Nicole Demers

[Artists, March 27th, 2009]

That is a disgrace.

[Controlled Drugs and Substances Act, March 27th, 2009]

Madam Speaker, I also listened carefully to what my colleague had to say. I appreciated his comments and his speech.

In light of what he said, does he believe that all the programs the Conservative government is proposing are just facsimiles of solutions and not measures that will really address the problems?

[Controlled Drugs and Substance Act, March 27th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, I listened carefully to my hon. colleague from Vancouver East and I would like to congratulate her on her very eloquent, thorough speech outlining all the problems associated with drugs. She is quite right.

I wonder if my colleague can explain the inconsistency in the government's position. The government claims that it wants to protect Canadians, not only from people who sell drugs, but also from people who use drugs.

The government is cutting funding to places like Vancouver's InSite, creating committees to determine where people who are ill can smoke their medical marijuana and doing nothing for our young people, while at the same time, it wants to grant people the right to use unregistered long guns.

I think—

[Controlled Drugs and Substances Act, March 26th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. member very much for his question about minimum sentences.

The Quebec Bar has always taken a position against minimum sentences. Of course, there are penalties for criminal acts, but it is important that it be left up to judges to decide on sentences for criminals. With their great wisdom and experience, they best know the nature of the criminal behaviour, the background of the person before them, how the person became a criminal, and how they can best help that person.

Up until now, we can say that Quebec is a success story right across the board, because our rehabilitation rate is the best in the country.

[Controlled Drugs and Substances Act, March 26th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, much as I would like to represent the National Assembly, I do not. We often stand up for the decisions of the National Assembly in this House because no one else does. We do not represent the National Assembly, but rather the citizens of our ridings who have given us their trust and elected us.

I would like the hon. member to tell me if he is aware of a report released in Belgium on March 10. The report looks at the drug situation around the world. It noted that, until 2006, there was a levelling-off in the growth of opium and the various drugs that can be made from opium, but that, since 2006, shockingly since the time that so much money has been poured into Afghanistan, there has been exponential growth in drugs like opium in that country. Nothing like it has ever been seen before. Can he explain how he thinks that his army is going to be able to put a stop to that growth over there rather than trying to put a stop to our children's lives here?

[Controlled Drugs and Substances Act, March 26th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my colleague. This is indeed a major problem with the Conservative government. It does nothing to ensure that children and even adults have what they need to avoid turning to drugs or some similar path. I am not familiar with the organization to which my colleague referred, but the members can rest assured that I will meet with them to make sure that people are familiarized with their position. It is true that this is not what our young people want. I do not think that any young person in Canada or Quebec wants to go to prison just to please a few Conservative ideologues.

[Controlled Drugs and Substances Act, March 26th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, I certainly did not want to imply that it was good to keep drug dealers in business. What I wanted to say is that before imposing legislation like this, we should be absolutely certain that everything has been done to make sure that people are not forced to make a living this way.

That is something the government has not done. The government is not doing it and has no intention of doing it. We saw it with employment insurance, we saw it with pay equity, and we saw it with social housing. We have seen it everywhere.

Before passing legislation like this, we should ensure that people can live their lives fully, because that is something to which they are entitled.

[Controlled Drugs and Substances Act, March 26th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak in the House on Bill C-15. Once again, as I said last week about the bill of my colleague from Jeanne-Le Ber, it feels like everyone in the House is stuck inside the movie Groundhog Day, because we keep going over the same bills. This bill was introduced by the last Minister of Justice in the last Parliament. It has been amended a bit to give more mention to rehabilitation, but not enough to really change anything.

As my colleague has said, this government seems to want to bring in bills that are wholly punitive, rather than to think about the underlying reasons why youth and others end up involved with crime and criminals.

First and foremost, we absolutely must address the causes and effects of crime. We are well aware that our young people between the ages of 15 and 24, who account for 2.5% of drug users, find themselves very much at loose ends in the economic crisis we are experiencing at present. Often their families are unemployed but do not have access to EI benefits. Often family members have been without work for more than a year and so are no longer receiving benefits. They are living in obvious poverty and the government is doing nothing for them.

