Michel Bellehumeur

[Young Offenders, May 29th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, with this bill, the minister is introducing into the youth justice system the calculation of provisional detention and the whole matter of conditional supervision, principles that are already in the adult system but are not currently part of the young offender system.

Does the minister realize that this new method of calculating provisional detention, and the fact that a young offender serves only two thirds of his sentence as an adult, is going to have a direct impact and to prevent the specialists from intervening properly and from providing young offenders with the rehabilitation they so greatly need?

[Youth Criminal Justice Act, May 29th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, I will use the four minutes I have left, despite the fact that I find deplorable what is happening here. Frankly, when I toured Quebec I always said that my tour was more of a social than political initiative. It was an information tour. I did not want to turn the matter into a political issue.

I understand that the member of the Canadian Alliance may feel some resentment or whatever. However, since we are dealing with an issue as important as youth, and an approach that has proven effective in Quebec, the hon. member could put aside the partisanship and arrogance he has shown all morning and deal more seriously with the bill.

I repeat what I have already said “It is not too late for the government. It is not too late”. Yesterday, I offered to go on another tour of Quebec with the minister, on a non-partisan basis and with all the necessary interpreters and personnel, and meet with the people I met and others also, because I am ready was anywhere. I am sure of what I am saying. Quebecers are unanimously saying that the federal government is on the wrong tack.

The minister refused to meet with these people. She refuses to listen to them, to go to meet them, as if she were living in a glass bubble in Ottawa, briefed only by her officials who have drafted legislation in their ivory tour, the kind of unenforceable and complex legislation that they alone can draft. The minister refuses to acknowledge that kind of reality. Maybe she cannot spare the time to go on a tour of Quebec.

That is why I am saying that it is not too late to send Bill C-7 back to the committee where it could be further reviewed, allowing Quebec and other provinces wishing to continue using an approach based on rehabilitation and reintegration rather than repression to do so.

I moved an amendment that was rejected yesterday. It was a legal and constitutional amendment examined by specialists. However the government is not listening.

It wants, at all costs, to pass legislation based on the seriousness of the offence and that consideration will influence the whole process while the existing Young Offenders Act is based on the needs of young offenders. By correctly enforcing the Young Offenders Act, we could individualize the treatment needed by each youth to become an honest citizen.

The Supreme Court of Canada took at least 15 years to interpret the act concerning the needs of young offenders and to say what it really means. How many years will it take it to interpret what the legislator meant when he said that the seriousness of the offence must take precedence over the sentence, the treatment and the process? How long will it take the Supreme Court of Canada to determine the issue of the day to day application of the act? There is a series of automatic processes.

Today, with the bill the government wants to impose on Quebec, judges will use a grid to assess a case and simply put a checkmark depending on the severity of the offence, without being able to take the kind of action they would like to take. That is the difference between the two.

During my tour I met Quebecers who dealt with victims of crimes, including people from CAVAC. They shared the same opinion as everyone else. They were against the approach chosen by the Minister of Justice in Bill C-7. I would have like the minister to have heard that.

I also met fathers and mothers who told me that I was not making the point clearly enough that the Young Offenders Act gave them the tools they needed to help their children get back on the right track.

Youth crime does not affect only those families where children are neglected by the parents. If there is one thing that is true about youth crime, it is the fact that it affects families indiscriminately, whether the parents' wallets are full or empty. Youth crime can affect rich families as well as poor and needy families.

People asked me to stress the fact that the Young Offenders Act gave them the tools they needed, which they will no longer have once Bill C-7 has been passed. Everything will be based on mechanisms. Certain decisions that parents can make now will be left to the system. This bill will take all responsibility away from the parents. It will destroy the balance reached in Quebec over a period of more than 20 years between the needs of the young offender, his or her accountability, society's intervention and the measure.

