Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to address this bill today. I remember a few years ago, when the Bloc Québécois fought an epic battle regarding the Youth Criminal Justice Act. Our justice critic at the time, Mr. Michel Bellehumeur, had tabled 3,000 amendments to the bill, and over 2,800 of those had been deemed in order. These proposed changes by Mr. Bellehumeur—who is now a judge—were based on the approach that has been in use in Quebec for several years.
Indeed, when it comes to youth justice, we must really promote rehabilitation. Young offenders must understand the consequences of the bad decisions that they have made, and of the actions that they have taken. They must realize that they did not do the right thing, and we have to help them reintegrate society and become good citizens again. We must avoid sending them to what is known as “crime school”, by slowly putting them on the path to penitentiaries, because these young people may then make inappropriate contacts and end up making the wrong choices. It has been demonstrated—again in the 2007 data—that Quebec's approach results in lower crime among young people, while there is an increase in all of the other provinces of Canada.
That was an epic battle indeed. In the end, we lost the vote in the House and the act was amended. However, a court ruling helped reduce the impact of the decision made by the federal government in office at the time, which was influenced by the American model and which felt that this was the way to go. Ultimately, the results achieved were not as bad as expected. However, the Conservative government is now going on the offensive again and wants to introduce measures that will again target youth behaviour, rather than focus on rehabilitation.
In that sense, the point of view the Bloc Québécois supports in this House is shared by all of Quebec. Our point of view is in direct opposition to the Conservative government's vision. Let us remember that the Minister of Justice said that children as young as 12 should be thrown in jail. Then we were told that the statement was being quoted out of context. However, the spirit in which this bill was tabled, the spirit in which they want it to be adopted, reflects the attitude that young people should be punished. According to this draconian policy, the justice system should punish young people, not rehabilitate them. The bill before us is not in line with choices that Quebec has made in the past. In Quebec, the crime rate has dropped.
For example, clause 1 of Bill C-25 states that the judge should presume that pre-trial detention is necessary if a young person is charged with a violent offence, has been found guilty of failing to comply with non-custodial sentences, or has been charged with a crime for which an adult would be liable to imprisonment for a term of more than two years and has a history that indicates a pattern of findings of guilt.
This is the same line of thinking that motivated the government to impose mandatory minimum sentencing in all adult cases. They want to box young people in. That kind of attitude can have a very negative impact when it comes to youth crime. We have seen how Quebec's justice system works for minors, and it is important to have an approach that makes it possible to find real solutions that will result in the rehabilitation of young people, not the opposite.
The clause before us may seem appealing at first glance, but we have to take a closer look. By attempting to transfer the burden of proof to youths, the Conservative government is challenging a basic principle of the justice system, the presumption of innocence. As we have so often seen, charges do not necessarily result in a guilty verdict. Teenagers who are detained prior to trial, and who are then found innocent, will have been subjected to the awful consequences of detention even if they did nothing wrong.
With the presumption that is weighing on him, a young person will have to prove that he does not pose a threat to society even before being found guilty of an offence. Moreover, this will even have an impact on his day-to-day life. To his classmates, it will be as if the young person was found guilty before the fact, which is not necessarily a happy choice. In our opinion, this clause is not in line with the logic that should prevail on the issue of youth crime.
Clause 2 makes a major change in sentencing criteria. It states that, from now on, sentences can be aimed at denouncing unlawful conduct or deterring the young person and other young persons from committing offences. This seems benign in and of itself, but it is anything but. It represents a fundamental shift and goes against Quebec's traditional position. Moreover, the Supreme Court issued this opinion on this issue:
Parliament has sought preferably to promote the long-term protection of the public by addressing the circumstances underlying the offending behaviour, by rehabilitating and reintegrating young persons into society and by holding young persons accountable through the imposition of meaningful sanctions related to the harm done.
This is not the spirit of the bill before us. For that reason, we believe that we are right to be opposed to the bill as introduced.
According to the Supreme Court, the fact that deterrence is not among the objectives of youth sentencing is a very significant deliberate omission. We have found that the spirit in which the federal government acted is meeting with a great deal of opposition from stakeholders in Quebec who are concerned about the whole youth crime package. We would therefore like the federal government to reverse its decision and reconsider the issue so that the approach developed in Quebec can continue to apply appropriately.
Our fear is that Bill C-25 is merely the first step. It is not necessarily surprising to see the Conservative government put forward measures like the ones in Bill C-25. It is not very surprising, coming from a party that tolerates the fact that its Minister of Justice is so blinded by his ideological approach that he is contending that the only way to eradicate the supposed wave of youth violence is to increase public safety, restore public confidence in the justice system and sentence young people to prison, even children no older than 12.
The law currently states very clearly that incarceration should be an exceptional measure and that the judge must give priority to extrajudicial measures before incarcerating a youth. So it is obvious that the bill's proposed amendments to sections of the act go against the spirit of judicial intervention in this sector. For these reasons, the Bloc Québécois believes that this bill should not be passed as is.
The former minister of justice said that it was acceptable to incarcerate young people aged 12 and up. At the time, there was a concern that this statement implied that the Conservatives' goal was to change the sentencing principles in the act to make incarcerating youth the rule, instead of the exception. Now we see that the minister did not make a mistake, but that this is the path the Conservative government wanted to take. This is why we will vote against Bill C-25 as it stands now.
In conclusion, I would like to remind the House about the epic battle fought by Michel Bellehumeur, the member for Berthier—Montcalm at the time, which was supported by all the Bloc Québécois members. Our strength in that battle came from the fact that we had the support of all of Quebec.
The scope of Bill C-25 is much less broad, but it still has the same goal and would still have us copy the American model. The Bloc Québécois says no to this approach and it is representing Quebeckers on this issue.