When young people find themselves in situations like this, it is certainly harder for them to have to deal with reality and easier to take the easy way out. I do not mean to imply that I am in favour of that. Believe me, it is awful to see young people addicted to meth or crack, and not anything we want to see happen to our children.

When the matter of imposing minimum sentences comes up, however, it is very important to keep in mind that in the American states that have minimum sentences, such as California, Florida and Montana, they have opted for leaving the possibility for prosecutors and courts to set lesser sentences than the minimum imposed for certain offences.

In Canada, on the other hand, judges have no choice but to impose the minimum sentence set out for a given offence. This means that young people, who have undeniably made serious mistakes, will end up with minimum sentences from which they will learn nothing. Nothing whatsoever is learned in prison.

It is also disappointing that the bill does not contain measures to help youth and adults get off drugs. As mentioned earlier by my colleague for Vancouver East, some projects are working very well. For example, InSite, in Vancouver, was very effective and significantly reduced risks associated with injection drugs.

However, the government does not believe that these are good programs. Even though the World Health Organization, the mayor and police of Vancouver and doctors say that InSite is a good program, the Minister of Health says that the government does not want it, that it is not a good program, that we absolutely must rid ourselves of anyone who takes illicit drugs and that we should get rid of InSite. That is not how we will fix the problem.

Jailing those addicted to injection drugs, often means condemning them to becoming infected with HIV.

Quite often, those incarcerated who used cannabis or other so-called soft drugs, but not injection drugs, end up with very different drug habits and often end up taking injection drugs. When that happens, they may not necessarily have the tools to take the drugs safely. Thus, 30 or 40 inmates share a needle and we end up with a multitude of AIDS and HIV cases that makes the prison population increasingly dangerous. Our children leave these prisons after using drugs in those conditions without knowing that they are HIV positive. Quite often, it is possible for individuals to live with HIV for many years before testing positive for AIDS. In the meantime, they can unwittingly pass it on to many others.

I realize that the government probably had good intentions when drafting this bill. However, it has to be referred to the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights in order for it to be amended and better reflect the society in which we live.

Even though the bill did not pass last year, we know that offences committed by drug users decreased by 3% last year. Since the crime rate went down without any incentives—like prison sentences that would prevent people from wanting to commit offences—why are some people in such a hurry to impose minimum sentences to ensure that young people do not use drugs? That is not how it works. Telling someone that if they are caught with 3 kg of marijuana they will go to prison for two years will not necessarily stop that person from walking around with 3 kg of marijuana in their possession, when that is their bread and butter. If that is their livelihood, that person is probably not going to stop selling marijuana.

There are other ways to teach our young people and the general public that drugs are not necessarily the solution to problems. As a woman, I know many women struggle with this phenomenon. They are forced to deal with spouses who use drugs or who unfortunately sell drugs. That is another problem. Indeed, as is usually the case, women cannot count on this government's support for things like violence against women and matters of employment insurance. If their spouse can no longer sell drugs, they will only end up on the street that much faster. I see my colleague from the Standing Committee on the Status of Women smiling. She understands very well why I say this. I will not say her name, but she knows who she is.

This bill goes much too far in the use of minimum sentences. It goes much too far in terms of Conservative ideological thinking. It does nothing to ensure that our youth and other people do not use or sell drugs. The only thing this bill does is give the Conservatives some good publicity, while they do nothing about the root causes of drug use.

That is really too bad, because for years now, we have been saying, over and over, that we need programs to make sure that our young people, victims and drug addicts—those addicted to either soft or hard drugs—can get into detox and overcome their problems without having to go to jail.

It is really sad to see that the government wants to send 14-, 15-, and 16-year-old kids to jail for reasons like that. Of course, nobody wants to see anyone die because of a drug addiction. That is what happens when people are addicted to heroin, morphine, cocaine and crack. We have all seen documentaries that are truly horrifying, the stuff of nightmares for mothers, but at the same time, as a mother, I absolutely do not want my child to be sent to jail for this kind of offence. I would rather my child receive the help he needs to get clean. We have seen terrifying documentaries.

