Mr. Speaker, unfortunately, the Progressive Conservative Party cannot support this amendment.
Much like the position that has been articulated by my colleague from Winnipeg—Transcona there is ample evidence, both in committee and before the House, that the province of Quebec has done exemplary work in the administration of the current Young Offenders Act.
It has arguably set the standard for the rest of the country in the way in which it has been very innovative in early intervention and restorative justice model type programs aimed specifically and very directly at troubled youth before they enter the criminal justice system.
As was enunciated by the hon. member for Winnipeg—Transcona, the Progressive Conservative Party has in the past made monumental efforts to recognize the distinctness of Quebec not only in the area of justice but in the areas of culture and language.
However in this instance we are dealing with a federal statute that pertains directly to the administration of justice. This amendment would allow provinces to opt out completely, to take away federal jurisdiction and leave jurisdiction solely in the hands of one province. That is dangerous and inconsistent with the administration of federal laws.
I think all members would agree that an opting out provision on criminal law is a recipe for disaster. Criminal law must apply evenly and be administered with fairness and with balance across the country. We cannot have bizarre sentencing schemes or justice that is seen as biased in any province.
Quebec's approach to criminal justice and youth criminal justice is arguably superior to that of other provinces and should be admired and emulated. However, an amendment to opt out and administer separately and apart from the rest of the country would not be in keeping with federal legislation.
I commend the intent and spirit of what the hon. member has put forward but I cannot support the amendment. We will have ample opportunity to debate this cumbersome and confusing bill in its entirety and to look at its many shortcomings.
For all its good intentions and emphasis on early intervention, the new law would shortchange provinces which try to administer it. It would expand the existing Young Offenders Act twofold. The provinces would cry out for resources because the bill permits and alludes to the expansion of early intervention programs.
The provinces would be left to live up to the standards the bill calls for without being given the resources to do so. The Minister of Justice has given the provinces a postdated cheque. The bill would come into being after being rushed through committee, as we have seen in this session. It would be foisted upon the provinces without the additional resources they would need to start and administer many of the programs.
Those are not my words or the words of the Progressive Conservative Party. Those words came directly from provincial representatives who appeared before the committee. They expressed grave concerns that the federal government, through Bill C-7, was trying to raise public expectations that all would be well if the bill came into being. They said that the notion of putting in place early intervention programs and restorative justice models without the resources to back it up, both human and monetary, was a fallacy. The provinces, given the option, would have preferred to keep the old bill. They would have simply asked the federal government for the money, the know-how and the support to put programs in place to make the existing system work.
I have worked in the justice system in administering the YOA. I think Quebec recognized very early on that although there are flaws in the Young Offenders Act there are ways to make it work. Quebec has set the standard and raised the bar in terms of its ability to work within the parameters of the old law.
It was a matter of giving more resources to provinces to allow them to fully administer programs, be innovative, make early interventions and set up programs for counselling. Such programs were aimed at putting youth on the right path as opposed to attempting after the fact to usher them through the criminal justice system.
I will touch for a moment on the upshot of what the new bill would do. It would cause incredible delay by introducing new procedures and processes pertaining to parole and early release, to the determination of violent versus non-violent offences, to new types of conditional sentences and to new types of tracking systems, so-called extrajudicial remedies that police officers would administer. All this would result in more appeals and more confusion over what the law means.
Judges came before the committee, judges with incredible experience in the criminal justice system and with the Young Offenders Act, who said they did not understand the bill and how it would work. They said they did not believe it would in any way improve the criminal justice system. They believed it would result in further delays.
The holding of young people to account, the protection of the public and the involvement of the state in rehabilitating young people would simply not occur. The resulting delays would perpetuate a system which is already confusing and frustrating for all participants, not only police, prosecutors, lawyers and judges but the young people themselves.
It will take an incredible amount of time to weed through the new bill to discern and comprehend what the drafters intended. It has a very academic feel as opposed to a practical, pragmatic and, dare I say, streamlined one which was likely the drafters' intent when they undertook the task of rewriting our youth criminal justice law.
The bill before us does the complete opposite. It is not streamlined. It is thicker. It is more cumbersome. It is more confusing. It adds new procedures. It adds new elements of delay.
I will conclude on this note. We all know the old legal maxim that justice delayed is justice denied. The bill would do just that. It would allow lawyers, on behalf of their young clients, to exploit these new procedures and cause lengthy delays that would deny the administration of justice. For that reason and those I have enunciated I cannot support the amendment. Nor do I support the bill.