Antoine Dubé

[Corrections And Conditional Release Act, October 6th, 1995]

Although I did not put words in the mouth of the hon. member for Bonaventure-Îles-de-la-Madeleine, for once I agree with him. It would be dreadful to see such measures made more stringent.

We in Quebec have a tradition. Although we apply the Canadian Criminal Code to those under the age of 18 years. there is a provision for rehabilitation. When a crime has been committed by a young person, it must be interpreted as a sign to the parents and to society that something must be done for this young person.

I recall the words of a member of this House, whom I shall not name as he is not present. You would have cautioned me,Mr. Speaker, that we must not speak of the absent, but once warned, twice shy.

Who among us can boast that we did nothing bad as children. It is true that there are some extremely isolated cases, for instance the two young boys aged between 10 and 12 who committed a murder in England. This is unacceptable, but these are isolated cases. Let us have a look at the statistics.

What is the real state of affairs? According to statistics issued by the Conseil permanent de la jeunesse du Québec, in 1992-1993, 35 per cent of violent crimes in Canada were committed by individuals aged 25 to 34. On the other hand, the 12 to 17 year old group was responsible for less than 15 per cent of these crimes. I repeat, less that 15 per cent.

Excluding the elderly, the very old-I am sorry to say the very old, but I will soon be joining them, since in 12 years I will be 60-statistics issued by Statistics Canada show that young people are less violent than any other age group in terms of serious violent crimes. Let us keep this in mind.

I do not want to impute motives to the member, but he is jumping on the bandwagon in favour of harsher measures to better control our young people. Was increased funding for prevention and better education ever considered? Were increased resources in these areas ever considered?

I did not see anything to that effect coming from this government. Unfortunately, some provincial governments want to cut this sort of services. A case in point is what is going on in Ontario. I have not closely checked it out but I understand that Alberta has made drastic cuts in these areas. This is a dangerous trend.

We all have kids and we know how firm we have to be with them. We cannot be naive. We have to be firm with them, and, as adults, give them good advice. We must not always think in terms of punishment. We must give ourselves better means to help those who tell us that society leaves to be desired, that they have problems and need our help. I think we should debate those things.

One last point. Time flies and I have only one minute left.

I have kids living at home and friends who do also and I am always amazed to see how easy it is for them to view violent movies. Why can we not take adequate measures in that area?

I cannot give you specific statistics today, but I am sure that the many murders and attempts at violent acts that a young person can see depicted on film in one evening have a negative influence on our youth.

Why are we not conducting serious studies to limit the influence of such programs on our youth? I would be an interesting approach. We could at least try.

After all, we did bring these kids into the world. There is a song which says: "We gave them birth, maybe we could listen to them". So maybe we could listen to what they have to say and try to find out why these violent individuals acting the way they do, even though they are only a minority.

We must, as a community, be it Quebec or Canada, take the necessary steps to help these young people. If I am still here later on- which is doubtful, although I may do so somewhere else--

someday I will suggest ways to help young people avoid the negative influence of such television programming.

[Corrections And Conditional Release Act, October 6th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to be able to speak on private member's Bill C-242 tabled by the hon. member for Scarborough-Rouge River. I shall be addressing in particular clauses 3 and 8 on lowering the minimum age of criminal responsibility.

Before I begin, I would like to stress that I find it a bit strange that we are today debating a private member's bill from a member of the government party. He himself began his speech by stating that he was on the House of Commons justice committee for six years, nearly two of those while his own party formed the government. I find it somewhat strange that he is proposing this again today. I wonder, is it because he has not managed to influence his own minister of justice? Yet, as a member of the justice committee he has studied these specific aspects.

I am a bit surprised therefore to see a former member of the justice committee proposing such a bill. Perhaps this means-and I think some of the hon. members opposite might have something to say on this-that the matter was looked at somewhere and the hon. member for Scarborough-Rouge River was no doubt told that his bill was not in line with the government's intentions.

I am therefore prepared to debate it, but it is my impression-not that I want to say we are wasting our time-but that the energy expended by the hon. member, his good intentions notwithstanding, could have been better expended if he had worked on the office of the Minister of Justice, particularly the minister himself. But, there you are.