Over the years, a balance has been reached, and everyone agrees that this bill will hurt that balance. I urge, and this will conclude my speech, both the Prime Minister, who is from Quebec, and the Minister of Justice, who is responsible for the bill, not to go ahead with this piece of legislation. I urge them to send this bill back to committee to allow us to work on it some more so we can find a compromise for all the provinces, but most of all so Quebec can continue to use its approach, which has been proven effective.

[Youth Criminal Justice Act, May 29th, 2001]

As my colleague said, I even heard aboriginal people, the sons of the federal government, state in a press conference that Bill C-7 will never be applied on their territory. We will continue, even though the federal government passes its bill, to apply the Young Offenders Act on our territory. They even said that this act did not necessarily reflect their cultural values, but that it included everything they could use to get closer to these values and that they were getting good results. Even aboriginal people, and they can certainly not be accused of being separatists, are opposed to the government's bill. I challenge the members opposite: no one in Quebec supports Bill C-7.

Yesterday, the Minister of Justice misquoted the letter from the Quebec bar association. It is not true that the Quebec bar association supports Bill C-7. Just contact them through Carole Brosseau, to whom I spoke personally. This is misinformation.

To get a letter from the bar association, the government even said that the Bloc Quebecois had moved amendments to Bill C-7 in committee, but that is not true. The Bloc Quebecois never moved an amendment in committee.

The Bloc Quebecois will never seek to have an act that is so flawed, ill-conceived and dangerous for Quebec amended. We did not do so in committee and we did not do so at report stage. We simply did not. It is being intellectually dishonest to tell the Quebec bar association, in order to get a letter from them, that the Bloc Quebecois moved an amendment on the speediness of the proceedings and that we were satisfied. This was not true. No member of the Bloc Quebecois was satisfied with that. Contrary to what the minister said yesterday in the House, the Quebec bar association does not support the bill. No one in Quebec supports this bill.

I am convinced that some government members have friends in the national assembly. Jean Charest, the saviour of the Liberals opposite, does not support the federal approach. Liberal, PQ and ADQ members unanimously condemn Bill C-7. Does this not mean anything to government members? Do they not realize that they making a mistake?

They always think that they, the government, know best, that they are right and that everybody else is wrong: all the experts, youth court judges, reporters, lawyers, crown prosecutors and criminal lawyers whom I have met and who have expressed their views on this, all those who are working under the Young Offenders Act, and the unanimous position of Quebecers. Can they all be wrong?

It would be so easy to make things right, and it is still not too late. The government should wake up, realize that it is mistaken, that members are mistaken. It is still not too late, before third reading, to refer the bill to committee in order to include an amendment that would allow those provinces that so desire to take a more repressive approach and to let Quebec keep its approach, which has required a good deal of work and hundreds of thousands of dollars to develop over the years—

[Youth Criminal Justice Act, May 29th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, I was about to use a few choice words that are popular in Quebec. However, I will carry on. I will take a deep breath, because it is very difficult to concentrate when we are constantly being interrupted. I will now deal with the core of this issue.

We realized very quickly that there was a consensus in Quebec. Even though I had already toured Quebec, even though I had already met people from English Canada, following the refusal of the Minister of Justice to hear witnesses from Quebec on Bill C-7 which is a response to Quebec, I decided to do another tour of Quebec.

I was accompanied, as everyone knows, by Marc Beaupré, the actor who played Kevin in a televised series. His life and professional experiences differ from mine, but he delivered an excellent message and did a very good job. I am taking this opportunity today to thank him for depoliticizing the whole debate. He comes from Lanaudière and has not only depoliticised the whole debate, but has raised perceptions in Quebec. I think he has improved perceptions there of our treatment of young offenders.

On top of that, I went to hear these witnesses, people the minister refused to hear. I met them on site: at youth court, in centres for young people, in rehabilitation centres, in group homes for young people and in social groups. The minister would have done well to listen to them, because their message was clear.

They do not want, for all sorts of reasons, to have Bill C-7, which will be passed here in the House in a few hours perhaps, applied in Quebec. What they want is to continue to apply the Young Offenders Act as it stands and to try to apply it better, if that is possible.

