Mr. Speaker, I have always respected the hon. member for Brome—Missisquoi but today I was both surprised and disappointed by his comments.
He based part of his arguments on the fact that he is a former president of the Quebec Bar Association. Listening to him, I got the impression that he was talking more like a Liberal member trying to support a minister who finds herself in a rather awkward situation.
As a Quebecer, he is well aware of. I know that he reads the newspapers. I was not surprised to see that La Presse did not publish his letter because La Presse must have realized that it did not reflect the consensus in Quebec.
Let me ask the following question of this former president of the bar association. I think La Presse should have noted that the national assembly, of which his brother is a member, agrees that this bill makes no sense in Quebec.
All the organizations, the youth centres, the representatives of the young people and the CLSCs say so. Everybody says so. There is a consensus, and the member for Berthier—Montcalm has shown this on a number of occasions. I even did so in the previous parliament. There was a very broad consensus among all the organizations concerned with young people in Quebec. They say that this law makes no sense, that is was introduced simply to please a certain western lobby, which wants measures to be more severe.
He surprises me especially where he expresses the statistics in national terms and notes increases in certain statistics. At the same time, he speaks of a 6% increase in detentions in Quebec, finding that this is serious and significant. Yet, the rate of detention is low—that is the way to see it—in fact, it is lower in Quebec than elsewhere in Canada. He said there was a slight increase and yet this is where there are the fewest detentions in Canada. His making a point of saying “It increased by 6%” in order to justify his remarks, I find unacceptable.
Is the member aware of the list of all those opposing his bill? Could he list, by memory, those involved with young people in Quebec who agree with what he says? Could he name a dozen organizations in Quebec that would agree? Does he remember all those opposed, when in fact there is a consensus, which includes the Quebec National Assembly and his own brother?