Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak today to a bill that I consider very important. Since my election I have been sitting on the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights and have had the opportunity to thoroughly examine what is proposed in Bill C-7.
Today I wonder if I live on another planet. I hear my colleague from the Bloc and my colleague from the New Democratic Party, who do not seem to understand at all the fundamental aspects of this bill.
I congratulate my colleague, the Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada, for his recent speeches on this issue and also the former minister of justice for the work she has done. What she proposed is a modern bill that is in keeping with international conventions signed by Canada throughout the world, particularly concerning the protection of the rights of children.
The bill goes back some years. In 1985 the present Young Offenders Act, which applies to young people who commit crimes in Canada, was passed.
In 1997 there was a proposal that the youth justice system be changed and a bill was introduced, Bill C-68, which was subsequently amended by Bill C-3.
In September 2000, more than 160 amendments were moved with respect to the bill, and after my election, when I became a member of the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights, I had before me Bill C-7, a modernized piece of legislation that satisfied all the criticisms.
We must not delude ourselves; within our Liberal delegation there are some members who are concerned about the future of Canada's young people. They have proposed amendments, There have been numerous discussions to improve the system proposed for our young offenders.
Today, therefore, I am very pleased and proud to see that this government is proposing a rehabilitation based system for young offenders. Those who claim otherwise have, unfortunately, not read the bill.
I have had the opportunity to meet with the directors of the youth centre in my riding of Laval East, the Centre Jeunesse de Laval, and I can tell hon. members that the Bloc Quebecois opposition is greatly exaggerating when it states that all Quebec stakeholders are opposed to the bill.
As a government, we cannot of course please all the pressure groups. We have to make decisions. Had the bill been based on the proposals of the Quebec bar association, we would be accused of playing along with the lawyers and faulted for that. In this bill, the government chose from among the proposals that came from all sides.
I can only regret the opportunism of some members in the opposition, in the Bloc Quebecois, who have been very skilled at voicing criticisms connected with the existence of a so-called Quebec coalition.
As far as that so-called coalition is concerned, I have had the opportunity to look into just how serious a list this is. I can state in this House—