Mr. Speaker, like the member for Quebec, I believe it is my duty to rise today to speak against the bill. It will be extremely detrimental. It will fly in the face of the approach developed by hundreds if not thousands of people who have been working for years with Quebec youth; this approach has a proven track record.
It is based on rehabilitation and the needs of young people. It is individualized and specific. It does not include automatic haphazard punitive measures without any regard for the context and the situation of the young offender.
Before daring to hand out harsher sentences, and considering sentencing young people at an ever younger age to adult sentences, the government should first prove to us that the approach put forward by Quebec is no good. It is in fact quite the contrary; it has yielded very good results, as a matter of fact the best in Canada, as mentioned on many occasions by the member for Berthier—Montcalm. He has done an outstanding job of reaching people working in the field in Quebec and consulting them. Of course he first studied the act very carefully. And then he consulted workers in the field, which he has been doing for a long time.
The government is seeking to respond to a need or request voiced in one area of our country, more specifically western Canada—where there is a right wing movement, we must say—and try to apply this approach coast to coast, including in Quebec, when we have the lowest youth crime rate. As a matter of fact, statistics show that youth crime rates have been dropping throughout Canada.
It is quite incredible to see that, when the situation is improving and not deteriorating, the government has decided to pass a bill that is even harsher and that holds our young offenders responsible for their acts by punishing them. This is quite inconceivable.
Since 1993, with other members of the Bloc, we sometimes visit various provinces in Canada. I will always remember that, in the fall of 1994, with my colleagues from Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup—Témiscouata—Les Basques and Mercier, I was part of a tour that dealt with social programs, and we found out that, depending on the province, there was a different culture and a different mentality, but also different social problems, different ways of treating problems. The rest of Canada tends to depend more on the central government than Quebecers.
Quebecers, however, federalists as well as sovereigntists, have always had more confidence in their own government, in the government that is the closest to their problems, especially social problems, such as those we are talking about today.
To talk about young offenders is to talk about teenagers. To talk about teenagers is to talk about the future. When we send these teenagers to prison, thinking that we will rehabilitate them by doing so, we are in fact putting them in a school for crime.
Recently, I heard a speech by Marc Beaupré, who went on a consultation and awareness raising tour with the hon. member for Berthier—Montcalm. He told us that he himself stayed two days in prison—not to serve a sentence of course—but as a learning experience. In those two days, he was taught many things. We can only imagine what he would have learned had he stayed longer. He gave that as an example. He learned a few of the tricks taught in the school for crime.
In a few minutes, I will name the members of the Coalition pour la justice des mineurs, just to show how strong the Quebec consensus is.
However, I would first like to point out that, as second reading of the bill, I have made a speech, as had certain members from Quebec, including the member for Beauce, who had said that they had consulted youth organizations and that what they heard was different from what the member for Berthier—Montcalm was saying. I wanted to check because he and I live in the same region. I called those who had attended the meeting to know their opinions.
They all told me that their opinions had not changed. They said that, on the contrary, they told the member in question that he was mistaken, that he was headed in the wrong direction, but he kept saying that the government had consulted.
Maybe they did not give him a hard time, because people who work with teenagers do not usually favour the aggressive approach for obvious reasons, but they did make him understand that he was headed in the wrong direction. Despite that, members from Quebec do not talk much in the House, and when they do, it is to say that it is not that serious.
I will now give a list of members of the Coalition pour la justice des mineurs because it is worth mentioning. They are: Commission des services juridiques, Conseil permanent de la jeunesse, Centrale de l'enseignement du Québec, Jean Trépanier of the University of Montreal School of Criminology, Fondation québécoise pour les jeunes contrevenants, Institut Philippe Pinel, Association des directeurs de police et pompiers du Québec, Conférence des régies régionales de la santé et des services sociaux, Association des centres jeunesse du Québec, Crown Prosecutors' Office, which comes under the Quebec Minister of Justice, Association des CLSC et des CHSLD du Québec, Marc Leblanc of the University of Montreal School of Psyco-Education, Regroupement de justice alternative du Québec, Child Welfare League of Canada, Canadian Criminal Justice Association, Association des avocats de la défense du Québec, Société criminologie du Québec. And there are a few more.
That is a lot of people. I am not sure how many, but these groups must represent hundreds and thousands of people who work with young people daily. They are part of a coalition that came here to condemn this bill, but the government is still turning a deaf ear.
I agree with those who suggest that, if the rest of Canada—and by that I mean all the provinces except Quebec, because we are still part of the Canadian federal system—wants this bill, let the government add a clause granting Quebec the right to opt out, if we have a flexible federal system, with the support of a consensus in Quebec that includes members of the National Assembly, all Quebecers, all the stakeholders I just enumerated, the young people and their parents.
This would make a lot of sense. There are precedents for this in many areas, like the civil code, on questions that are under Quebec's jurisdiction, contrary to what exists in other provinces. Education is a provincial jurisdiction. Why stubbornly try to have a uniform Canada, and why treat everybody the same way when it is obvious for everybody that there are differences out there, that there are two nations in this country? Let us show some respect for the Quebec people by letting them determine how they are going to educate their children.