Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise on behalf of my constituents and my party to address Bill C-3, an act in respect of criminal justice for young persons and to amend and repeal other acts.
We thought that the Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada would have used the opportunity provided by the throne speech delivered on October 12 to let this very controversial bill, formerly Bill C-8 during the first session of the legislature, die on the order paper, like so many other bills.
Indeed, the primary purpose of a throne speech delivered half way through a mandate is to allow the government to adjust some of its policies, to review certain bills or to let them die on the order paper. Such was not the case with this legislation.
The minister is reintroducing the same bill, in spite of the numerous concerns expressed by the public, particularly in Quebec, and is pursuing the same goal, which is to fight Reformers on their own turf, on the right, so as to improve her party's image in western Canada.
Bill C-3 does not merely amend the Young Offenders Act, it repeals it. In it the minister sets out the new principles applicable to youth crime, which means that the basic principles of the Young Offenders Act, including respect for adolescents' special needs, will be replaced by new ones that have nothing to do with the specific characteristics of youth crime.
My colleague responsible for this issue, the hon. member for Berthier—Montcalm, suggested in a letter to the minister this summer, sent after he learned that the government was proroguing the session, that she take advantage of the opportunity provided by the throne speech to withdraw her bill for the following reasons:
Your reform has no justification. Statistics clearly demonstrate the effectiveness of the way the law is being enforced in Quebec, based on the special needs of adolescents and individual treatment tailored to the specific characteristics of the adolescent and not to the nature and seriousness of the offence he or she has committed.
Statistics in Quebec demonstrate just how right my colleague from Berthier—Montcalm was. As I have already said, Quebec has the lowest youth crime rate in Canada. Yet in her bill the minister maintains her focus on seriousness of the offence and on repression, rather than reintegration. Why does she insist on this? What is she hiding, if not a desire to move to the right along with Reform, to the detriment of children?
This bill, if implemented as drafted, risks marking young people for life and turning them into hardened criminals rather than putting them back on the right road. The most intriguing element in this situation is the fact that the minister, in agreeing to what she calls a degree of flexibility, an opting out mechanism, shows that she has some doubt about her bill.
The minister claims there is flexibility, because provincial prosecutors will have, in each case, to decide whether or not they are opposed to the imposition of adult sentences on 14 year olds.
This same government, which intrudes all too often in areas of provincial jurisdiction in the name of a sacrosanct national standard, will allow, with this bill, differences in application that will be left up to provincial prosecutors.
In Quebec, a number of organizations belong to the Coalition pour la justice des mineurs. They believe the minister is making a serious mistake by making repression the focus of her bill. These organizations include the Commission des services juridiques, the Conseil permanent de la jeunesse, the École de criminologie of the University of Montreal, the Montreal community legal centre, the Fondation québécoise pour les jeunes contrevenants, the Institut Philippe-Pinel, the Association des chefs de police et pompiers du Québec, the Conférence des régies régionales de la santé et des services sociaux, the Association des centres jeunesse du Québec, the Commission des droits de la personne et des droits de la jeunesse, the crown prosecutors' office, the Association des CLSC et des CHSLD du Québec, the École de psychoéducation of the University of Montreal, the Regroupement des organismes de justice alternative du Québec, the child welfare league of Canada, the Canadian criminal justice association, the Association des avocats de la défense du Québec and the Société de criminologie du Québec.
This is quite a number of organizations that are close to adolescents and that think the minister is making a mistake.
There is another example that warrants considerable thought, although it is somewhat different. Last Thursday, in a riding next to mine, in the town of Valleyfield, the Association des groupes d'intervention en défense des droits en santé mentale du Québec was holding a conference on isolation and restraint, on surviving and eliminating them.
Interviewed in La Presse , Dr. Tomkiewicz, renowned world over for his work in juvenile delinquency said:
Isolation and restraint accomplish nothing. I cannot see how they are therapeutic. With adolescents, the first thing to do is to talk to them, listen to them, get to know them, in short, treat them like individuals with their own story, and a capacity for love. Since 1960, I have been reducing the aggressiveness of young people through creativity, art, theatre, film and photography, and it works.
And this took place just recently, last week, not far from my riding.
Members will agree that what he has to say bears no resemblance to the Liberal philosophy, a policy which I would describe as repressive.
Bill C-3 broadens the group of offenders who may be tried in adult court to include 14 and 15 year olds. It establishes a sentence of custody for young people at higher risk and repeat offenders in cases of violent offences.
The example I gave earlier is much more consistent with the enforcement of the legislation in Quebec and the vision of the Bloc Quebecois than the repressive philosophy of the Liberal party.
According to the newspaper article on the conference, several other guest speakers shared Dr. Tomkiewicz's views. Among them were Gilles Gendron, a professor at the University of Montreal, Daniel Michelin, of the Centre jeunesse in Montérégie, and Marc Bélanger, of the Commission des droits de la personne et de la jeunesse.
I cannot understand why this government, which has been spending millions on consultations in various fields for the past year, supposedly to avoid making any mistakes, is now ignoring not only the recommendations of specialists, but the experience and excellent results obtained in Quebec.
Once again, we note that the problem with Canadian federalism lies more in its implementation than in its form. That is why I hope that the minister will take into account the views of and results obtained in Quebec and amend this much contested bill.