The members of the opposition, who have no real power, can see that the backbenchers of the government party do not have much power or influence over their cabinet colleagues either.

As I have stated, my speech will be on clauses 3 and 8, because they are aimed at dropping the minimum age of criminal responsibility from 12 to 10 years.

I recall being present here in the House when the Young Offenders Act was being discussed. That debate succeeded in lowering the age by two years. At that rate, and considering the number of debates there have been over time-you may think I am laying it on a bit thick-but if we keep dropping the age down every two years, in ten years they will be saying that the Criminal Code applies to babies. This is not logical, but there you have it. In Canada, government members, with the backing of the third party, are going along with a trend that is really reinforcing the ideas of

the right, ideas that our young people really need measures to control them better.

I cannot get over this. Before coming out with such things, did anyone think about the message we are giving to our young people at the present time? Ten to twelve year olds are still just children, or adolescents at most.

The hon. member is suggesting a change in the definition of a child and an adolescent by lowering the age. At 10 they would be recognized as adolescents.

True, our children are bigger than they used to be because they are healthier and better fed. It was recently reported that their IQs might be 10 per cent higher as well, for a variety of reasons, than what they were 20 years ago. I am willing to agree that these conditions are improving, but I still feel ten years is too young.

I am sure that this has not succeeded in influencing the Minister of Justice and therefore is not likely to be implemented. I trust that this debate will not influence others. One never knows if, after Quebec becomes sovereign, another party, the Reform Party for instance, were to come to power in Canada, well then it would be-

[Employment Equity Act, October 6th, 1995]

-in spite of the protests made by the third party. At the same time, a member of that party alluded earlier to the government's double standards. In a sense I agree with him, but obviously not for the same reasons.

There are the following points. First, the government introduces legislation like this one, which is in general very praiseworthy and, at the same time, it passes other legislation, including one piece of legislation last year, suspending job security in the public service for three years. Administratively, they will cut 45,000 jobs over this period, and yet, when it comes to employment equity for women, for example, in the public service, it seems to me that a government should first set the example itself, before it asks business to do something.

It should be beyond reproach in this regard. In fact, we can see, and all the statistics indicate, that no progress has been made in the federal public service; nothing has changed. Pay equity is in the order of 72 per cent. Even for jobs requiring the same qualifications, women were paid less than men. Women are in lower paying jobs, because these jobs are lower down the ladder.

With the cuts and the legislation ending job security, there was the phenomenon of voluntary departures, buy-outs. In cutting other positions, a discretionary formula was used, by whom, by the managers of the various government services. The vast majority of the positions involved are held by men, very few by women.

Can we call this a fair practice? This is what I mean when I talk about a double standard, it may be alright for the third party to support it. It is all very well to make speeches in the House, to pass fine laws, but I know, coming from Quebec, that some people expected a lot from the official languages act, for example, in promoting employment equity for francophones, those from Quebec, and even those from outside Quebec, and still nothing has happened.

Last year, a minister was obliged to issue directives to enforce a 20-year old law, and nothing has improved.

We will support this bill, but I have a question for the hon. member. In his opinion, since he is closer to the minister, are there any indications of a reversal of the double standard trend, that is, the trend of passing fine laws, but changing nothing? On the contrary, revisionist measures have been taken leading to regression and a return to the past by, for example, suspending job security in the public service.

What is preventing the government from passing antiscab legislation?

So, this is my question to the hon. member, who seems to have progressive ideas. I want him to reassure me as to the value of what he is saying, in terms of its impact on the government and on cabinet.

[Employment Equity Act, October 6th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, first, I want to say that the official opposition supports the legislation, even though we feel it does not go far enough-

[Youth Unemployment, October 6th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, the minister is not answering my questions. I was asking about youth employment. Does the minister acknowledge that the youth employment situation has deteriorated since the Liberals came to office, with 27,000 fewer jobs for young people since November 1993. Is he prepared to acknowledge this?