I was surprised to learn that it could cost an additional $200 million to $250 million a year to implement Bill C-7, the bill no one in Canada wants, except perhaps the Alliance. Over five years, the federal government will invest and pour $1 billion into this system of criminal justice for young persons.

If the Liberal government opposite has $1 billion for young people it does not know what to do with, instead of paying for the luxury of new legislation, it should take the money and give it to the provinces, as they are asking it to do.

In committee, representatives from five Canadian provinces came to tell us that, if asked to choose between a complex, incomprehensible and unenforceable piece of legislation such as Bill C-7 and cash, to use their term, they would prefer the cash. Why? In order to pattern themselves as closely as possible on the Quebec approach, which is based on rehabilitation, stepping in at the right time and treating youth fairly, which produces concrete results, results we have all seen. Department of Justice statistics document these results. Given a choice between new legislation and cash, they want the cash.

I am certain that if we invested $1 billion on improving enforcement of the Young Offenders Act, the results would point more in the direction of continuing with that legislation. Very good results would also be obtained in the other Canadian provinces, as they are in Quebec. What is needed for the legislation to be enforced properly is money, not new legislation. The problem lies in the perception of the Young Offenders Act, not in the act itself.

The federal government puts out publicity on almost anything going: Canadian defence, Canada Post, the protection of small birds, fish, just name it. Why?

Why does the federal government not publicize the real costs of properly enforcing the Young Offenders Act? There has been success in some cases, and in many cases in Quebec. I have personally met people who, at the age of 15 or 16, committed a murder. Today, they are anonymous members of the public. For all sorts of reasons to do with families, gangs or drugs, they committed a reprehensible act, but at least we saved them and they are now anonymous citizens.

What good will the minister's wonderful legislation do, if a 14 or 15 year old youth gets a life sentence? As we know, under the current system, that youth would serve 25 years. In 25 years from now, that 15 year old youth will be 40. He will still be in the prime of life, but he will have spent half of his life in a school for crime, an adult prison. What will he do?

In adult prisons, there is no treatment such as the one provided to young people in youth centres. He will serve his time, as they say in the penitentiary jargon. What good will it do to society that that youth get out at 40? The protection of society might be ensured for 25 years, but that is pushing the problem forward.

Today, under the Young Offenders Act, that youth may be sentenced to six years of detention at worst, but those are six years of firm treatment, six years with specialists, because there are several working on any given case. Afterwards, he will be monitored over a 10 year period, until they are sure he has been rehabilitated or is on his way to be so. During 16 years, that youth will be monitored.

Eventually, he might end up paying taxes like us. He might have children. He might get integrated in the society in which he lives. He will not be branded as some would like him to be, with his name published, his picture in the papers and a life sentence for a 14 or 15 year old youth.

I can already hear people say “But this would make it possible for a province to prevent 14 and 15 year olds from getting an adult sentence”. This is true, but do members realize that a young person will still have to stand trial in an adult court, with adult rules?

It is only after the trial, whether he is found guilty or not, that the order comes into play. Despite the order, the crown prosecutor might still ask, for all kinds of reasons, that this young person be given an adult sentence. There would be a trial, with a very complex series of judicial measures before that, such as the adult court.

Would this be a service to both the population and the 14 year old to have him tried as an adult, to treat him as an adult? Would we solve his situation or his case? Would society feel more secure if this young person were tried as an adult? There are all kinds of legal fictions in this bill. Government frontbenchers say, one by one, that a youth justice court judge will hear these cases, that they will no longer be referred to an adult court.

This is true verbally, but when we take a look at clause 3 of the bill, we realize this is not the case. The government thinks we have not read the bill. To say this demonstrates a lack of intellectual rigour, because this is not the case.

The bill does provide that a youth justice court judge will be responsible, but in fact it will be a superior court judge who, for such trial, will be deemed to be a youth justice court judge. I know very well that in several judicial divisions of Quebec and Canada, youth courts do not have the necessary facilities to hold trials by judge and jury.

