Mr. Speaker, it is with great pleasure today that I bring to bear my experience as a criminal lawyer after six long months away from the courts.
The current matter before Parliament provides me with an opportunity to make a case that, I hope, will be taken up by my fellow lawyers. First of all, I have to say that my colleagues have often described my interventions as obiter dictum, that is to say that my comments are tangential. However, to my mind, the facts that will be presented today should be brought to the attention of Canadians, even though I do not attach much importance to minimum sentences and other technicalities.
Therefore, I must say that my first reaction, with respect to the bill submitted to the House for consideration, naturally was to inquire as to the position of the Barreau du Québec on the issue. This allowed me to focus my presentation to the House on the considerations pertaining to the kidnapping of children by strangers. As we have already heard, that is today's subject.
This quite deliberate focus will nevertheless result in consideration of the responsibilities that must be assumed by the father, the mother, the guardian or the person with legal custody of a child to prevent such a social tragedy.
In keeping with my previous speeches, I will inform the House of the social realities and repercussions of crimes against the person that have been perpetrated in Canada's aboriginal communities. It is especially appropriate to take this approach to this issue because the kidnapping and disappearance of aboriginal young people is a reality in Canada. It is such a current issue that, at the meeting of AFNQL chiefs last week in Ottawa, this matter was again discussed by the members and the chiefs heard testimony about this from the Anishinabe community. It seems that young women were still disappearing recently from this community. This was also the theme at the Sisters In Spirit walk in which I participated in Montreal just over a month ago. Representatives of communities across Canada chronicled the disappearances that have taken place not just in British Columbia, but all over Canada.
The notion of kidnapping echos what happened in the past in communities dealing with the effects of Indian residential schools. Having worked on and dealt with a few cases of financial compensation linked to Indian residential schools, I can assure you that those communities regard the experience as a kind of kidnapping. RCMP officers showed up at people's homes and simply took the children and cut them out of the family unit. It was like kidnapping. I wanted to make this point clear.
With that part of history now behind us, it seems that many situations compromising the physical integrity of youth are currently happening on reserves in Canada. Because of the deterioration of the social fabric in some aboriginal communities in Canada, negative influences are corrupting young people who are struggling with serious identity crises. As we know, elements of the criminal underworld have been able to infiltrate family units and the clan dynamic that is characteristic of aboriginal communities, all with a view to perpetrating criminal activities in remote regions.
According to an Amnesty International report published in 2009, sexual predators and people who commit crimes against individuals in general deliberately target aboriginal people, since those acts can be motivated by racism or by the belief that society's apathy regarding the well-being and safety of these aboriginal young people will allow the criminals to escape justice.
The obvious social and cultural challenges that some of these communities face on a daily basis constitute fertile ground for the corruption and exploitation of disillusioned youth. This finding is especially damning considering that, last week—so this is very recent—the QMI Agency reported that, in the western provinces, most children involved in the sex trade are aboriginal.
This is where parental authority comes into play. I will draw from empirical experience and my personal experience to illustrate what I mean. Having spent most of my life on a native reserve, I think it is important for me to offer some criticism about the laissez-faire attitude within many family units in my home community.
In some cases, youth who are drifting through life do not have model parents. In short, the youth are drifting because their parents are drifting. The lack of parental supervision stemming from the climate of infantilism that can be seen on the reserves paves the way to exposing children to criminal elements. When I talk about the climate of infantilism, I am of course referring to how the parents in the communities distance themselves from the parental role, which is ultimately theirs.
We know that traditionally, in the woods, young people enjoyed a freedom and an independence that allowed them to hunt and provide for the family unit. However, transposing this reasoning and these facts to contemporary realities is dangerous. Nowadays, in the communities, young people are forced to grow up too fast and take care of their younger brothers and sisters. Often the parents revert back to being adolescents themselves and the young people end up having to support the family. Again, this paves the way to criminality.
Accordingly, it is important to distinguish between kidnapping offences involving the father, the mother, the guardian or the person having the lawful care or charge of the child and offences involving third parties. I know that hon. members have emphasized this distinction throughout their speeches. Although some cases might be handled in criminal court, most cases involving people who have parental authority are referred to family court.
We know that matters involving habeas corpus, custody and child support are referred to family court in Quebec. I think cases of kidnapping by a parent should be—and are—dealt with in civil court since the parents ultimately have parental authority over those children. This also includes oversight over custody and all manner of things.
All of this is respectfully submitted.