[Youth Unemployment, October 6th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Human Resources Development. Despite a slight dip in unemployment after ten months of zero net employment growth in Canada, we find that the unemployment rate among those under the age of 25 has again increased. Even those who manage to find work are often in an extremely precarious position. In fact, this is the lowest level of youth activity in the labour market in 20 years.

What concrete actions does the government plan to take to help young people, since the youth unemployment rate has again risen in September, from 15.7 per cent to 16.4 per cent?

[Employment Equity Act, October 6th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, the official opposition has given its support to this most praiseworthy bill. We have been listening to the comments of the third party since yesterday, and I do appreciate what the members across the floor have had to say, something the opposition can rarely state.

I would, however, like to ask the hon. member the following question. Eloquent words are good, very eloquent words even better, but better still are not words but concrete actions and accomplishments.

Let me give the example of the wage inequity that exists at this time for women in the federal public service. It has been evaluated at 72 per cent. How can that be remedied when Treasury Board has undertaken to cut 45,000 positions?

How will the legislation be implemented so that, in the public service for example, there can be a move beyond mere words to concrete actions toward restoring the balance?

[Underground Economy, October 5th, 1995]

As my colleague for Kamouraska-Rivière-du-Loup suggests, totally unacceptable because this shows a contempt for democracy.

Yet the Minister of Human Resources Development is an experienced parliamentarian. A parliamentarian who has been in opposition for at least nine years. For nine years, and I have read and reread many of his speeches, he has been severely critical of the accomplishments of the Conservative government, as it was his role to do. I find no fault with that. When he was in the opposition, it was his role to criticize government programs.

In this case, he refers to one letter, yet the next day the parliamentary secretary indicated to me that there was a second letter on two projects. As for the projects in question, there was a project sponsored by Ateliers Jeunesse in my riding, a project

called JET created to set up a part time job bank for high school students. It had nothing whatsoever to do with training.

The next day, the parliamentary secretary, substituting for the minister, mentioned another project connected with Youth Service Canada. Sure, I criticized Youth Service Canada, but this was for an incubator program. My complaints about Youth Service Canada were about the fact that the training components contradicted of Quebec's policy on manpower training.

I was consistent in supporting the project submitted under this program because there was no manpower training component. The emphasis was more on an incubator program to help young people create their own business.

I would have a lot more to say about this, but since there is so little time, I would say it is a matter of principle. As I see it, this is blackmail, an attack on our democratic system.

I was elected by the people of my riding to represent them. That was my purpose when I sent projects to the minister for his approval. Now he asks me to support the No side, and if I do, he will approve this project. That is unacceptable.

If it were an isolated incident, I would say it was just a slip of the tongue. In that case, the minister should have said: "Listen, I spoke without thinking. That is not what I meant". But the next day he was not in the House, and he let his parliamentary secretary answer instead, who proceeded to criticize my criticism of this program.

I think that is unacceptable, especially in the present circumstances when comments of this kind keep cropping up. For instance, in a secret document prepared by Industry Canada, companies were listed according to their political allegiance, to see whether the project should be funded.

I think that is unacceptable. I am making this speech today within the precincts of the House of Commons, where we meet as democratically elected representatives. I invoke the right we have in this House to demand that this be rectified, that members opposite on the government side stop their blackmail, because we will not tolerate this.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker, for giving me this opportunity. It seems no one will bother to respond. Very democratic indeed.

[Underground Economy, October 5th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, I wish to go back to an answer I deem unsatisfactory which the Minister of Human Resources Development gave to a two-part question on unemployment insurance and training I put to him during question period on September 28.

In his reply, the Minister of Human Resources Development made a comment which I would describe as somewhat improper in that he responded, not accepting my position with respect to training, that:

-there is something the matter with the hon. member. I have a letter he wrote me asking for my support in a youth project sponsored by the federal government in his riding. I am very pleased to say I would certainly like to give him the assurance of supporting that project if he can give me the assurance of supporting the no vote on October 30.

[Government Subsidies, September 29th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, I would say that the parliamentary secretary is the one who is confused because I put my question to the Prime Minister but he did not reply.

By refusing to denounce the Minister of Human Resources Development who linked funding with my political opinions, does the Prime Minister not realize that once again he is demonstrating his lack of respect for democracy?