Everything is provided for in the bill. Such cases will be tried before adult court, but for the purpose of the proceeding, this court will be “deemed to be a youth justice court”, and the judge will be “deemed to be a youth justice court judge”. This is going very far. It is tantamount to being tried before adult court. Furthermore, the age limit will be lowered from 16 to 14. A young person aged 14 could be tried as an adult.

People across the way tell us that the bill does not affect Quebec's approach. On what planet do they live? During my 12 to 14 day tour, among the many people I met, there was not one who supported the bill. Everybody wishes to keep the Young Offenders Act.

[Youth Criminal Justice Act, May 29th, 2001]

Yes, as my colleague says, a cowboy approach that is very typical of them.

To continue, this examination showed us that there was consensus in Quebec. Having toured Canada and certain parts of Quebec, the committee readily realized that there were two ways of applying the Young Offenders Act, one in Quebec and one in English Canada.

The good legislators and responsible people that we are, I believe we need to look at outcomes. The results indicate that the province which applies the Young Offenders Act properly that being Quebec, has a lower crime rate than the rest of Canada and a recidivism rate for serious crime that is virtually non-existent or at least the lowest in Canada.

Looking at the judiciarization of cases, Quebec is the province that puts the fewest young offenders through the court system. We have the lowest incarceration rate for this age group in Canada.

Looking at the other provinces, we see that, although the crime rate has also been decreasing in other provinces, youth crime has not followed suit. We see that these provinces make heavy use of the court system and of incarceration. We see that youth are not receiving treatment. Consequently, these provinces get the results they deserve.

According to me and all the Bloc Quebecois, an opinion on which there is unanimity in Quebec, if a change needs to be made anywhere, it is not in Quebec but in western Canada, in the maritime provinces, in—

[Youth Criminal Justice Act, May 29th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, seeing the behaviour of the Canadian Alliance members, I see they have a great future in this parliament. I am sure they are very pleased with themselves. I understand their attitude toward a bill that is terribly harmful to Quebec. I understand their desire to fool around as they are doing in this House.

[Youth Criminal Justice Act, May 29th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, I must thank my colleague from the Canadian Alliance for all his respect toward his colleagues who are speaking today.

I want to assure the hon. member of the Canadian Alliance that when I am here and his party members are speaking, I shall make an effort to intervene as often as possible in order to disturb them.

We can see just how seriously the Canadian Alliance members take this matter. It is all very well to laugh, but the young offender issue is an extremely important one. The Canadian Alliance is treating it lightly, and I find that totally disgusting.

I was giving a historical overview and saying that, in the history of the application of the Young Offenders Act, we in Quebec have examined the legislation on a number of occasions in order to see whether it could be better enforced.

In the early 1990s we had the Jasmin report, which indicated that the fault was not with the law but with its application. That is the conclusion we in Quebec reached with respect to the system, Quebec's approach, although we were enforcing the law properly. This conclusion applies to 100% of the western provinces. If the Canadian Alliance can grasp this, it is not the law that is faulty, but its application.

The provinces calling for changes are those not properly applying the Young Offenders Act. Throughout the whole history of the Young Offenders Act, in Quebec, we were not inactive; if we reached these conclusions, it is because we were aware of what was going on elsewhere. We concluded that we had to be careful, because the young offenders system was not fail-safe since it was a statute, not to upset the balance we had struck in Quebec in the application of the Young Offenders Act.

At the start of my mandate in 1993-94 with the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights, we toured the main provinces to look at the issue of young offenders. It was very distressing to see how some provinces treated young offenders, especially those who had committed serious crimes. They were simply sent to a separate wing in an adult prison untreated. The young person lying in bed spent the day reading. When asked what he was doing, he told us he was doing time.

In Quebec young persons do not do time, they work on who they are. They do not spend the entire day reading. Young people incarcerated for a long time, even for a short time, are under the care of psychoeducators, specialists, academics and criminologists in an effort to discover why they do certain things. The aim is to find the right treatment for the individual young person.