When the Conservatives talk about their programs and bills, everything they say is about penalties and criminalization. They never talk about rehabilitation and ways to help people. That is a shame because it creates a really bad image.

Quebeckers heard enough about penalties for juvenile delinquents during last year's election campaign, and they let the Conservatives know what they thought. They have not changed their minds. No matter what our Conservative colleagues tell us, Quebeckers know that rehabilitation—helping young people overcome their addictions—is always better than sentencing them to even short periods of jail time.

A couple of years ago, we sought assurance that the Minister of Health would extend the mandate of Vancouver's InSite for at least a year. When he did so, he and I spoke at length, because I really believed in his ability to recognize the importance of such programs.

In Quebec there are a number of programs that meet the needs of drug users who want to get off drugs. There are a number of places that look after young people who want to quit, and a number of free programs for them, such as Maison Jean-Lapointe, as well as many other detox centres where our youth can go. Very often these enable our young people to leave much for the better, stronger and better equipped for life, and without any criminal conviction that would very likely end up making them criminals for life.

My colleague from Marc-Aurèle-Fortin has a long history with the justice sector in Quebec and has experience with such subjects and cases. He has even defended drug addicts and seen some of them do well when he has sent them to detox and helped them to understand the importance of getting clean and rehabilitated. It does work.

Contrary to what our Conservative colleagues tell us, minimum sentences do not work. They do not work in the U.S. where crime is on the increase. This has been observed for years, ever since minimum sentences were introduced, and the system does not work any better. Judges have to work out ways within their various jurisdictions to get prosecutors and the American justice system to deviate from the law and allow them to set the sentences themselves. They are very much aware that minimum sentences do not work and that, very often, they are far too heavy for the crime committed.

I hope that we in this House will not again make the mistake of not listening to the Department of Justice. They produced a very good document explaining all this and saying that there should not be any minimum sentences here, because judges do not have the right to set lesser sentences.

I hope our colleagues will think very hard before passing this bill without amendments or changes.

For our part, we certainly want to study it in the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights, where my colleague from Hochelagawill take pleasure in examining it in depth and making the necessary changes. He too is very familiar with the minds of Quebeckers and with the spirit of the law. Most of all, he knows that if we want justice to be equitable, we must have the means first to make it so.

To do that, we must start by putting money where it counts. We must start by putting money into social housing and into programs to support families and fight poverty. We have to make sure that all men, women and children have enough to eat, pay the rent and find happiness.

One of the chief reasons why people take drugs, whether hard or soft, is they think drugs will make them happy, when in actual fact, they do not do anything for them, except make them dead in all too many cases.

Once again, I hope my colleagues will think twice before passing this bill too quickly. That is what the Minister of Justice apparently wanted this morning. I hope he will reconsider and be a little less strident in his demands for us to pass it quickly

We should ensure that the bill accurately reflects the needs of Canadians and not just the ideology of the governing Conservative Party.

[Controlled Drugs and Substances Act, March 26th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, I listened to my colleague's speech, and I would like to know whether he has shared his disagreement with the Barreau du Québec, which opposes minimum penalties.

[Pierre Brisebois, March 26th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, Pierre Brisebois from my riding has recently finished an assignment with CESO, the Canadian Executive Service Organization. He went to Ivano-Frankivsk in Ukraine, where he prepared and trained restaurant employees in a new hotel in modern technologies and new methods of food preparation. He went on to evaluate the proposed menu and to make changes to reflect staff abilities and the restaurant themes.

He trained the staff to prepare the 15 new menu items he had created for the hotel.

The hotel was so satisfied with Mr. Brisebois' work that they then asked him to assess staff professional standards.

I and my colleagues in the Bloc Québécois congratulate Mr. Brisebois for giving his time and sharing Quebec's expertise with those who can get the most benefit from it.