes from circulation to help in the fight against money laundering. We presented all kinds of information.
I will close by saying that, at some point, the Bloc Quebecois will reach out to the federal government to conduct a serious study on the whole issue of organized crime.
I see the Minister of International Trade. I think that, as a member from Quebec, it would be interesting if he could co-operate with the Bloc Quebecois to set sound policies—