Mr. Speaker, at least 430 children are detained in Canadian prisons every year. These are children of refugees, children of war, children of famine and violence. Yet what are we offering them? A stay in prison with no education and no psychological support. Why? Because an officer felt that their parent could not appear before the authorities or because that parent could not satisfy the officer as to his or her identity. Is this going to improve? Certainly not.
Bill C-31would lengthen prison sentences for refugee claimants who arrive by boat with a so-called smuggler or, worse still, a group designated directly by the minister. And so dozens more children will be languishing in our prisons.
The Canadian Council for Refugees, an organization in Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, maintains that this incarceration is contrary to the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms and the international Convention on the Rights of the Child.
You can be sure that the NDP will be working hard to mobilize public opinion to ensure that Mr. Harper’s new prison cells never become filled with dozens of children—