Serge Ménard

[Criminal Code, May 3rd, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, we have had this system for nearly 15 years. Given the number of house arrests that have been handed down and would be replaced by prison sentences, surely there must be a way of accurately determining the number of additional prisoners the provincial prisons would have to absorb.

Can the member or the department provide us with this figure? How many prisoners does this represent? What additional costs will it represent for the provinces, which, as we know, house prisoners sentenced to less than two years?

[Sébastien's Law (Protecting the Public from Violent Young Offenders), May 3rd, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the member who just spoke. A question came up during the debate regarding expanding the scope of circumstances under which the name of a young offender would be released. Some members said that this would stigmatize the young person for a very long time and would relegate them to a life of crime. Others also said that by publishing the names we would be creating a good list of recruits for organized crime groups. These groups could easily contact them to train them within their organizations. Could the member comment on this?

[Official Languages, April 30th, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, in a country that recognizes the Quebec nation and claims to be bilingual, it is rather surprising to hear some senators wondering if it is necessary that Supreme Court justices be bilingual. The Commissioner of Official Languages steadfastly believes that being a competent Supreme Court justice means being bilingual.

Will the government stop trying to kill the bill that would ensure that all Supreme Court justices understand French without the help of an interpreter?

[Sébastien's Law (Protecting the Public from Violent Young Offenders), April 23rd, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask my colleague what she thinks about calling this Sébastien's Law, since Sébastien Lacasse's murderer was tried in adult court. He received the maximum sentence, life in prison. It is difficult to imagine a more serious sentence. I think this shows that the current legislation works well and that, even though it favours rehabilitation in some cases, it is capable of producing appropriate sentences.

What does she think of this message?

[Firearms Registry, April 23rd, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, the government is being hypocritical when it tries to claim that a backbench MP is behind the dismantling of the firearms registry. We are not fooled. This is a government policy; the Prime Minister speaks out in defence of this project. He authorizes vicious ads and fundraising campaigns.

Why does the Prime Minister always try to sneak his Conservative policies in through the back door?

[Sébastien's Law (Protecting the Public from Violent Young Offenders), April 23rd, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, it is really nice to see that there are professionals in the House, that they can look at this bill from different points of view and still come up with the same solutions.

The last member spoke a lot about social reintegration. Paragraph 3(1)(a) of the act passed by the Liberal government in 2003 states that the primary goal is rehabilitation and reintegration. It also talks about prevention.

Did he realize, while studying the bill, that this paragraph is being taken out and replaced by another provision that is already in the act?

This is already taken into consideration when imposing a sentence, but there must be a pre-sentencing evaluation. The goal of rehabilitation and reintegration is being replaced by the principle that a sentence should be proportionate to the seriousness of the offence, which is already in the act in paragraph 38(1)(c).

First we take away a judge's latitude, and then we decide which punishment fits the crime. Only after that will the young offender himself be taken into consideration. Social reintegration is no longer an explicit goal; the government simply wants to promote it.

Does he, along with his party, realize that we must fight this provision, which completely alters the basic philosophy of the current treatment of young offenders? The current philosophy produces results: youth crime is decreasing, not only in Quebec, but also across Canada.

[Sébastien's Law (Protecting the Public from Violent Young Offenders), April 23rd, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, first of all, I thank the member for his kind words about my speech. I appreciate them, and they show that he realizes that Quebec takes a special approach to dealing with young offenders, and that this approach has been yielding positive results for more than 25 years, while the youth crime rate in Canada is 50% higher.

He knows this, so can he tell me why so few people in English Canada know it? Moreover, can he explain why this knowledge has not reached the office of the Minister of Justice and why it is not being taken into account in any amendments to the legislation?

It seems that in order to protect victims, we must start by reducing the number of victims, and in order to reduce the number of victims we must take an approach that decreases the youth crime rate instead of copying the United States, where the rate is increasing.

[Sébastien's Law (Protecting the Public from Violent Young Offenders), April 22nd, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, does the member not think that a system with a lower delinquency rate protects victims better than a system with a higher rate?

In 2008, the delinquency rate in Quebec was 50% lower than the rate in Canada. Before he came to the House, was the member familiar with the system that was developed in Quebec?

If he learned more about this system by sitting in on meetings of the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights, he would see that he should not reject a system that sees fewer victims.

[Sébastien's Law (Protecting the Public from Violent Young Offenders), April 22nd, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, it is a matter of ignorance. They are not familiar with the success Quebec has had. When they want a model, they choose a simplistic model. If my dog does something bad, I just give him a little tap. That is not how it works with adults, and certainly not with young offenders.

The Conservatives want to be tough on crime. They are now telling us—like the Minister of Justice has said—to listen to voters, who will tell us what to do and what measures to take. But the people are not experts on young offenders. There are some situations in life when we must turn to the experts. When our car breaks down, we do not take it to our uncle the plumber. We take it to a mechanic.

[Sébastien's Law (Protecting the Public from Violent Young Offenders), April 22nd, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, it would be a good thing if there were youth centres elsewhere. The government is prepared to spend more money to build more prisons to jail more young people. That is a colossal mistake. It should give the provinces more money to hire more qualified professionals who would oversee the rehabilitation of young people and even the rehabilitation of the most difficult cases.

It is difficult to take a youth out of his environment when he has grown up in a family that lives off the avails of crime and when he has joined a gang. It costs a lot. That is how Quebec came out on the losing end in the 1980s. The federal government gave money to the provinces. Ontario used it to build prisons. Quebec received less money because it focused on staffing and it could not use the money for buildings. However, it is a very important long-term investment. For $100,000 per year, the cost of incarcerating one inmate, we can hire at least two or three professionals and be much more effective. The rest of Canada should realize that there is a system nearby that works and they should use it as a model. When I defended the Quebec system in 1998, people from the Maritimes came to see me to learn about it.