Quebec's objective, which should be everyone's objective in properly applying the Young Offenders Act, is to try to find the appropriate measure to ensure that the young person becomes an ordinary citizen as quickly as possible.

I do not want pity for the young people who have committed a murder or done something else that is repulsive. In a civilized society like ours there should be no such crime. We should not even have 14 and 15 year olds thinking about killing someone.

Children aged 10 and 11 have committed suicide. Society is changing. We have become a consumer society. All sorts of actions result in some people needing help. The way the Young Offenders Act has been applied since the beginning shows that we can intervene adequately and that we can find the right measure at the right time. I sincerely believe the provinces, or rather the Minister of Justice, did not understand this approach.

From the outset, we can deal with the young person, whether he is guilty or not of the offence or crime with which he has been charged. Under the existing Young Offenders Act, we can take action, deal with that young person and follow him at every stage of the process, including his trial. This is something that be difficult to do under the proposed bill. I will get back to this when I talk about the major differences between the two pieces of legislation.

During those years, Quebec developed what is now known as the Quebec approach. I realize we cannot ask western Canada to adopt an approach similar to that of Quebec overnight. If these provinces do not have the infrastructures to look after these young people, if they do not have the experts and the financial means to suddenly apply Quebec's approach, which is based on 20 years of experience, I can understand that.

However what I do not understand is why they are asking for an act to prevent Quebec from continuing to use an approach that gives good results. I find it hard to understand that way of thinking, both on the part of western Canada and of this government.

Earlier, I listened carefully to the Canadian Alliance member, who has followed the bill's progress closely, and I would not wish what he has been through on anyone. However, should we build an entire system on one case? Should we rebuild an unproven system, whose results are cause for concern in the opinion of all the specialists, on the strength of the worst case scenario?

I listened to western Canadians, crown attorneys and provincial representatives, who told us that the end results were far from guaranteed, that the bill was much too complex and that implementing it would cost far too much.

We may therefore well wonder whether these provinces, which are calling for amendments, will implement the new legislation they have obtained back home in a manner consistent with what the Minister of Justice has in mind.

Quebec's entire system is being jeopardized for people who will not deal adequately with young people in conflict with the law anyway, because it is not part of their tradition or their longstanding treatment of young people in conflict with the law. That is a big concern.

From the outset, I noticed that Quebecers agreed with Quebec's approach and that there was consensus. Since 1996-97, the federal government has tried on more than one occasion to amend the Young Offenders Act. I am sure that Bloc Quebecois members who were here in 1993 remember the government's first attempt to amend the act with Bill C-68. Because of the Bloc Quebecois' opposition, the issues raised by this bill and the work we did, we pushed the government to the limit and, finally—

[Youth Criminal Justice Act, May 29th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, I was wondering whether the House really wanted to hear what I had to say. I will continue with my speech as though nothing had happened, although it is rather difficult to concentrate when one is constantly interrupted. I hope that you will deduct the time I lost because I do indeed intend to use the 40 minutes to which I am entitled.

Quebec has long looked after its young offenders and views the problem as a very important one. As I said, even before the federal government passed the Young Offenders Act in 1984, we were already addressing the problem of youths, particularly 16 and 17 year olds, who had committed serious offences through the agency of various departments in Quebec, including the social welfare department.

We also had young offenders legislation. This was a matter that concerned us. From the outset, we invested time and money putting together what we now call the Quebec approach. This was not something we did overnight.

In 1984 the federal government decided to intervene and introduce the Young Offenders Act for young people between the ages of 12 and 18 in conflict with the law. This was based on Quebec's approach at the time, because our young offenders legislation was aimed at adolescents up to the age of 18.

Since 1984, the federal government has amended its legislation a number of times, each time taking a harder line with respect to the approach, the sentences or the treatment of young people in conflict with the law, but never moving closer to what we were doing in Quebec.

The act has been amended several times since 1993 and on each occasion Quebec told the House of Commons and the committees “Be careful; you are going much too far to the right. You are getting much too close to the adult justice system”. Since 1993, this House and the Liberal government have always turned a deaf ear to Quebec's claims, particularly as regards this issue.

Quebec's representations were based on a very serious study. I am taking this opportunity to salute youth court justice Michel Jasmin, who is Quebec's co-ordinating judge and who does a remarkable job.

From 1990 to 1992, I am mentioning these dates from memory, because I have nothing in front of me regarding them, a number of other experts, including Normand Bastien, members of the Bar and Cécile Toutant, who also sat on that committee, reviewed the whole issue of young offenders in Quebec, from the time of their arrest until they left the youth centre or were done with their treatment.

These experts found that the Young Offenders Act, which was implemented properly at the time, could be applied even better by getting all the stakeholders involved, including the police officers making the arrest, before the court appearance, the experts and psychologists at trial and all the experts involved when the young offender was in custody, should this be the case.

The Jasmin report is now the authoritative reference with respect to youth justice. Already back then, it warned the federal government, which wanted to toughen its approach with young offenders.

The conclusion of that important report is very simple. The problem is not the Young Offenders Act, but its implementation. Although the results were good at the time, these people wondered about our own—

[Youth Criminal Justice Act, May 29th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, I understand the Alliance members are not happy to have me provide a background and make a speech that is as apolitical as possible, a speech without notes, as I was saying earlier. I want to speak to the members of the House from my heart in a final effort to try to convince the government members, especially those from Quebec, that they are making a mistake with this bill.

Before the call for quorum, I was trying to provide a brief backgrounder on the issue of young offenders in Quebec. Even before the federal government became involved in the matter with the passage in 1984 of the Young Offenders Act in Quebec, we already had an infrastructure for young people in difficulty with the law, especially those aged 16 and 17 involved in serious crime.

One fine day, with a view to having some sort of uniformity across Canada, the federal government passed the Young Offenders Act. There is good reason the law covers those aged up to 18 years. At the time, all the other provinces wanted the law to apply to young people aged 12 to 16 only.

Why was the age limit increased to 18? It was because the Prime Minister at the time was from Quebec and, regardless of what we think of him, he held up his end on social issues. The Prime Minister in question was Pierre Elliott Trudeau. Quite honestly, he was not my idol, not at all, in his view of Canada, and of Quebec in particular, but on social issues he was on the mark, unlike the present Prime Minister.

He stood up before English Canada and made the maximum age in the Young Offenders Act 18 years. From that point on, we applied the Young Offenders Act in Quebec.

Throughout the period between 1984 and today—

[Youth Criminal Justice Act, May 29th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, I am going to try to address the hon. members of this House without a prepared speech, speaking from my heart rather than from my head, in a final attempt to convince the government that it is on the wrong track with this bill.

I am also going to try to convince the House that we in Quebec did not just decide overnight to set off on a crusade against the federal government on this young offenders bill.

I am sure that those who have studied the young offender issue, and I know certain members on the other side have looked at it very seriously, know deep down that they are off on the wrong track by wishing to pass this bill at any price, come what may, despite all that has been said in Quebec, and even in the other Canadian provinces, about its complexity, about the fact that the bill is going to be impossible to apply and above all will not give the anticipated results.

Well before passage of the Young Offenders Act in 1984, Quebec already had its approach to young offenders. It had the Loi sur le bien-être social, which addressed young offenders and took a very particular approach to them, before the federal government enacted its young offender legislation in 1984. The Quebec statute applied to young people aged 14, 15, 16 and 17, particularly the 16 and 17 year olds who had committed serious crimes. The Quebec system took charge of these young people and processed them through a system parallel to the one for adult offenders.

At that time, we already had an infrastructure for handling young people in trouble with the law. In 1984, with the great wisdom of the House, prompted particularly by the paternalism of the federal MPs—